Six people, 128 players: formats that work.
The classic one-player-each sweepstake is built for 20 to 60 people. Run it with six and you've dealt out 6 of 128 players - there's a good chance nobody in your sweep holds the champion at all. Small groups need different formats. Here are the ones that actually work, with the maths done for a six-person team.
Share the whole draw
The purist's answer: deal all 128 players out between the group. Six people get about 21 players each - which sounds absurd and is exactly the fun of it. Someone always holds the champion, every single match affects somebody, and the daily "who's still alive" audit becomes a ritual. SlamSweep's Share all mode does the dealing in one tap. Best for keen groups; casual fans may find 21 names hard to love.
Seeds only, two or three each
Switch the pool to the 32 seeds and give everyone three tickets: six people, 18 of the 32 seeds dealt, every ticket a recognisable name. The champion comes from the seeds most years, so the pot almost always lands inside the group - and three tickets means nobody's tournament ends on day two. This is the best default for small office teams: use the Seeds only toggle and 3 each.
The double sweep
Run the Men's and Women's Singles as two separate hats - with seeds only and two or three each, a six-person group covers a healthy slice of both draws. Two finals, two pots (or one combined), and the fortnight stays interesting even when one draw goes chalk. It also neatly doubles the stake without doubling the per-ticket price.
Points per round: the leaderboard sweep
Instead of champion-takes-all, score each ticket for progress: 1 point per first-round win, 2 for the second round, 4 for the third, doubling through to the final. Most points takes the pot. For small groups this is transformative - a portfolio of mid-draw players can outscore a fallen favourite, so no ticket is dead until deep in week two. Pair it with share-all dealing and the leaderboard needs a spreadsheet, which for a certain kind of office is a feature, not a bug.
The portfolio draw
Structure the hats in tiers: everyone draws one player from seeds 1-8, one from seeds 9-32, and two unseeded longshots. Run it as three quick draws in SlamSweep (seeds-only pools and a manual longshot hat), and every person leaves with a balanced ticket - a favourite to follow, a dark horse, and lottery entries. It's the most admin of the formats here, and the one that produces the most conversation per pound.
Picking your format
- Keen fans, want chaos: share the whole draw.
- Casual group, minimal admin: seeds only, three each.
- Want it to last the fortnight: points per round.
- Want maximum talking points: the portfolio draw.
Whichever you choose, the fundamentals from running an office sweepstake still apply: stakes agreed up front, the draw done in the open, and the result locked in a share link nobody can quietly rewrite. Full rule variations, including payout splits for tiny pots, are in sweepstake rules and variations.