If an employee sent out an invitation to participate in an office NCAA basketball betting pool, to everyone one in the office, would you find it offensive?
ETA: as a follow up, how much do you normally see as the normal entry fee?
No. But if you work for a big company, with a human resources department and all that jazz, be careful.
If I were the business owner I possibly wouldn’t like to see my business assets (email, employee time) used in this way. If I were another employee, I don’t see any reason for offense, as long as I could tell that the invitation went to everyone so that you weren’t singling me out in some way.
Roddy
Cannot imagine why anyone would find this offensive.
This^ “I don’t think that word means what you think it means”. 
Some sticklers get really pissed off by gambling. And I don’t think office pools are technically legal.
Office betting pools are illegal in the U.S. While most people and companies look the other way, management and HR may object to avoid any potential liabilities. And others might object to participating in illegal activities or to an activity they might consider immoral, particularly if it’s on company time or uses company resources, such as the email system.
I’m having trouble seeing what could possibly be offensive about a basketball pool, too. I hate working places where they do lottery ticket buying with the whole office, but not because I find it offensive - I just hate feeling coerced to participating in buying lottery tickets (because if you don’t participate and they win, you’re the chump who wouldn’t cough up two dollars).
But how is any of that “offensive”?
You wouldn’t be offended by being asked to participate in an illegal activity in your workplace? What if someone asked if you wanted to join them in beating up a [member of a group that the person likes to bully or mistreat] or throwing rocks at cars on the highway? Think about it from the perspective of someone who strongly objects to illegal gambling.
Or just about someone with a moral objection to gambling. Wouldn’t you be offended if someone asked you to participate in an activity you found morally indefensible – say, yelling offensive slurs at [member of previously referenced group]?
I wouldn’t find it offensive.
As for cost, I saw someone post an invite to their softball team’s pool today and it was $10.
The thing is, all of your examples involve someone on the losing end of the activity. Anyone losing money in an office pool agreed to participate.
These examples are not particularly close to each other. Like, bloody light years apart. Is there anyone here, seriously, so messed up they think a basketball pool is legitimately comparable to throwing rocks at cars? The rocks aren’t in their hands…
The workplace allows for some (minor) slop time. People take cigarette breaks. People use the copier to copy funny pictures of kittens. People say, “Hey, have you heard the one about the two nuns?”
Offended? By a basketball pool? Somebody needs to be in a hospital burn ward getting skin grafts, 'cause their skin is dangerously too thin.
Well it’s hard to think of examples of offensive activities that Dopers relate to that don’t harm people. Most Dopers seem to support victimless crimes like drug use and prostitution. And I’m not sure if there’s anything that Dopers would find immoral that isn’t directly harmful. The idea is that there are some people who are offended by activities that are either illegal or immoral or both, regardless of whether there is active harm occurring.
I wouldn’t be “offended.” However, there might be concerns if the person running the pool isn’t “trustworthy” (if you win and then you can’t collect, your options are rather limited). Or as what happened a few years at a refinery where I was working as a contractor, the pool grew to a low five-figure amount and the main winner could have easily found themselves in trouble with the IRS for not reporting a sizable cash windfall.
I don’t know of any State in the Union where this is illegal. As long as all of the pool money is distributed to the participants there are no violations of the law. If I’m incorrect, I would appreciate at least some cite on it.
Slate seems to think they are illegal in all but four states, while Forbes hedges its bet by saying that they seem to violate Federal law.
I’m offended by those pushy office mavens, often actually acting out of the HR office, who “invite” the entire company to “participate” in the latest United Way campaigns. Especially when they won’t take “No” for an answer.
Oh yeah, that’s a hell of a lot more offensive to me. I have my own charities that I donate to, and where my charitable donation money goes is none of my employer’s Goddamned business.
I would not be offended and I hate basketball. 