That's sends seems like a rather large %.

$100 max seems fine, and I hope your pool host would politely decline the tip.

Yeah whats tipping etiquitte in survivor/pickem leagues? I always thought 5-10% but wasnt sure if that was too low.

Guy running my pool basically said he's looking for 10%.

I won a straight pick league a few years back for about $5,200. I tipped the organizer $300, with my justification being he also participated and could have also won one of the 5 prizes at the end or any of the 17 weekly prizes. Though I can see how pressure can get you up to 10%.

Dude that runs my pool takes 10% out automatically.

That pool has been discussed in this thread before and reached 600K prize for the first time ever. Pretty sick...

What survivor league reaches 600k? Id love to join that..

Take a decent annual salary out for organizing a pool that most likely is run on a website that handles everything? Seems a little ridiculous...

Definitely not saying the 10% isn't steep but you'll be hard pressed to find a pool this big anywhere...he's got the player pool for it and it's been going strong for years.

There are sites that will pretty much run it for you but he's got his own site and manages the entire pool very well.

Plus the recruitment of players etc.

Supply and demand I guess. Not that many pools out there that large. People going to enter it regardless of the rake. Hell I'd join it knowing that going in. Just seems absurd taking that much off the top

At what point does that type of pool become too big from a legality perspective? Largest one I've been apart of has about a 200K pot.

I don't think the size of it factors into legality, but the 60k cut probably does.

I think it's finally time to use Seattle.

Jets have been such a mess this year i don't see how the Chiefs lose at home to them

Does Andy Reid still coach KC?

Yeah Ditto

A guy where I live use to run a $1,000 Superbowl square contest, $100,000 prize pool, prizes were paid out something like $2,500 for each score change and the rest all went up top to the final score. Anyways im pretty sure he took around 10% too.

Thinking Cincinnati this week

So I'm in a survivor pool that started with 241 people, $50 entry fee so first place is almost exactly $12,000.

We are down to 26 people, one of which happens to be my cousin. He has offered me a deal where we work together as a team the rest of the way and split any winnings between the two of us.

I'm considering it but I'm not sure about the etiquette of doing something like that, and I think I have slightly better teams left. I just wanted to see what some other people thought of doing something like this.

If $6k and $12k are both substantial amounts of money for you then chop with him. If not, go your own. You could always try to negotiate an extra ~5% of the winnings if you are able to convince him that you have a better shot at winning.

+1 on this. I would also keep it on the down low as you might piss people off in your pool if you tell them you plan to work together.

Think I'm going all in with my 2 remaining picks with seattle. Would it be stupid to pick a tougher week down the road and pick 2 bad teams that are playing against each other to get rid of a team with less value? I know from ev standpoint this would be a bad idea.

It varies. I'm in a pool that has a kitty of $100k (slightly over that) and the gratuity is optional but 10% is encouraged and pool host has a page on the site dedicated to why it's encouraged.....I have no issue with it....if I cashed you would not hear me complaining about the tip.

My other pool is at about $20k and pool host takes a mandatory 7%...both are well run pools...no issue with either.

I'm going Seattle and Cincy with my two remaining entries. Although Cincy screwed me a few weeks ago in my big pool when Nugent missed a chippy and they tied the panthers.

Only thing about Cincy that concerns me is Burfict is out(their best defensive player who sometimes will cause extra damage at bottom of piles), Gio has some sort of hip injury he is working thru and AJ Green has 9 good toes. Just not sure I trust them 100%.

600k is pretty large and 60k might be a reasonable rake, not necessarily for the workload alone, but also for the risk. Personally I wouldn't run that because of the risk. The workload can be managed with a well designed system and process. We could scale ours (currently ~500 people, ~2000 entries, >$20k) quite a bit larger and not add that much work. The biggest effort by far is the collection & accounting. Customer support is a distant second. Once the season begins and the $$ is all deposited, the workload drops to near zero.


The size itself isn't the issue, it's the rake. Taking any kind of fees or rake from any sports pool causes it to violate the law in many (most?) jurisdictions.
But in reality it's the size *plus* the fact they're raking that will generate the risk. If you run a pool and rake a few hundred bucks and don't attract any attention, although that's technically illegal, you're probably not going to raise any flags. Once you reach the point where you're making thousands or tens of thousands of dollars, you're probably going to get on someone's radar.

Personally I wouldn't play in one that large either. While the poolrunners are at risk legally, the players are probably at risk for their buyins.

Here's a survivor that hit 200k a few years back that got busted
http://linemakers.sportingnews.com/n...s-seizes-money

Here's a 600k box pool that got busted last year
http://nypost.com/2013/12/22/wife-ra...er-bowl-pools/

There are other similar stories out there for $100k+ pools getting busted.

Our pools are larger than most (but certainly not on the level of some of these) and we always clearly state they are rake free, just to help reduce any attention we might get. Still, it's a lot of $$ to hold and be on the hook for.

I don't have any fear of any legal action for me or my partner- but just because we *don't* take a rake doesn't mean some Fed that stumbles on us would necessarily believe it. There's always the risk that we could get shut down and investigated, which would suck.

I don't begrudge anyone willing to take the risk and rake their pool. I wish like hell the laws allowed people to run pools and make a reasonable fee... We would certainly do so because there is a lot of time involved.

Unless the rules of the pool specifically prohibit it, there is nothing inherently unethical about doing this. Deals are made all the time in survivor pools, from the beginning of the season all the way to pool-ending chops. Plus many people have multiple entries and obviously those are coordinated picks.