SPOIL SPORT

Scores of college basketball fans are more than a bit nervous these days – and it has nothing to do with the March Madness betting pool at their local tavern or their alma mater’s success in the NCAA men’s basketball tournament.

These hoops fans, past winners in one of the largest sports pools in the country, are on edge because they walked away with a truckload of cash winnings – perhaps $6 million, or more – without paying a penny of income tax.

And now the taxman may come looking millions due him.

The Internal Revenue Service got interested in the pool, run out of a popular Staten Island saloon, after the unexpected success of long-shot George Mason University in last year’s tourney helped produce a small number of winners. At least one in the group that divided last year’s cash prize of $1.5 million, decided to pay taxes on the winnings.

It may have been the first time in the 29-year’s of the pool, run out of Jody’s Club Forest, that a winner came clean, sources familiar with the pool say.

In the past several years, as the number of $10 entries climbed toward and then passed 100,000, favorites dominated the Final Four. As a result, dozens and dozens of fans split the prize.

Last year, the number of entrants in the pool was estimated at 150,000, meaning one-half of 1 percent of the 30 million people the FBI says gamble on the NCAA hoop tourney played at this one local bar.

George Mason making it to the 2006 Final Four shrank the numbers of winners and ballooned the individual payouts. Unknown except to their closest friends and family, one of the winners decided that their piece of the $1.5 million prize was just too much to keep underground.

So, tipped to the loot the IRS is now reportedly sniffing around Jody’s pool. If it becomes a full-fledged investigation, Jody Haggerty, who is believed to run the pool, could very well get subpoenaed and be asked for the names of past win ners.

“When you hear that the IRS is looking into something, it’s never a good thing,” said one 40-something man at the bar during a recent lunch hour.

The man, who, like all the other patrons at Jody’s that day, spoke only on the condition on anonymity, said “I’m not sure of all the legal ramifications, but if I was previous winner I would be getting nervous.”

One high profile criminal defense lawyer said evad ing taxes on income of that magnitude likely subjects past winners to jail time.

With the IRS sniffing around Jody’s has canceled the pool this year.

Haggerty, whose pool has the tacit approval of the Staten Island D.A., who is not investigating, has done nothing wrong if he didn’t get compensated for running the giant pool.

Haggerty has consistently refused to comment about the pool. An IRS spokesman would not comment.

The pool, in which entrants pick the final four teams of the tourney, the winner and, as a tie-breaker, the total points scored in the final game, is legendary on the Island – for the number of players, the size of the prize, and some of the snafus along the way.

For example, several years ago the sizeable cash bundle was stored with a nun at a local parish. When it was retrieved at tourney’s end, the bundle was a little light, folks familiar with the pool remember.

It turns out the nun liked to play the ponies and dipped into the cash.

Should the IRS probe be more than just window-dressing and the names of past winners learned, those on the hook for taxes due may want to look up that friendly nun.

Not for advice on the fifth race at Aqueduct, but on how to get in good with her boss. richard.wilner@nypost.com

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