Selection Sunday approaches, which means that the guy in charge of your NCAA basketball tournament office pool has commandeered the copy machine and declared that area of the building off limits until April 5th (he’s got a staple gun; don’t test him). Soon across this nation brackets will be Xeroxed at the rate of 150 per second, and enough money will be collected to pay for the current health care bill, plus three or four air sorties over Afghanistan. Savvy move by someone to also make this Problem Gambling Awareness Week (this is true). And you also should know that the Connecticut Council on Problem Gambling is urging caution when forking over your ten bucks … because the NCAA office pool is a gateway drug. A few bucks on a basketball tournament today, the rent money on craps tomorrow. Although I saw your brackets last year, and I would hardly even call that gambling; more like a charitable donation. Just pathetic.
The Hartford Courant has this week’s requisite NCAA-office-pools-are-evil article, which you should definitely read as soon as the conference tournament games are over today.
“With office pools and sports pools you don’t know who in the office may have an existing problem. You are not taking into account who may be going beyond their limits,” said Mary Drexler, assistant director of the Connecticut Council on Problem Gambling.
“If you take it as it is and people just bet and set limits on what they can afford to lose, that’s fine. But people often take it one step further. It’s what gets you addicted. It can spiral out of control.”
She pointed out that some of the folks who might be particularly attracted to betting on March Madness are the ones we need to be concerned about.
A state survey of teenagers a few years ago found that about 10 percent of students could be classified as problem gamblers. And the younger you start, the more likely you are to develop a problem later, researchers say.
Here’s how you know you that your involvement in the NCAA office pool is not just a recreational lark, but something more dangerous and habit-forming:
* You fill out your brackets in your own blood.
* Once again you’ve mixed things up, sending your bracket to Roy Williams and a threatening letter vowing reprisals to the guy running your pool.
* Western Regional bracket tattooed on left butt cheek, Southern Regional bracket on the right.
* You’re wearing three John Wall arm sleeves, and only two are on your arms.
* You fill out your brackets in someone else’s blood.
* Your John Calipari blow-up doll.
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For Some, An Office Pool Bet Can Be A Dangerous Gamble [Hartford Courant]
