Do You Make Bets at Work?
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By Laura Morsch, CareerBuilder
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Fantasy baseball? Sign me up. The Kentucky Derby? My money is
on the long shot. NBA finals? I've got $10 on the Bulls. When
will Abby have her baby? Huh?!?
According to Infoplease.com, the FBI
estimates that more than $2.5 billion is gambled each year on
the NCAA tournament, but only $80 million is bet legally
through sports books in Nevada. The rest of it is gambled
illegally -- a lot of by regular folks glued to ESPN's live
game updates on their office computers.
Informal gambling pools are as standard as coffee breaks in
many workplaces. More than one-third of U.S. workers report
they have entered a Super Bowl office pool in the past,
according to a recent survey of more than 2,500 workers by
CareerBuilder.com, the nation's largest online job
network.
Men were more likely to take part with 45 percent placing
bets, compared with 31 percent of women.
Though some noble workers join the pools to foster camaraderie
with their co-workers, most are drawn in by the relatively low
buy-in ($5-20 on average) and high winnings potential.
According to the CareerBuilder survey, while 39 percent of
workers expected the payout for this year's Super Bowl winner
at their office to be $100 or less, 61 percent expected to
potentially win more than $100, and 15 percent anticipated the
prize would exceed $500.
Luckily, despite the prospect of winning the big bucks,
workers are still, well, working. A 1999 survey by the Society
for Human Resource Management found that of the HR
professionals who reported knowing their employees participate
in office betting, more than half (56 percent) said the
gambling has had no effect on worker productivity.
Not your typical office pool
Some workplaces have moved past sporting events and guessing
their pregnant co-workers' delivery dates. According to
CareerBuilder, some of the most unusual office pools
include:
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Who will be fired first
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How many cigarettes the boss will smoke in a meeting
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Who can knock over a cup of coffee with a golf putt from 45
feet away
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How often a co-worker will show up late
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How many times a co-worker will cry in a given period of
time
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Annual bet on which senior executives will still be with
the company at year-end
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Who will be awarded a promotion
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A patient's blood alcohol level
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Cockroach race
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Who will become pregnant first
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Who will lose the most weight
Research before you bet
If you choose to enter office pools, be sure to use plenty
of common sense -- and not just when picking your team.
Technically, many of these office gambling activities are
illegal, and though usually you won't get arrested, you
could wind up fired.
Of the 9,764 human resource (HR) professionals responding
to an informal SHRM online survey in January 2002:
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30 percent said their organizations don't allow betting
pools.
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14 percent said their organization does allow them.
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57 percent said they don't worry about whether betting
pools are happening at their workplace.
"While placing a friendly wager at the office may seem
harmless, workers should be mindful of company policies to
avoid possible reprimands," said Rosemary Haefner, vice
president of human resources for CareerBuilder.com. "The
safe bet is to check with your manager first."
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