Worried that you might lose more than the $5 or $10 you tossed into the NCAA tournament pool at work if the law finds out about the mini gambling ring? Don’t be. The pools are legal under state law as long as the organizer and the bettors don’t skim any money aside from what they would win for smartly picking a Sun Belt underdog to upset the Big East behemoth. “If someone is operating a game and taking a piece of action for themselves, that would be promoting gambling and breaking state law,” said Hudson County Prosecutor Edward DeFazio. But DeFazio said he has never prosecuted someone for “taking a cut” from an office pool. The pools work like this: someone organizes a group of co-workers to fill out the 64-team bracket, each person throws in some money, and the bettors whose picks come closest to the actual games’ results get the money. The amateur betting rings are popular everywhere from teacher break rooms to private office cubicles and probably even government office complexes. “I wouldn’t doubt it even if prosecutors are involved in them,” said Bennet D. Zurofsky, a labor and employment lawyer for the Newark law firm, Reitman Parsonnet, PC. Jay Huber, who works for a Newark publishing firm, said he’s a little worried that if his bosses find out he’s involved in a pool, it might appear “untoward.” “I’m sure there’s company policy on things like this, although I’ve never bothered to check it,” Huber said. “The people running it publicize it to people they know aren’t going to make a big deal about it.” The pools’ popularity stems from the cheap buy-in and the bragging rights for the winner. Many employers, who often consider the basketball betting a morale booster, tend to allow the office pools. But maybe they shouldn’t. According to a study by Challenger, Gray and Christmas, Inc., a firm that helps workers find new jobs, about $3.8 billion in worker productivity will be lost in the sixteen days of games, when workers research which teams to pick, surf the Web looking at scores or lounge at the water cooler talking about Gerry McNamara’s jump shot instead of working. “I don’t follow the regular season, but when March Madness rolls around, I try to watch every game,” said James Pedderson, Challenger’s director of public relations. “We all want to know if that 12th seed is going to beat that 5th seed.”