A word about participating in playing the lottery by being a member of an office pool.
First, it's a lot of work for the person that runs it. But worse than that, it can turn into a nightmare even if the pool wins a prize like $50,000.
I was in an office pool where I used to work. (I still am in it even though I retired) We have never won a significant prize in the many years the pool has been in existence. Where I worked, there were over 10,000 people working at that site. We heard of another office pool working there that won $50,000 playing PowerBall. I was told there were "over 20 people in the pool, but not more than 30". So each pool member probably won a couple thousand dollars before taxes.
Then the nightmare started. In order to collect the $50,000 prize, each member had to give the guy who ran the pool their Social Security number. One member who claimed he was afraid his identity would be stolen refused to supply his SSN. The guy who ran the pool told the guy who would not give him his SSN that he needed it so the State of New York could give each pool member a check for their equal share, minus all state and federal income taxes. Still the guy refused to provide his SSN. The members then held a meeting and voted to not give the guy who refused to provide his SSN his share. The guy finally gave in and provided his SSN.
That was just the first problem. The guy who ran the pool collected money (cash) every week to buy tickets. The week they won, a guy was out sick and because he did not contribute any cash, he was not included in the pool for that week. But he'd been in every other week without fail and he thought the guy who ran the pool would have or should have "covered" him by buying enough tickets to include him. So the members had to vote whether or not to include the guy who was out sick. They voted not to include him which created very hard feelings not to mention a very hostile work environment. I was told the guy who was left out even spoke to an attorney about it, but because there were no written rules for the pool, the attorney advised him that he had no way to prove to a judge that he had been screwed out of "his fair share".
Having had all of that kind of crap to deal with made the guy who ran the pool tell all of the other members "I'm all done with running lottery pools or even being a member of one." I willing to bet this wasn't the first time this kind of thing has happened. G5