How to run a work footy tipping competition (without it becoming a second job)

If you're reading this, you're probably the person. Every office competition has one — the one who sets it up, chases the tips, posts the ladder, and fields the "wait, did my tips go in?" messages every Friday at 4:58pm. This guide is for you.

Running a work tipping competition is genuinely worth doing. It gives a 16-person office something to talk about from March to September that isn't work. But the difference between a competition that runs all season and one that quietly dies by round 8 usually comes down to a handful of decisions you make in the first week. Here they all are.

1. Decide the money question first — and consider deciding "none"

Before anything else: is there money in it? Plenty of work competitions run a sweep, and that's a call for you and your workplace. But there's a strong case for running it with nothing on the line except bragging rights. No money means nothing for HR to think about, nobody chasing $10 from the guy who left in June, and no awkwardness when the new hire asks if they can join in round 12. The prize can be a trophy, a lunch shout from the loser, or nothing but the ladder itself — competitions run on pride more than payouts.

TippingMates is built for exactly this kind of competition. The app itself holds no money — there is no payment, wallet or prize-pool function in it, and no odds or betting anywhere. Whatever your workplace decides about a sweep is settled between you, the same as it always was.

2. Set the rules before round 1, not during round 3

The arguments that kill competitions are never about football. They're about rules nobody wrote down. Settle these up front:

Scoring. The standard that works: correct tip = 2 points, drawn match = 1 point to everyone who tipped it (their pick doesn't matter), missed tip = 0. Simple, fair, and nobody needs a calculator. If your crew wants spice, you can weight certain rounds or games — but do it before the season, and tell everyone.

Late tips. The single most contested rule in any competition. The clean answer: tips lock at kickoff and that's that. In TippingMates the lockout happens server-side, five minutes before each game starts — not on anyone's phone clock, so there's no "but my app said 7:29" debate for you to referee. The rule enforces itself, which means it's never personally you saying no to a mate.

Missed rounds. Decide now: does a missed round mean zero, or do you give everyone the away teams, or the round's average? Any of these works. What doesn't work is deciding after someone's missed one.

3. Get the stragglers in before the season, not after

The hardest part of a work competition isn't the setup — it's the three people who say "yeah yeah I'll download it" and don't. A competition with 16 names and 9 actual tippers feels dead by round 4.

What actually works:

• Invite by email, not by link in the group chat. In TippingMates, invites are tied to each person's email — when they sign up with that address, they land straight in your competition. No codes to lose, no "which link was it" thread.
• Set a deadline that isn't round 1. "Be in by Thursday or you're chasing points from behind" converts fence-sitters better than any reminder.
• Use the nudge, don't be the nudge. One tap in your competition shows who hasn't tipped this round and nudges them all — which means the Friday reminder doesn't have to come from you personally. You did not sign up to be the office's tipping conscience. Let the app be the bad guy.

And if someone truly won't download an app — there's one in every office — you can enter their tips for them each week. A safety net for one stubborn holdout beats losing them from the competition.

4. Already run a competition on a spreadsheet? Bring it with you

If you've been running your competition on a spreadsheet, you've already done the hard part — you built something people showed up for, season after season. Nobody's asking you to throw that away mid-season. You can import your member list, so everyone's in from round one and the competition carries on with the same people. What changes isn't the competition. It's that the scoring, the chasing, and the ladder-posting stop being your Sunday night.

5. Make the ladder the ritual

A competition stays alive on rhythm. The one that matters most: the ladder lands somewhere everyone sees it, at the same time every week. Monday morning, office chat, done. Results and points settle automatically as games finish, so the Monday ladder is ready when you are — your job is just the one-line commentary on whoever tipped against their own team.

That weekly screenshot does more for the competition than any rule tweak. It's the thing people argue with, the reason the office straggler finally gets her tips in, and — quietly — the reason three people from accounts ask to join next season.

6. The quick-start checklist

1. Decide: money or (better for work) none
2. Write down scoring, late-tip and missed-round rules — share them once, before round 1
3. Create the competition, invite everyone by email
4. Set a join deadline before the first lockout
5. Let the app chase the stragglers; hand-enter tips for the one holdout
6. Post the ladder every Monday, same place, same time
7. Enjoy being a participant in your own competition again

Start yours in two minutes

Give the office something to argue about every Monday. TippingMates is free for the whole group, across AFL, NRL, EPL, NFL, NBL and more. Pick your competition and start your work competition, or grab the app: