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#184828 - 04/28/04 06:48 PM Employee Lottery Pools
pmgram Offline
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Joined: Aug 2002
Posts: 4
Scenario - A group of bank employees chip in money to buy lottery tickets. If any of the tickets win, they all share the money. I can see potential conflicts in this situation. Does anyone have a HR policy that prohibits employees from forming lottery pools? Do you know if there are any rules or regs and/or cites prohibiting this type of employee activities? Thanks for any help out there.

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Human Resources
#184829 - 04/28/04 06:56 PM Re: Employee Lottery Pools
Anonymous
Unregistered

Not to sound fresh, but what if they were doing it on their lunch hours or after work or on a weekend? Would you also be able to control that?
The pools I have seen were generally conducted by a responsibile, ethical party who gave copies of the tickets to others in the group. We haven't had a problem, but then we haven't won more than $220, yet. And of course, our IA is so good, I am sure that he would audit them if something was amiss!
I have been here for two years and there are pools for almost every sport and the lottery...

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#184830 - 04/28/04 07:08 PM Re: Employee Lottery Pools
pmgram Offline
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Joined: Aug 2002
Posts: 4
I am only concerned about the pool(s) being conducted during working hours. I don't have a problem with this, but I also don't want to bury my head in the sand to the possibilites. The president of the bank has asked me to check into this and I want to be thorough. I couldn't find anything in the regs. So, I thought of getting some feedback from other banks at BOL.
Last edited by pmgram; 04/28/04 07:28 PM.
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#184831 - 04/28/04 07:31 PM Re: Employee Lottery Pools
renniks Offline
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renniks
Joined: Sep 2003
Posts: 2,162
New England
Does your bank have a "No Solicitation" policy? At my former bank we one that covered everything from Tupperware sales to bank "pools". It was concerned with any "solicitation" activity that took place on bank property. The policy was actually originally developed to keep union organizers off the property when there was talk of unionizing bank clerical employees!!

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#184832 - 04/29/04 12:48 PM Re: Employee Lottery Pools
Neytiri Offline
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Neytiri
Joined: Jul 2002
Posts: 645
Pandora
If you are worried, tell them not to do it on bank time. They can meet in the parking lot after they clock out if they want to.

We have a lottery pool that I participate in. It consists of handing the person who buys tickets $$ once a week to buy tickets on her way home. We play the same numbers all the time so we don't have to meet and discuss anything. Not a time waster by any means.

And none of us are going to embezzle to buy lottery tickets or let it take over our working lives. We realize no matter how many tickets we buy we aren't going to win. We have won $250 twice - just enough to keep us hoping.

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#184833 - 04/29/04 12:49 PM Re: Employee Lottery Pools
zaibatsu Offline
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Joined: Jun 2001
Posts: 6,153
Quote:

I am only concerned about the pool(s) being conducted during working hours. I don't have a problem with this, but I also don't want to bury my head in the sand to the possibilites. The president of the bank has asked me to check into this and I want to be thorough. I couldn't find anything in the regs. So, I thought of getting some feedback from other banks at BOL.




My advice is to stay out of it. Is your president afraid they might win and then everyone leaves their employment? If that is it, then he should participate too. Look, life is too short and hard to worry about these petty things. Work is tough and this gives the employees a bit of fun. Why take that away from them?

Whether or not lottery pools are illegal would be a matter of state law. I can't believe that they would be illegal because pooled lottery tickets are often the winners.

For your bank president's sake, I hope the group wins so he doesn't have to worry about this weighty issue anymore.
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#184834 - 04/29/04 04:07 PM Re: Employee Lottery Pools
UofLer Offline
100 Club
UofLer
Joined: Oct 2003
Posts: 135
Quote:

I am only concerned about the pool(s) being conducted during working hours.




I bet you/mgt will end up spending more time on this than they do conducting their pool! haha Doesn't that always seem to be the case...

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#184835 - 04/29/04 05:42 PM Re: Employee Lottery Pools
Beagles22 Offline
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Joined: Jan 2004
Posts: 3,626
State of confusion
We do ours each week, there are no regulations to prohibit it to my knowledge (in fact I think our bank attorney is in on the pool!). It does not take up much time at all and actually I would tell your president to be glad you do something as a group! We have tried very hard to get some of our staff to get involved in activities together for some fun things which only breeds a better work relationship.
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#184836 - 04/30/04 07:05 PM Re: Employee Lottery Pools
Anonymous
Unregistered

I agree this may seem petty, but I have read articles about problems arising from winning tickets. To play devil's advocate for a minute, let's say there are 6 employees regularly in a pool. This particular week one is sent to the ACE seminar for training. The other 5 play and win the big one. The winners do not want to share with the absent employee. Could the absent employee sue the bank for contributing to their exclusion? Could they win the suit? Even if they lost in court it could be costly. I can think of a few other scenarios that could cause problems as well. My Dad taught me if you are at work it is company time and if it's not company time it's not their business (well almost).

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#184837 - 04/30/04 08:03 PM Re: Employee Lottery Pools
Beagles22 Offline
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Joined: Jan 2004
Posts: 3,626
State of confusion
Our people are signed up, don't contribute every week. They pool all winnings, then once all money is gone ante up again. They all have the option of getting back in before they re-invest. I think the whole company time issue is a matter of opinion only in that if all time at work is supposed to be a non-personal all-work atmosphere, most of the people I work with would be in a bell tower with a rifle!
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Going to church doesn't make you a christian any more that standing in your garage makes you a car.

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#184838 - 04/30/04 08:23 PM Re: Employee Lottery Pools
zaibatsu Offline
Power Poster
Joined: Jun 2001
Posts: 6,153
Quote:

I agree this may seem petty, but I have read articles about problems arising from winning tickets. To play devil's advocate for a minute, let's say there are 6 employees regularly in a pool. This particular week one is sent to the ACE seminar for training. The other 5 play and win the big one. The winners do not want to share with the absent employee. Could the absent employee sue the bank for contributing to their exclusion? Could they win the suit? Even if they lost in court it could be costly. I can think of a few other scenarios that could cause problems as well. My Dad taught me if you are at work it is company time and if it's not company time it's not their business (well almost).




Heavens Anonymous, doesn't your bank have more important things to think about than if your staff gets struck by lightning? Wait, I take that back, their chances of winning the lottery are less than their chances of getting struck by lightning. I'd say that after you complete your policy and procedure for what to do in case of lightning striking your employees, that you then develop your policy of what to do to about the lottery.

Is your president thinking that morale is just too darn high and that he needs to bring it down a notch by prohibiting lottery pools? Yes, this whole post is sarcastic because I can't think of a non-sarcastic thing to say about a bank thinking about doing this and actually taking up the time of an officer on it. Once you found out it wasn't legal, that should have been the end of it.

Sorry, if I offend.

P.S. There is no cause of action for sending someone out of town and they don't get to participate in a lottery, win or lose.
Last edited by Huddie Ledbetter; 04/30/04 08:35 PM.
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Better a patient man than a warrior, a man who controls his temper than one who takes a city

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