Benefits March 1, 2006

Employees Gamble at Work? You Bet!

March 1, 2006 (PLANSPONSOR.com) - Sixty seven percent of employees surveyed admit to taking place in office betting pools, up from 61% last year, according to a survey from Vault, Inc.
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Not surprisingly, Vault’s 2006 Office Betting Pools Survey found that the Super Bowl and the NFL regular season remain the most popular events for workplace pools, according to a news release. Sixty-five percent of those who participate in betting pools said they take part in the Superbowl pool and 61% said they take part in NFL regular season pools.

The next most popular betting pool was for March Madness, with 57% of those who take place in office betting pools participating, the release said. Other popular pools were pregnancy pools (19%), the Oscars (13%) and reality shows (12%).

Some unusual office betting pools the survey found were:

  • Betting on when an underperforming employee will be fired,
  • Betting on when the first day of snow will occur, and
  • Betting on which celebrities were the next likely to die.

There’s no harm done in gambling at work, right? A majority (80.5%) of respondents said employees do not take the possible illegality of pools seriously at all, and productivity is generally not suffering because of betting pools since 73.5% of pool participants spend only 5-10 minutes at the office making their picks and save further research to do at home. The survey of 328 employees across the US found that most companies (86%) do not have any company policy against betting pools that survey respondents are aware of.

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