Soccermania has gripped India Inc — not just for the beauty of the game but also because a significant amount of money that is at stake in the numerous informal in-house betting pools that have sprung up across organisations.
Brazil or Argentina, Italy or Spain or one of the underdogs — it just does not matter. You bet and you win!
Employees say betting has generated unpredented interest and the excitement is defying logic. Individuals with little knowledge of the game and lesser knowledge about participating teams are chipping in with good money to add to the frenzy.
Interestingly, a few organisations have uploaded their betting sites on their office intranets so that the staff can log in and place their bids.
“With the (football) World Cup entering the knock-out stage, the size of the in-house betting pools across some of the leading firms have run into a sizeable amount of money,” said the head of an investment banking firm where over Rs 10 lakh is at stake.
“The betting structure at our place allows people to own teams by bidding just like in the IPL. Thereafter, one can even buy or sell the teams. We had to limit that pool to seniors as the quantum of money at stake was a bit high,” he said without disclosing the winning bid amount for favourites like Brazil, Argentina or Germany.
The betting structure at some places could be quite complex. After all, some of the best bankers and accountants are working behind the scenes to design the framework.
Also Read
The pool allows participants to execute trade-offs between different team owners, selling their bets in the ‘secondary market’, setting the odds for the number of goals scored in a match and even the performance of some of the star players. Some even bet on the number of yellow or red cards that would be shown during a match.
In another company, a group of mid-level employees came together to form a ‘consortium’ to participate in the ‘high stakes’ reserved only for the seniors. “While only the MDs and the VPs were allowed to bet in a no limit kind of pool, we suddenly saw a consortium enter the pool,” said the head of another foreign investment banking entity. “We then decided to start a new pool with a smaller ticket size of Rs 500 per match.”
“I am sure many people lost money yesterday when Italy crashed out,” said an institutional dealer. “It appears that this time lady luck is smiling on people betting on the underdogs.”
The excitement level of the employees can also be gauged from some of the anecdotes that they recount from earlier betting rounds.
A senior banker recalled a female colleague at his previous workplace making a bounty by betting on Greece during Euro 2004. “She was a complete novice. She wanted to bet on Greece only because she found the players good looking,” he said rather amusingly.
“While she hit a jackpot, she could have made much more if she had stayed invested till the finals. Prodded by her colleagues and based on the notional gains she was sitting on, she sold off Greece when it reached the semis.”