Who Killed The Jody’s Pool? You Did!

The seven-figure NCAA MArch Madness pool at a Staten Island bar may be no more now that the feds are sniffing around:

Rumors have been swirling around Jody’s Club Forest, the West Brighton bar and restaurant, that the IRS and possibly the District Attorney’s office might crack down on the wildly popular NCAA men’s basketball tournament pool, which last year had a pot of $1.5 million.

Jody Haggerty, the pool’s namesake and owner of the Forest Avenue establishment, was mum yesterday. A source at his bar would say only, “It could be true,” and that the decision would be made by March 17. The source spoke on the condition of anonymity.

“Evidently, something’s up,” said a man at Randall Manor Tailor next door to the bar, where the pool tickets and cash are handed in. The man, who also asked not to be identified, said the rumors that there won’t be a pool in 2007 are “strictly speculation — there’s nothing concrete yet.”

When the pool is on, Forest Avenue outside the bar is “like Times Square on New Year’s Eve,” the man in the tailor shop said. “But when somebody wins, it’s hush-hush, like nothing happened. That’s why the IRS is looking into it. Last year, they must have decided, ‘$1.2 million? Enough is enough.'”

Still, it’s not the IRS that’s the problem, the man said, but rather the increasing media attention that the huge payout commands, including coverage in newspapers throughout the city, and even a spot on the “CBS Evening News.”

“The media killed the goose that laid the golden egg,” he said.