Is Gambling at Work Legal?

If you’re going to succeed in HR, you’ll need a good poker face. Unfortunately, it’s a safe bet that you won’t be the only one sitting at the table.

While it might lack the glitz and glamor of a Vegas casino, your workplace has likely seen its fair share of gambling. From lottery pools to sports bracket challenges, seemingly innocent wagers can carry big risks. Gambling remains highly regulated in most states and flat-out prohibited in others. Beyond legality, there are ethical questions to consider, too.

In this casino, your HR department is the closest thing to ‘the house.’ Here are some tips to keep workplace gambling in check and ensure the house always wins.

Is No Policy the Best Policy?

When it comes to dicey issues, having robust company policies in place can sometimes give HR professionals an edge. That said, labor attorneys and employers have generally refrained from mentioning gambling in their employee handbooks. According to the Society for Human Resources Management (SHRM), only 20 percent of companies have gambling policies in place.

In stark contrast, over two-thirds of Americans have bought a lottery ticket, visited a casino, or placed a sports bet in the last year.

Worried that your March Madness pool could be shut down by the FBI? Given the sheer volume, that risk is minimal hence why so few employee handbooks address it. Even so, you should work with employment counsel to determine whether having a policy makes sense for your organization. If your company serves the public sector or is dependent on taxpayer resources, it could be worthwhile to write a policy that takes a hardline stance against gambling.

Last but not least, remember that neither company leaders nor HR team members should be the ones starting, managing, or participating in betting pools. That’s doubly true in cases where employees have decided to share lottery tickets, as fights over jackpot winnings can be disruptive and lead to nasty legal battles. As representatives of the organization, HR’s open participation creates liability risks in the unlikely case that investigators do come knocking.

And while it should go without saying, neither you nor the office pool’s organizers should get a ‘a cut’ of employee bets. Sorry, aspiring bookies no dice this time.

Breaking Even on Sports Betting

Productivity can take a hit during high-profile sporting events like the Super Bowl and March Madness. One industry study found that the latter costs companies over $6 billion in lost productivity each year. Between building brackets, setting up office pools, and streaming live games on company time, the college basketball tournament is the third biggest office distraction overall, ranking just behind texting and social media.

For better or worse, sports betting has become a part of American culture, with states like New Jersey going as far as to legalize it. When it comes to accepting the inevitable but keeping productivity up, HR needs to play its cards right. In lieu of taking a hard line, use these shared experiences to your advantage. Consider broadcasting live games in a break room or other common space. Dress code permitting, you might even encourage employees to wear their college team jerseys. Doing so could inspire some light-hearted banter and keep employees engaged and motivated. As an additional benefit, holding these informal get togethers effectively discourages employees from watching alone at their desks, which just amounts to lost productivity (and server bandwidth) with no additional gains.

Lastly, if a colleague organizes an office pool or bracket challenge, make sure that the ‘buy-in’ is a small, reasonable amount. An OfficePulse survey found that over two-thirds of employee buy-ins are between $10 to $20. Any more than that, you risk trouble and the last thing HR needs is to act as referee in a sports betting dispute.

When to Intervene

Should you just adopt a laissez-faire approach and let the chips fall where they may? While that might work in some instances, there are a select few situations when HR teams will need to take decisive action.

As mentioned earlier, buy-ins should remain low to keep the spirit of the competition lighthearted. In the same vein, participation should be extended to everyone not just a select clique or demographic. While inclusivity is important, employees shouldn’t feel pressured or coerced into participating. Individuals may have religious objections to the competition or be recovering from a past gambling addiction.

Lastly, if it’s your company’s busy season or if you’ve noticed a sizable drop in productivity, you should be comfortable reminding staff to keep their eye on the ball (besides the one that’s in play) via email or your company newsfeed. That’s especially true if you’ve already made accommodations like holding watch parties or organizing school spirit days.

As the song goes, when it comes to workplace gambling you need to know “when to hold them and when to fold them.” In most cases, cracking down on innocent wagers won’t do your HR department’s reputation any favors. That said, when the stakes are high and innocent fun transitions to ill will, HR needs to double down its responsibility to ensure employees remain productive and on their best behavior.

A week is a long time in the NFL, and so is an hour.

