Online Office Betting on the Rise
According to the just-released 2007 Office Betting Pools Survey by career publisher Vault Inc. 79% of employees said they participated in an office betting pool, compared to 67% last year. The survey was administered early February and consists of 266 responses from employees in various industries around the country.Sporting events consume a majority of employees betting funds since they put money on NCAA Basketball during March Madness (27%), the Super Bowl (25%) and regular season NFL Football (18%). One wage-maker observed, Every office Ive worked at has at least a Super Bowl pool as well as an NCAA pool. Other betting pools include group lottery tickets, Oscar pools and pregnancy due-date pools. 
In general, employees take about ten minutes to research and select their picks. One respondent dismisses the notion that office betting pools eat up company time since such studies do not consider the positives of making the workplace more enjoyable. Employees that knew of policies against office betting (13%) were aware of transgressors, Even upper management does not adhere to a policy regarding illegal betting because many second-level managers either run or participate in weekly football pools. Seventy-eight percent say their reason for betting is done to have harmless fun at work and 52% of employees spend only five-dollars on these pools; only 2% admitted to spending more than fifty-dollars to enter.