Office Pool concept

Reply #19

Tucker Black — Thu, 15 May 2025 01:31:09 GMT

The job of collecting money exists only when you run it as a subscription service. That's why I suggest not doing so. When the only people who participate are the ones who hand you cash, there are no debts to collect. No money? No participation, end of story.

One way to simplify things is to open the pool for entries for all drawings over the next week, or all drawings over the next two weeks (as opposed to each drawing individually or allow people to buy in for any number of drawings they w... [ More ]

Reply #18

ww3y — Thu, 15 May 2025 01:06:29 GMT

Thanks everyone for your advice! Definitely some things I didn't think about.. like the amount of work that would go in, especially collecting money. Then, the human factor.

Subscription model is actually interesting. It'll make it easier to collect too.

How often do you guys all play? Is it mainly lottery, or scratch-offs? Anyone care to share their Win-Loss ratio

Reply #17

JustMaybe — Wed, 14 May 2025 23:59:16 GMT

I think walking would help

Reply #16

winoneday — Wed, 14 May 2025 20:04:58 GMT

When I think of driving to the store to buy lottery tickets, I think of all the people that have died in traffic accidents.

Therefore I do not go.

Reply #15

JustMaybe — Wed, 14 May 2025 19:35:40 GMT

Keeping it simple is the way to go.

The buy in option, gives me nightmares just thinking about it.

The multi draw approach is a life saver.

I like how you did it.

Reply #14

Lotterologist — Wed, 14 May 2025 17:30:47 GMT

When I think of lottery pools, those reports about one of the members refusing to share the winnings with the others come to mind.

As a wise man once said, Never trust your enemies and beware of your friends.

Reply #13

Tucker Black — Wed, 14 May 2025 14:38:58 GMT

My thoughts:

Wouldn't it be easier to not run a workplace lottery pool as a subscription? That requires getting people to pay in cash on a regular basis, and you have to deal with people who are out sick or on vacation on the due date, or they're short of cash or whatever. Run it one drawing at a time... whoever wants to enter may enter, they pay in cash for however many entries they want... done.

The subscription model works for many businesses because you have to give them your credit... [ More ]

Reply #12

PrisonerSix — Wed, 14 May 2025 02:59:32 GMT

Good advice.

Reply #11

PrisonerSix — Wed, 14 May 2025 02:55:26 GMT

I managed an office pool for a few years at a previous workplace. Let me tell you it was a lot of work to run. It was originally me and one other person I shared my office with then another wanted in and another and so on until I think we had around 10 people or so at one point. The way I did it was on payday which was every 2 weeks, each player put in $4 and I bought a mix of Powerball, Louisiana Lotto, and MegaMillions tickets. What I did was I bought multidraw tickets, meaning it covered all

Reply #10

Brock Lee — Wed, 14 May 2025 02:07:24 GMT

if you have never managed an office lottery pool before i suggest keeping it small with no more than 10 or so of your most reliable buddies. you don't want to involve a bunch of stinkers who won't put in their correct share half the time. also, it ain't gonna be much of a payday if you're splitting a prize a hundred ways. it doesn't matter whether the buy in is $1 or $10, just pick an amount that everyone can sustain on a regular basis.

Reply #9

grwurston — Wed, 14 May 2025 01:32:26 GMT

Keep it simple. Decide what game or games you are going to play, which days of the week, how much to put in for each drawing. $5, $10... Whatever the amount is, keep it the same for everybody.

Things to decide.

1) Who collects the money, and how many days before the drawing. Same person or take turns.

2) Who makes (prints out) copies of the tickets and hands them out to everyone. Should be the ticket purchaser. It is VERY important that everyone gets their own copies at least the

Reply #8

JustMaybe — Wed, 14 May 2025 00:41:59 GMT

I would stick with the $X per week. It makes the math a little easier.

Imagine if this week person A contributed $40, then next week $60, the following week $20 - in short if they have a different contribution each week, that's so much work to keep up with (for me that is)

The other thing is that we are humans with emotions. If the pool wins the jackpot, the person that contributed $2 will get way less than the person that put in $100.

But if you win $100M and everybody put in $2, yo... [ More ]

Reply #7

ww3y — Wed, 14 May 2025 00:08:59 GMT

Exactly what I was thinking! I like entries much more than buy-in! Thank you for the idea!

As for the concept, you nailed it! Pool prizes are divided up amongst the participants based on their # of entries.

Now, let's say hypothetically, I could get this pool really big, and I can offer even an entry for $0.01 per ticket (fraction of a ticket). Of course the prize amount will become that much smaller, but would you rather spend $2 for one ticket, or participate in this pool to get fr... [ More ]

Reply #6

Tucker Black — Tue, 13 May 2025 23:50:02 GMT

Instead of calling it a buy-in, call them entries. If it's a Powerball pool, each entry costs $2. If it's a MegaMillions pool, each entry costs $5.

If it's a MM pool for a large jackpot, someone can toss in $5 and get one entry, or invest $500 and get 100 entries.

The pool size is the number of entries = number of tickets purchased. You don't need 1,000 people for a 1,000 ticket pool. 50 people each buying 20 tickets would be 1,000 tickets in the pool. Or 1 person buys 1, another person... [ More ]

Reply #5

Lotterologist — Tue, 13 May 2025 23:10:53 GMT

Something to think about...

Reply #4

ww3y — Tue, 13 May 2025 22:09:59 GMT

Thank you for sharing that! I was thinking that there would be some attrition, but didn't think about a cap.

Do you think his office pool could have grown more if people can buy-in for any amount (but get different payout ratio based on the buy-in amount)? I feel like if I keep losing $20 per week, I would stop at one point. But if it's for like $5 or less, I wouldn't mind buying in so I can participate in the conversation of retiring lol.

Reply #3

ww3y — Tue, 13 May 2025 22:06:54 GMT

Hello JustMaybe! Ah, that makes more sense. So we first decide how many tickets each person will be buying, and fork up the amount. Since everyone's buy-in amount is the same, then we all split the money evenly?

That is more simple and straightforward. But I feel like some people don't want to pay as much, while others would be willing to buy much more. So to accommodate different playing style, I was thinking of creating a payout system based on the dollar buy-in.

So you can buy in... [ More ]

Reply #2

winoneday — Tue, 13 May 2025 21:52:14 GMT

My buddy runs an office pool. According to him, you will never get more than 100 people to join. You would be doing well to get 50.

He has had as many as 100 people join for particularly large jackpots. But he has been doing it for years. As new people join, others give up and quit. Therefore the pool never gets that large.

But then again, you do not need a big group. Even with only 10 people, you have increased your chances of winning 10 fold.

Good luck

Reply #1

JustMaybe — Tue, 13 May 2025 20:29:28 GMT

I appreciate the work and effort that you have put on the post, however, I feel it's too complicated for me.

First things first, I would not join an office lottery pool, but this is what I would do.

Assume an office of 10 people.

We would first agree on what game to play and how often.

For simplicity, we have agreed to play the 3 PB and 2 MM draws in a week.

For PB, we have the option of the $2 or $3 ticket, let's assume we go with the $3 ticket.

So that is 3 PB draws a w... [ More ]

Office Pool concept

ww3y — Tue, 13 May 2025 19:14:04 GMT

I'm looking to create an office pool, and there's a lot of avid lottery players. But I'm torn on how we should create this pool. Is it better to have a higher buy-in amount but provide a better payout odds if one of the tickets win?

Or, is it better to have a low buy-in amount, but the prizes will be split by 10,000 participants? (not sure if I would go that extreme, but definitely a possibility.) I would allow people to buy-in multiple times, but maybe there are some people who would only... [ More ]