The New England Patriots rightly protested as the officiating crew cost them a touchdown at the very least, and a bona fide opportunity to beat a fellow AFC Championship contender.

But shortly afterwards, it transpired that they had some dodgy dealings of their own, with Cincinnati the victims of another spygate-type situation, where a member of the Patriots organisation was recording their sideline inappropriately.

It’s the most New England tactic of all time – it shouldn’t be tolerated, but they’ll go unpunished, at least on the field. Unless of course Buffalo can sneak up behind them.

All of this and more in Week 15.

Chicago Bears @ Green Bay Packers (-4.0) – 1.92

The Bears have capitalised on a couple of teams going through somewhat of existential crises over the last few weeks, handing them simple wins over the Giants and the Dallas Cowboys, and while that can’t be taken away from them, context is very much needed here.

Allen Robinson is the best receiver in football at this moment in time not named Mike Evans and that will cause problems if Green Bay persist with their Cover 2 base as he’s a superb post route runner.

But outside of him, there’s pretty good matchups everywhere for Green Bay here, especially when they send pressure. Man for man, Trubisky is going to have to look at a hot route time and time again, making him susceptible to interceptions if he doesn’t occasionally throw one away – which he rarely does.

Green Bay win this by more than four – latest odds.

New England Patriots (-8.5) @ Cincinnati Bengals – 1.89

Ah, those Patriots. While all the attention this week will be on their off-field antics, they’ll have rattled Cincinnati into changing all of their signals from the bench because of paranoia.

This will cause confusion for an offence already struggling, and a huge boost to a defence that has genuine claims of being the league’s best.

Tom Brady may not be the best anymore, but he’s certainly nine points better than the worst team in football – latest odds.

UFC 245 this weekend from the T-Mobile Arena, Nevada boasts three exciting championship title holders, with the main event seeing two wrestlers face off as Usman defends his title against Covington.

• ?Kamaru Usman v Colby Covington
• Max Holloway v Alexander Volkanovski
• Amanda Nunes v Germaine de Randamie

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Kamaru Usman v Colby Covington

Welterweight Main Event

This UFC is headlined by the reigning champion Kamaru ‘The Nigerian Nightmare’ Usman facing the challenger Colby ‘Chaos’ Covington. Both fighters are on extensive winning streaks and many would argue that Covington has earned his shot. These American Welterweights have an identical record of wins and losses. They are of similar age with Usman holding the 1-inch height and substantial 4-inch reach advantage.

Usman has achieved 6 knockout victories, 1 via submission and a majority 8 via decision with only one loss to date. He comes from a strong wrestling background and countless accolades at college level. Usman’s excellent wrestling pedigree clearly comes across in his fighting style. He has a dominant and offensive approach, making good use of the clinch and exhibiting a range of impressive take downs in his battles. His most recent fight against Tyron Woodley is a great example of his using wrestling technique to control his opponents. Usman combines this with his strikes, favouring overhand punches. With this fighting style and knockout power, Usman’s greater reach may give him the physical edge against his opponent.

Covington also shares a wrestling background; he was state champion at high school and nationally at college. Covington’s finishing record is not as strong overall with 2 knockout victories, a majority 8 via decision though 5 via submission. Ground game seems to be his strength, with the Rear-Naked Choke his firm favourite. Covington also uses his impressive wrestling technique to enforce a dominant style of fighting which he combines with his strikes, often launching them from a distance to get close to his opponents where he often likes to control the back. This was clear in his domination of Rafael Dos Anjos, reaching in with strikes and immediately going to control him against the cage, consistently aiming for that classic wrestling back control and taking the decision win.

Two warriors will face-off with very similar backgrounds and styles. Both are incredibly dominant fighters, but Covington does shoot his strikes from afar and will have a reach advantage against a fighter sharing his wrestling specialism. The reigning champion Usman therefore, may well be the one to take this victory.

Usman to win at 1.51

Covington does shoot his strikes from afar and will have a reach advantage against a fighter sharing his wrestling specialism.

