I’ve seen football squares played in multiple ways, especially during the Super Bowl. I used to play with my buddies from work on a regular basis. I also hung out in a neighborhood bar that always hosted Super Bowl squares. These are the rules for the football squares games I’ve always played in:

Feb 07, 2021 How do Super Bowl squares work? Also known as football squares, the game has a 10×10 grid, which creates 100 individual squares – or boxes. If you’re looking for a Super Bowl squares template for. Feb 07, 2021 Each of the 100 squares inside are then purchased individually with each square priced equally. In most pools, the members of your respective Super Bowl party can then buy as many squares as they'd.

Football Squares Rules and Options

We always used a piece of poster-board to create the squares. The game was set up with a 10X10 grid, which results in 100 individual squares. Across the top, you took one team. You also had a team assigned to the team on the left.

You decide on how much it’s going to cost to play. $20 is a good number, although I’ve played in betting pools that used $1, $5, or $10 to buy a square. If you have some high rolling friends, you could even sell squares for $100 each.

If you’re running the pool, you should always collect the money for the squares before letting people put their names in the squares. And that’s the basic idea—the players pay their fee, and when they do, they get to write their name in a square.

The players should be allowed to buy multiple squares if they want to, also.

When we played at the local bar, we always used a variety of colored pens for people’s names.

It’s usually a good idea to get the football squares announced and sell the squares as early as possible. If you don’t sell all the squares, you’re pretty much forced to refund everyone’s money, which makes for a lame betting pool indeed.

AFTER you’ve sold all the squares, you chose the numbers for each row and column, 0 through 9. This is best done with a witness or 2 present, and we always used a deck of cards for this. (We just took an ace through 10 of a specific suit and drew the cards at random, filling the areas in the column and the rows in as we went.

An Example of a Completed Football Square

Here’s what a completed football square would look like:

9	0	1	2	4	5	7	8	3	6
1	Randy	Randy	Randy	Joseph	Larry	Larry	Robert	Tami	Bailey	Bob
4	Shane	Randy	Randy	Mary	Brian	Becca	Robert	Robert	Robert	Bob
7	Cliff	Cliff	Cliff	Jessica	Jessica	Coach	Robin	Brittany	Erin	Bob
8	Chris	Cliff	Cliff	Jessica	Jessica	Coach	Coach	Molly	Ed	Pam
2	Joseph	Cliff	Cliff	Jessica	Jessica	William	Pam	Ed	Luke	Janet
3	Mary	Allison	Russell	Maddie	Brian	William	Steven	Coach	Coach	Coach
5	Maddie	George	George	George	Frank	William	Pam	Paul	Luke	Janet
6	Maddie	George	George	George	Frank	William	Pam	Paul	Luke	Janet
0	George	Lee	John	Patrick	Miguel	Sean	Sean	Sean	Sean	Sean
9	Jessica	Nathan	Mike	Mike	Christian	Bob	Victor	Waylon	Willie	Hoss

You use the final digit of the score for each team to determine the winner. In some betting pools, it’s a winner-take-all situation.

For example, using the example above, let’s assume everyone paid $10 to play. This means that there’s $1000 in the pot.

The final score for the game is 10-7, so the number to look for is 0 and 7. Cliff has that square, so he wins the $1000.

A more common way to run such a pool, though, is to have winners each quarter. You can set it up so that each quarter wins 25% of the pot. This means that if you had the appropriate square at the end of the first quarter, you’d win $250.

It’s also common to pay out 20% of the pot for the scores at the end of each of the first 3 quarters, then pay out 40% of the pot for the final score. This means $200 for quarters 1 through 3, and $400 for the final square.

Football Squares – Variations

You can set up different variations of the squares, too. You could set it up so that you have a different set of numbers for each quarter, for example. You’d need to modify the square accordingly or have 4 separate squares.

You could set it up so that there are 2 sets of numbers, one for the first half and another for the 2nd half.

Or, if you don’t have a lot of players, you could set up a 5X5 grid instead of a 10X10 grid. Each square would represent 2 possible numbers for each team instead.

You can, if you like, use some kind of online app for the actual management of the football squares. Some people enjoy this option, although I enjoy analog stuff like poster-boards and markers.

If you’re the greedy type, say, if you own a bar or something—you might charge all the participants $11 to buy squares, then base the payouts on a $10 buy-in. You sell 100 squares for $11 each, and you keep $100 for hosting the game. The other $1000 goes into the prize pool.

Depending on the nature of your business and its patrons, this might or might not make sense. If you own a bar, you might be better off just not trying to profit from the Super Bowl squares anyway. After all, people will be coming to the bar to watch the games, and they’ll spend money on drinks while they’re doing that.

Which Are the Best Numbers to Get in a Football Square?

• The best numbers to have at the end of the first quarter are 0, 0. Statistically, it’s common for that to be the score at the end of the first quarter. The 2nd-best numbers to have at the end of the first quarter are 7, 7.
• At halftime, the best numbers to have change. 7, 3 are the best numbers to have at halftime, followed by 7, 7 and 4, 0.
• At the end of the 3rd quarter, the best numbers to have are 4, 0; 7, 0; and 3, 7.
• For the final score, the best number to have are, in order, 3,0; 5, 4; 1, 7; and 4, 4.
• The worst numbers to have at any point in the game are 2, 9, and 5.
• The 0 and the 7 are far and away the best digits to have.

These numbers are based on statistics from Super Bowl scores from the years from 2005 to 2014.

