Nine Off-the-Wall Office Bets

People love to gamble, as the spread of casinos and state lotteries makes clear. At work, the addiction to office pools isn’t limited to those ubiquitous March Madness bracket challenges. And employees can get pretty creative when it comes to the things they bet on, according to a new survey from CareerBuilder. The research reveals that even the most mundane office routines and behaviors are fodder for wagers, including meetings and sick days. Such diversions make the workday more fun and often help create a sense of community among co-workers, but the pools (and the payouts) also speak to a cross-cultural fondness for betting games. In fact, there are about 1.6 billion people who gamble during any given year, and more than 4.2 billion who have gambled at some point in their lives, according to published research. In the United States, about 30% of men say they take part in office pools tied to the NCAA basketball tournament, with 11% of women joining the action. More than 3,900 workers took part in the survey.