The $40 Challenge - Money Making Idea:
Start & Run an Office Pool

(For background on this money making idea challenge, please visit: The $40 Challenge)

The Idea

Start an office pool for some future event whose outcome is uncertain. Provide odds or take a slice of all bets place with the 'winners' splitting the rest of the money.

Poster: Leonvdwalt
Initial cost: $0
Initial time: 2 hours - setting up system, creating templates in Excel.

Results:
Income: $150 in three months (at an average of one sporting event every two weeks)
Costs: $135 paid to the winners (carry-over between games if no-one wins). And 1/2 hour time every two weeks making the rounds.

Total amount made: $15
Residual potential:If you automate the entries while keeping the system transparent (people didn't mind me taking 10% of the top as long as they knew what was in it for me) it has some potential.

While not the best of the ideas out there, starting an office pool requires no start-up costs and very little input time. All you need is a bit of knowledge of a particular area (in this case sports like rugby or football) and a dozen or so co-workers who share it and who'd like to win some money based on their 'knowledge'. Give someone a chance to get 'lucky' while making sure your return is guaranteed and you've got yourself a winning recipe.

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