America's best college basketball teams are about to begin their quest for the national title, which means it's March Madness bracket time! The yearly tradition of creating an office or friend pool and filling out a bracket may be all fun and games for those who participate, but it isn't exactly a work productivity booster.
Last year, nearly 39 million workers took part in March Madness office pools or watched games at their computers, costing employers about $1.7 billion in lost work time over the tournament, according to a recent study.
While some of us are busy finishing up our brackets today (they have to be completed by tip-off of the first game on Thursday, Mar 19.), there are some workplaces who create rules against placing bets in the office. Do you participate in office pools?
Donna Karan
No. I leave that to the basketball fanatics in my office.
1Yes! It's on!
2Geaux Tigers! FTW!
3I try to avoid participating in anything non-work related in my office...which is why I spend my coffee breaks with Sugar!
4I am participating this year. I made some risky picks, so I will either do really well or do really horribly.
5LilK, did you pick LSU to the final four?
Yea you did!
6I didn't. I'm sorry. Please forgive me!
I picked Kansas, Connecticut, Xavier, and Syracuse. I'm telling you, some of my picks were random. It was only $5 to enter the poll, so I figured why not take some chances?
7I didn't pick my alma mater (Dayton) for the final four, either. I felt like I had to pick them to win one game, but that's all I gave 'em.
8I gave Dayton a win too! Woo. You think Xavier can make it to the Final Four? Mine are pretty random too.
Last time LSU was in the tourney I put them to the Final Four and all my LSU friends did not, well LSU got to the FINAL FOUR! So I beat all of them. I figured, it worked one...
9worked once
10Yeah, I think Xavier could be this year's lesser-known team that shocks everyone. (Not that people don't know Xavier, but they're a smaller school and they're not synonymous with college basketball, like UNC or Duke.) I'm not a huge follower of college basketball, though, so we'll see if my predictions pan out. Now, if there were a college football playoff, I would be all over a pool for that!
11And you're right, if it worked once, why not? When I used to bet on pro football (very casually, I'm not a gambling junkie or anything) I picked the Browns to win against the Giants earlier this year and they wound up winning. Then their first like 85 quarterbacks got injured and they didn't score an offensive touchdown in the last 8 or so games.
12plus, it's fun not rooting against your school!
13
14I wish! We don't do fun stuff like that at my office.
15I think there may be ONE other person in the lab that actually watches/cares about basketball, so I doubt we'll be picking any teams or anything.
16Of course I'm game. I don't follow college until the dance and then start picking. Last year a girl won our brackets, so all the guys have had their mancards tainted since.
17i always tell my fiance that i want to but i don't know enough about the teams to really be able to make a realistic assumption.
18I'm in, even though I don't follow college basketball. Something needs to fill the void until football season...
19We should have an inter-sugar pool (but with gifts, not real money!)
20Let's do this...
go here if you want to be in the Sugar pool
21www.teamsugar.com/group/2788211/blog/2948505
I don't know anything about college basketball however they always having pools/gift-aways in my office/company and most of the times I win. So I would just play for the hell of it.
22God no.
23My company does one where 1/2 the money goes to charity and the other half to the winner. I normally wouldn't but since the money will go to a good cause (part of it anyways) I am in.
24Heck yes!
25I don't participate, but I think there were others doing so at about every place I've worked. With the economy how it is right now, I'd think people would lay off the betting.
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