Let the basketball madness begin! The NCAA tournament tips off Thursday, with Kentucky playing Thursday night and Louisville playing Friday.
For office managers, the tournament means office productivity will be way down.
WHAS 11's Andy Treinen has a Consumer Watch this week intended to keep you in the game.
Following basketball in the Bluegrass state can be a full-time job. So when fans can match their wits agains their co-workers, it's on. It doesn't matter what kind of work your co-workers do.
We went to the Better Business Bureau today, where workers admitted that even they have a little office pool.
The FBI estimates over $2.5 billion is gambled on the NCAA each year -- $2.4 billion of it illegally. They're far too busy with real crime to care about $5 office pools.
But office managers may be a different story. A couple of years ago, CBS Sports created a "Boss" button that allows people to watch the game on a computer. When your boss walks in, you hit a button and a spread sheet pops up. Last year, it got nearly 3 million clicks.
The consulting firm Challenger, Gray, and Christmas estimates that the NCAA tournament costs employers $3.8 million in lost productivity. But "Dismal Science" calls that estimation fuzzy math, pointing out that workers waste idle time on something "every day."
For those basketball fans still hoping to make it to the games, the Better Business Bureau has a warning: Beware!
"They're going to find it hard to get tickets, so they'll turn to classified ads, Internet auctions, things like that, and you've got to be careful with those things," says Reanna Smith-Hamblin. "You never know what you're going to get."
She sas the bigger the fan, the bigger the target. Scam artists score big when a fan's defense is down, so look closely at the ticket.
"Are they fake," says Smith-Hamblin, "Is that what's going on - they actually mail out what looks like a real ticket. Sometimes they'll mail them out, sometimes the person won't see the tickets at all. They'll wire money and never see anything in return."
So the safest bet is to be careful, and watch the game on TV --- but don't let your boss see! Hold onto your job because its tough to make a living betting on basketball.
