Office pools

An office pool is the cheapest way to make every game on the schedule matter. No handicapping account, no stake worth worrying about — just a group of people who suddenly care a great deal about a Jaguars–Titans game in week eleven.

These are the four formats worth running, what separates them, and where the data on RotoDB actually helps you pick.

Office pool formats

• Survivor — one team per week, straight up, and you can never pick that team again. One wrong call ends your season. The simplest rules and the hardest season-long problem.
• Pick ’em — call every game on the slate, week after week. Most correct picks wins. Straight up is friendlier; against the spread is the real test.
• Over/under — forget who wins. Pick whether the combined score lands above or below the posted total. Rewards anyone who pays attention to weather, pace and backup quarterbacks.
• Reverse survivor — pick a team you expect to lose. If they win, you are out. Bad teams are far less predictable than good ones, which is exactly what makes it fun.

Providers for office pools

• StartaPool offers a free-to-try provider to manage sports pools for casual fans. If your family, friends, office or a group of any size is looking for a home for your next pool then we are your solution! Why wait?

Where RotoDB fits

Every one of these formats comes down to the same three questions: who is actually playing, what does the market think, and how has that changed since the line opened. Line movement is usually more informative than the line itself — a total that opened at 44 and sits at 39.5 on Sunday morning is telling you something the number alone is not.

Check the injury and headline feed before you lock anything in. A Friday practice report or a Saturday elevation moves a game more often than anything that happened the week before.

Where to run it

You can run a pool on a spreadsheet, and plenty of people do until the first scoring dispute. We feature StartaPool as our featured provider — it covers all four formats above, handles scoring and tiebreakers itself, and pools are free to create. Our full review has the details.

Create a pool for free →