FriendBet's Blog

You are planning to organize office bets for the World-Cup ?

Typical sweepstakes are fun: everyone sports a team, but the problem is that you can’t show your co-workers how good you are at picking the right team... And there are many people like you around: Bob in the accounting department, Peter the sales guy and even Stephen: they all think they know better than you which team will make it to the semi-finals in June! It’s high time everyone put money where his mouth is… So you decided to organize an office bet! Great idea, but what would the game be? The rules? Let’s see what you should determine.

What’s the rule? Pool betting is the best way to make an office bet: everyone puts the same amount in the pot (let’s say £10) and makes his/her predictions. The winner(s) takes it all. Simple as sweepstakes, but much more fun! What’s important is to keep it simple and easy to play in order to get the entire company in the pool bet: office bets are a true social event in the company. This will also make the pot bigger for the winner(s)… But how do you determine the winner? You could give points for each right prediction, and sum the points in the end. You could then split the pot among the first 3, or give it all to the winner, that’s your choice! Just be careful when writing the rules: how do you get points? What if some people have the same number of points in the end?

What will you bet on? You need to explain how people will get points. Picking the 1st and 2nd of each group? Picking the best scorer of the group stage? That’s a good ideas! What’s fun is to follow in real time, who has the lead in predictions among your co-workers after every game. Try to organize a bet for the group stage and a second bet for the knockout stage when everyone knows the remaining teams. You can have everyone bet on each game of predict his/her final stage.

How do you organize the office bet? You’ll have to prepare clear rules, send e-mails to announce the bet, make some marketing at lunch time, gather the money (before June 11!) keep track of everyone’s predictions and have a follow-up interface to know who’s the leading predictor! And don’t forget to make your own predictions..!