The NCAA Tournament is less than a week away and research confirms it: it’s the most unproductive time of the working year!

SCOTT JACOBS

March madness is upon us.  With the conference tournaments in full swing and Selection Sunday just a few days away, it’s time to decertify from NFL Lockout talk for just a moment and enter into the wonderful world that is college hoops. This year the field looks wide open and by weeks end it’s inevitable that a few surprise teams will sneak into the field, knocking out the fringe teams from the field of 68.

This is the first year where fans (who have quality cable packages) can see every game (CBS, TNT, TBS, and TruTv will carry all the action) meaning that we’ll have more March Madness than ever before.  That said, a research study was recently done on people’s gambling habits in the tourney, and some of the results are pretty surprising.

Take a look at some of the numbers (Study conducted by MSN):

85%

Say news of an improving economy will lead them to gamble at least as much money as last year, if not more this March.

35%

Still believe their March Madness betting will outperform their 401k this year.

17%

Women that say they typically participate in at least four brackets or more compared to 9% of men.

27%

Women who plan to fill out 3 or more brackets, compared to 21% of men.

56%

Women that talk to their coworkers about their brackets.

59%

Men that talk to their coworkers about their brackets.

81%

Respondents who said they plan to devote at least some time during the work day to following games, scores and updates.

60%

Percentage of people that will spend at least one hour of work during the first two days of the tournament (Thursday and Friday) watching games or following scores.

Check out the rest of the results at MSN

Photo: Getty

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