Get Your Bet On!

To see MainStreet’s stories on Dealing with a Sudden Windfall, such as Putting Your Super Bowl Winnings To Work, What To Do With a $1 Jackpot, and How Not To Blow Your Budget On Betting, click here.

Ladies and Gentleman, start your brackets!

The NCAA basketball tournament is set to tip off and for the next three weeks some 37 million coworkers, basketball fans and non-basketball fans alike, will unite in March Madness by joining an office betting pool. 

The NCAA tournament brackets may be 65 squares meaning nothing (to some), but fill them in with enough winning college teams, and you could find yourself with a nice windfall (of Monopoly money, of course). At the same time, the odds are against most companies' bottom lines. Millions of workers are expected to follow this week's afternoon hoops action on CBS, CBS.com (CBS) or ESPN.com (DIS). In fact, the Chicago-based placement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas, Inc. estimates that this year's March Madness could cost employers more than $1.7 billion in lost productivity.

At least companies can cut back on their corporate retreat budgets: March Madness is about team building, says Trev Rogers a sports handicapper with BetVega.com. “It is proof that men and women can have a friendly competition in the workplace,” he says. "Bosses seem to find it a nice diversion for a couple of days that allows for some bonding with colleagues you might not have known really otherwise." The fact that so many parts of the country are involved at once makes this tournament extra entertaining, adds Joe Sheehan, managing editor of BasketballProspectus.com. “Other sports playoffs are special, but there is something extra about the NCAA tournament."