The Office Football Pool- A Waste of Money or Harmless Fun?

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If you work in a typical American office (hopefully not too much like the television show “The Office“), especially one in a city with an NFL franchise, you probably are familiar with the office football pool. Certainly, they are extremely popular come Super Bowl time.

For those not familiar, a football pool is a grid with 100 squares, with numbers going across the top and down the side, one team is assigned the row and one team assigned the column numbers. You buy a square by putting your name in one of the boxes. The numbers along the sides are not picked until after the squares are filled, so no one can pick the good numbers (like 3, 7, 0, etc. for football scores) ahead of time. At the end of each quarter, the last digit of each team’s score determines the winner. The squares usually cost $1 or so, for $1 the payout for each of the 4 quarters would be $25.

Is it a waste of money or just harmless fun?

I tend to fall on the side of harmless fun on this one. During a regular football season, there are only 16 games, 20 if you count preseason (which we usually have in my office) per year, and at $1 a square its not too much money. It can make an uninteresting football game, such as a blowout, a little more interesting, similar to how fantasy football has you watching teams you normally would not watch. The odds aren’t too bad, realtively speaking, 1 in 100. Compared to playing the lottery, I don’t think it’s too bad. A regular lottery player probably plunks down $100+ per year, if not more, and the odds are far, far greater. (The odds for the Powerball are 1 in 146,107,962)

That being said, you do have to watch how many of these $1 here and $1 there items you have in your life. If you have too many of these, they can add up to significant money. Having a few indulgences in your life however, can be a good thing. Not too many people can be perfect with their spending habits, and being too strict can sometimes become difficult to stick with. Having a little fun here or there can keep you from getting burned out and hopefully keep you on the right track.