March Madness: Are office betting pools ok?

I’ve been running various office pools for over 25 years. It’s almost a hobby. And it does take up a lot of time (I keep the office time spent to a minimum, about 2 hours a week, and usually on my lunch hours). Time I could spend bowling. Reading. Bird watching. TV watching. Lots of things. Instead, I choose to spend it doing something that everyone involved in enjoys, but either they don’t want to spend their own free time on it, they don’t have the skill and/or knowledge to properly run a pool, or they don’t want to be responsible for holding other people’s money.
I’ve never had a problem in a pool I’ve run. I’ve never been told by management not to run a pool. I’ve had corporate vice presidents of mulit-national, 30,000+ employee companies in my pools. They’re great for morale, team-building, and they open lines of communication to employees I wouldn’t normally interact with. This alone has been a benefit to me and to my Company on more than one occasion. My suggestion is loosen up, put your $5 or $10 down, and fill out a bracket. You might find some benefits you didn’t expect.

Our office has a pool on just about every major sports event. (Superbowl, March Madness, and some baseball one as well.) Most of the time I’ve noticed productivity and typical office vibe is better during this time. (Although I’m a peon.) Our pools are small (best one was 125 for 1st, IIRC), with the top 3 getting the pay out. (most of the time its 50/30/20 if I’m not mistaken)

But, as mentioned previously… any time a person comes into a management position, they are often very cautious at first due to situational awareness that comes from training in most companies. I think the best advice was to talk with her manager who will probably advice attacking it from a productivity point of view. If you notice that someone is spending to much time with the pool instead of their work, then you have every right to confront them about it.

4000 of our brave young soldiers are dead due to an illegal invasion of another country. Does that help put things in perspective for you? Don’t worry about it. There’s so much corruption in our government, these pools are way down on the criminal activity list.

First off its not gambling, in the true sence of the word. No one complains when your local state and national lotterys capture the attention of the employees and they get a group to go out and buy tickets. The only difference is this isn’t one drawing it takes place during office hours and is a long drawn out affair. But as to gambling its not. Your putting in $3 and puting 32 teams then 16 then 8 then 4 then 2. This is nearly impossible and that is why it is called a bracket pool, gambling is the wrong label. Now if you look at the odds in vegas and are betting on one team that is gambling I draw a distinction.

Jason-
Saying this person does not deserve their position is extreme. This supervisor is showing good management skills by thinking critically about the possible outcomes of the situation. I applaud them for viewing all angles.

I just turned in my bracket. Wish me luck!
(Our office was 5 bucks. They bet a quarter on various games throughout the year…it’s all in fun, a little releif.)

Annie here — What I found interesting was that Jason assumed the manager asking the question is female. Nowhere in the column is it specified which sex “No Spoilsport” is — but for the record, the person’s first name is Dan. Good luck, Nicole! Hey, go for the whole 5 bucks! But don’t spend it all in one place!

Harmless fun, and 100% legal as long as 100% of the take goes to the winners. The boss has every right to let the employees know if they’re spending too much time on it, but it helps nothing to ban it. And really, you don’t even have to know anything about college basketball to make a bracket (or even to make a winning bracket), so it’s not even exclusionary.

I always tell my employees that I don’t care what they do with their money (regarding these pools), but I do ask them not to be the organizer of a pool. Anyone who can operate a pool obviously has too much free time. And I don’t want to give anyone else in the organization the impression that my employees do!

Let’s face it, there’s no real way to police this sort of thing, and it would be Draconian to try. That said, there should be a limit to the money involved. An office pool that gets up to $5000 has gotten out of hand. In my office, if there is a pool of some sort (I’ve seen Survivor, American Idol, etc), it’s usually that the winner gets a free lunch that everyone else pitches in on. You’re much less likely to run into problems of sore losers if you don’t stand to lose more than a dollar or two. You are also much less likely to get into trouble with the legal department if there’s no big pot.

I have always been in a March Madness pool at my place of employment. I have even started the pool at a few places. These pools are harmless and fun. The entrance fee is usually minimal so, no real investment is involved. I think that you should join the March Madness pool, even if you are not a fan. Trying to stop a March Madness pool or a Super Bowl pool would hurt the way your co-workers view you. These pools are great for bringing teams and other people around the office together. The lack of productivity in the work place is usually caused by low morale. Endorsing events like this will INCREASE morale and bring co-workers closer together socially. Most workers know what jobs need to get done and are aware of their deadlines. They will get their work done even though these pools are going on. If they feel that they need to hide because of these pools then work will not get done. Most people squeeze in a few minutes here and there during the day to discuss March Madness and usually save the longer conversations for lunches or breaks. So, as for March Madness taking a lot of time out of the work day, it is no different than taking time out of a day to cut cake for someone’s birthday in the office or to play a round of hallway golf. I think you should join your March Madness pool. You might have more fun than you think.

With all the craziness going on in the world today, managers and bosses really need to lighten up on their workers. So what if your employees enter the college basketball pool- give them a break. As a business owner myself, I love this time of year. Morale is up, the office is buzzing and believe it or not, productivity increases. If you didn’t like golf would you derail the annual company golf tournament? Probably not. It’s 3 weeks out of the year…get a grip.

The owner of our company is the one who sets up our office pool. He understands that office morale and a loose company culture where people enjoy working is extremely important when trying to retain good employees. As for Curmudgeon in Nashau, what rock have you been under??!? I’ve been in the workforce for only 6 years and three companies and all of them had an office betting pool…are you an accountant or something??!?

I can see where this person is coming from. The first time someone becomes a leader in a large organization she endures training on workplace disputes, harassment, dealing with performance issues and terminations. In all of these cases, the new leader is reminded of the legal exposure the company could bear in an overly litigious society, all because of her missteps caused by innocent ignorance. It’s enough to scare a new leader into being overly cautious, just so the big lawsuit doesn’t happen on her watch.

Probably the best advice is to go to her boss, confess to being a little scared by the position and ask for some guidance. She might find out her boss is one of the participants in the pool.

I think the morale is a bigger boon than the time wasted is a negative impact. I work for a company with about 1000 employees and there are multiple pools going on (I am a member of 3). My favorite pool includes the CEO, CFO, General Counsel, COO, a couple other senoir execs and myself (more of a peon). Everyone looks forward to this time of year and it gives someone like myself the opportunity to mix it with the big dogs. March Madness is the highlight of the year.

Betting in office should be illegal. Period - The next scandal to break with a disgruntled employee

Maybe people spend time at work discussing March Madness. But, I would bet that more employees waste more time discussing nonsense like American Idol.

Sorry, but as long as 100% of the proceeds are distributed to the winner(s), the pool is LEGAL. Can’t believe you were so off on this one.

I don’t get it. I’ve been in the workforce almost 30 years, at 8 or 9 different employers. I have never seen a betting pool, on the NCAA Tournament or anything else. Where the heck is all of this happening? And why?

This person should not be in the position of leadership. Does this person not understand what a drain in morale and resentment it will cause to make a decision to end a tradition like this? If she did this it would actually decrease the productivity of her workforce. Maybe she should stand in the parking lot to make sure employees don’t speed since that is against the law as well.