A Few Suggestions to Improve a March Madness Office Pool

With selection Sunday coming up, legions of NCAA basketball fans as well as many others will participate in the hundreds, if not thousands of March Madness office and local pools. Running small March Madness pools for the last few years, here are a few ideas to help keep your March Madness pool participants interested throughout the entire NCAA men's basketball tournament.

Include a Last Place Prize
I came up with this idea after a one of my participants scored so low that everybody knew he would be the loser by the second round of the March Madness tournament. Since then, I've included a "race for last place" as a consolation prize in my March Madness pools. At first this consolation prize was simply $1...given in 100 pennies. However, one year the last place "winner" was mocked so badly in the following months I've subsequently switched the consolation prize to simply a refund of his or her entry fee. Amazingly enough I often have a group of people competing for the last place prize, and it often becomes a point of humor as those involved see how close they are to winning the last place prize in the March Madness pool. .

Do Not Use a Winner Take All System
Even if you only have a small turnout in your March Madness pool, consider at least having a second place prize. With a winner take all system, once a participant has accumulated enough points that everybody knows he or she will win, interest in the March Madness pool diminishes throughout the remainder of the NCAA tournament. This is especially true with a "double-up" scoring system (which I will comment on later). Therefore, consider at least a lower prize of twice the entry fee for the pool, and possibly breaking up the total pool amount into third place prize depending on how many people you have participating in your basketball pool and how much money accumulates in your pool. The general rule of thumb I use with many March Madness pool participants is a 50% of the pot for first place, 35% of the pot for second place, and 15% for third place.

Consider A Scoring System Other Than the Double-Up System
IMHO a double-up scoring system is one of the easiest ways for your March Madness pool participants to lose interest early in the NCAA basketball tournament. This scoring system awards 1 point for picking winners in the first round, 2 points for the second round, 4 points for the Sweet 16, and eventually 32 points for the NCAA basketball champion. However, it is far more difficult to pick the winners of the first two rounds due to the upsets. Thus, a double-up scoring system penalizes participants who choose correctly in the earlier rounds. I've seen some other March Madness scoring schemes online, but I personally use a 1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 10 system. No science or reasoning behind this and I'm sure other March Madness scoring systems work too. But I have found my system to keep participants generally within reasonable range of each other (unless they really pick badly) and it offers the opportunity for "comeback" victories which keeps them interested throughout the NCAA basketball tournament.

Of course, remember with any NCAA March Madness basketball pool you must follow your local guidelines and laws regarding gambling. Make sure you always keep the buy-in fee low enough such that you are not violating any gambling ordinances or laws. Furthermore, consider giving your participants something in addition to the bracket. I give each participant a small packet that not only includes the NCAA March Madness basketball bracket, but a listing of the latest championship odds regarding each basketball team as well as the statistics of how well seeded teams tend to perform in March Madness (click here for my quick article on this topic).

But however or whichever way you run your March Madness pool, I hope you may find my ideas useful. I have found that the ideas I suggest above tend to keep interest relatively high throughout the entire NCAA March Madness tournament and everybody has a fun time following the games.