Max Holloway v Alexander Volkanovski

Featherweight Co-Main Event

For this Co-Main Event, Max ‘Blessed’ Holloway plans to continue his reign as Featherweight champion and will have to face Alexander ‘The Great’ Volkanovski to retain it. These fighters also have similar records though Holloway has suffered more losses. Holloway had in fact been on a 13-fight winning streak before his risky move up a weight class and defeat at the hands of Dustin Poirier for the second time. Holloway soon defeated Frankie Edgar back in his own division to retain the Featherweight belt. Volkanovski has only suffered one loss in his entire career, he’s however a relatively recent recruit to the UFC, having joined late in 2016. Holloway is 4 years Volkanovski’s junior with a considerable 4.7-inch height advantage, whilst interestingly Volkanovski actually holds the 2.4-inch reach advantage, which may affect Holloway’s strategy.

Despite his recent loss, Holloway never in fact lost his Featherweight title and continues to make his mark. He holds 2 submission victories, 9 via decision and a majority 10 via Knockout, thus being known as the Knock Out king of his division. Most of his decision victories occurred earlier on in his career with his loss to Conor McGregor seeming to ignite an evolution in his skillset, expanding on his expert background in Muay Thai and Kickboxing whilst developing his grappling skills. With this background in mind, Holloway knows how to land his strikes dynamically, making use of great accuracy, timing and effective counter-striking strategy. His second fight against Jose Aldo demonstrated well his impressive head movement and calm control of an opponent with strikes, finally ending the battle with a knockout.

His Australian opponent Volkanovski started training in Greco-Roman wrestling from an early age, switching his focus to play rugby, winning the Australian Rugby League’s Mick Cronin medal. This background could account for his incredible strength, body control and stamina when he made the move into combat sport. He holds 3 wins via submission, 6 via decision and an impressive 11 knockout victories. Volkanovski is a power house who favours the ground and pound and combines his strikes with a strong double leg take down game. He also uses effective counter timing in his strikes with great accuracy which often gets him the knockout. This was seen in his recent fight against Chad Mendes, where despite being on the backfoot for most of the fight he finally caught Mendes with a Knockout punch in the second round.

Both fighters are clear Knock out artists who have developed their game. Though Holloway is certainly in a position to control the fight with his dynamic striking, he is at a disadvantage in reach and in light of Volkanovski superior wrestling, this might just sway the fight in Volkanovski’s favour.

Volkanovski to win at 2.47

Amanda Nunes v Germaine de Randamie

Women Bantamweight Title Bout

Here is a title bout to talk about, with the reigning champion Amanda ‘Lioness’ Nunes having defeated every great name set before her in her last 9 fights with relative ease, including the renowned Ronda Rousey and Miesha Tate. The contender, Germaine ‘The Iron Lady’ de Randamie has in fact faced Nunes before early in her MMA career. Within 4 minutes of the very first round, Randamie was mounted and met a vicious elbow knockout at the hands of Nunes. After this defeat, she did not return to the cage for 2 years. No doubt Randamie has been waiting for this shot at redemption for a long time.

Nunes is a prolific powerhouse who is now considered by many as the face of women’s MMA. She has successfully defended her title 5 times, and all but one of those victories has been via Knockout. The majority 13 out of her 28 victories has been via knockout followed by 3 submission and 2 decision wins. Nunes fights to finish. Her record is unsurprising considering her diverse martial background, starting karate at 4, boxing at 16 and later competing in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. She shocked the world when she knocked out cold the famed Ronda Rousey within 48 seconds and took the title. Cyborg (Cristiane Justino) met a similar end. Nunes is an aggressive striker, she uses the clinch well and knows how to land those clean head shots. In her most recent fight against Holly Holm, the kickboxing queen herself, Nunes surprisingly finished her with a clean right roundhouse kick knockout to the head.

Compared to Nunes, Randamie is inexperienced in MMA, with half the number of victories and only one less loss. However, she came from an incredibly strong Kickboxing background herself, winning 46 fights undefeated which included an impressive 30 knockouts. Randamie is in fact 4 years older than Nunes, but she does have the physical advantages of 1-inch greater height and 2-inch greater reach. In MMA she has the record of 4 Knockout victories and 5 via decision. She has not proved herself to be as strong a finisher as her opponent but her own striking pedigree can’t be denied and she can hold her own on the ground. She can also maintain pressure in the clinch as shown by her impressive knee Knockout of Anna Elmrose.

Two experienced strikers face-off for the second time. Despite Randamie’s background and physical advantages, Nunes has risen to the top for a reason. She has greater power and reactions and it is likely Nunes will continue her reign as champion.