March hypocrisy.
All across America, workers are busily betting on the NCAA basketball tournament (from Fortune):
…considering that 19% of U.S. employees have participated in a March Madness pool, according to a poll by CareerBuilders.com. It’s a bigger deal in some businesses than in others - 30% of financial-services workers are in on the betting, for instance, and 29% of salespeople. It’s also more popular in the Midwest than in the rest of the country: 25% of employees in Midwestern states say they participate, compared to 22% in the Northeast, 18% in the South, and just 11% west of the Mississippi.
Of course this is illegal (and I suppose if your company has offices across the country, potentially a federal offence) but nevermind as in this case it’s ok because no one is going to enforce the law:
As for the legality of office betting pools, you’re right: Betting on organized sports teams or events is illegal almost everywhere in the U.S. except Nevada and Atlantic City. But in practical terms, the risk of prosecution is almost nil. Your state attorney general’s office has far more important things to do than go after March Madness pools.
“Even if a sore loser decided to call in the authorities, saying, ‘I got cheated in my office basketball pool’ or whatever, that is not nearly enough to start an investigation,” says Steve Miller. “Alleging that the company is running a major booking operation, maybe…” But that’s not happening at your shop, right?
So relax. Amid all the bad news these days, your underlings could probably use the chance to let off a little steam. And just think: In a couple of weeks it will all be over - until next year.
Please Mr. or Mrs. Next-President-of-the-United-States, lose the hypocrisy: remember… land of the free… rule of law… free markets…
March 18th, 2008 at 6:01 pm
The US did a sensible thing with deregulation of home beer brewing. You can make a limited quantity and drink it, serve it, or give it to a friend. Something similar might apply to basement poker games or sports betting — allow a certain amount wagered as long as there’s no house profit, or it goes to charity.
Of course, state governments depend on their lotteries, so this would never happen.
March 19th, 2008 at 2:48 pm
Non-related but I am interested to know what you think about Joe Ackermann’s remarks this week (in relation to the US Mortgage market) that he ‘no longer believe(s) in the self-correcting nature of markets’.
Quite a seismic shift, n’est pas? .