Other Kinds of Football Betting Pools

This is just the most common kind of football betting pool. The other most common football pool that I know of (and my favorite) is the pick’em pool, or the last man standing pool.

Here’s how the pick’em pool works:

Everyone contributes to the pot. $20 is a good number, but you could do $10 or $100 if you have a bunch of high rolling friends.

Every week, you pick the winner from one game. For purposes of determining the winner, you ignore the point spread. All you must do is choose the winner.

If you’re right, you survive to go on to next week’s game. If you’re wrong, you’ve lost.

Eventually, and sooner than most people think, there’s only a single player left. That player wins the pot.

If, at the end of the season, you have 2 or more survivors, they can split the prize money. In fact, they can decide to split the prize money at any point, too. I was in a survivor pool once that got down to 2 survivors, and they each continue to pick winners correctly through the end of the season.

I’ve also hung out at bars that hosted these kinds of pools who would set up multiple pools. After the first week, a surprising number of people get knocked out of the original pool, and they’re usually eager to get into a new survivor pool.

You can only do this if you have a reasonable number of weeks left in the season, though. At some point in the season, you have to stop launching survivor pools.

Fantasy football games can also be considered a kind of football betting pool. When I started playing fantasy football, it was just fantasy football, but nowadays you must distinguish between daily fantasy football events and season-long events.

Here’s how fantasy football works:

Everyone gets to draft a team of players. Their team scores points based on each individual player’s performance on their team. In most season-long leagues, you play according to a schedule each week—your team faces another team.

In other season-long leagues, every week you’re ranked based on your score compared to everyone else’s. I’ve also seen fantasy football leagues where you play every other team in the league every week.

In a daily fantasy sports contest, you do the same thing, but the season ends at the end of the week when the last football game has been played. These fantasy games can be played heads-up or tournament-style. When you’re playing heads-up, you only need to beat one opponent. But if you’re playing in a tournament, you face a field of opponents and must score enough to place in the top XX% to win money.

This necessitates a different approach to drafting a team, by the way. If you’re playing heads-up, you’re looking for reliable numbers you can count on that will probably defeat an average competitor.

But if you’re playing in a tournament, you’re looking to draft players who have the potential to have a huge week. You’ll need multiple players to have huge weeks to win a tournament, because you’re facing so many opponents.

The daily fantasy sports industry owes much to the world of online poker for its approach to heads-up and tournament-style fantasy sports contests. The buy-ins and payouts are similar to the buy-ins and payouts you’d find in single and multi-table tournaments at an internet poker site.

Conclusion

This post about how to play football squares and how to play Super Bowl squares is one of my shorter blog posts. That’s because it’s just not that hard to host and play this kind of game.

It’s as simple as creating a 10X10 grid and selling the squares, then randomly assigning the digits to the rows and columns. Deciding how the payouts work in advance is a good idea, too.

Finding a pool of players is usually pretty easy if you’re at all social. If you’re a regular at a bar or own a bar, that’s probably the best way to find players.

Have you ever played football squares? What’s the most you ever won?

Super Bowl squares are a mainstay at Super Bowl parties across the country each year, as it’s an easy way to involve everyone in the game and keeps people cheering for more scoring right up until the end of the game. We look at how to play and offer up some tips to go along with our printable Super Bowl squares grid.

How do Super Bowl squares work?

Also known as football squares, the game has a 10×10 grid, which creates 100 individual squares – or boxes. If you’re looking for a Super Bowl squares template for this year, feel free to use this:

Download Squares Template (make sure you print in landscape)

Before the Big Game begins, each box is assigned an equal cost – usually $.50, $1, $5 or whatever value your group decides. We’ll use $1 here as our working example. At $1, the full board value is $100.

Super Bowl squares pro tip #1

Have someone in your group act as the bank to collect everyone’s money. In the chaos before a game begins, it’s easy for money not to be accounted for.

Super Bowl squares participants claim open boxes on the board by putting their name or initials in each box they choose randomly until all 100 boxes have been claimed.

Let’s say I take 10 boxes, I’d then have to contribute $10 to the pot in this case.

Super Bowl squares pro tip #2

If you have a large party, you might want to set a maximum number of squares available so everyone has a chance to participate and a few people don’t wipe out available squares too fast. We usually start with a max of five squares per person and then players can buy more after everyone has had a chance to participate if spots remain.

Once the board has been filled out completely, randomly assign numbers 0-9 to each of the 10 rows and columns. Make sure each row has a unique number and the same for the columns. We usually pick these numbers out of a hat to avoid any potential conflicts of interest. If you’re looking to print out numbers, utilize this:

Download 0-9 number sheet

Each axis will represent one of the teams. Generally, we run with the AFC (Kansas City Chiefs) on the columns and the NFC (Tampa Bay Buccaneers) on the rows – but it really doesn’t matter.

To determine a winning square at the end of each quarter, you’ll be using the last digit of each team’s score at that point in the game.

How winning squares are determined

To determine a winning square you will be using the last digit of each team’s score at the end of each quarter.

Example: At the end of the first quarter, the Chiefs have 17 points and the Buccaneers have 14 points.

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Go to the Chiefs’ column of numbers and find the number 7 (the ones digit in 17) then go to the Buccaneers’ row of numbers and find the number 4 (the ones digit in 14). Find where these two numbers intersect on the grid and the name in that square wins the first quarter.

Repeat this process for all four quarters (the 4th quarter and overtime would be counted as one if OT comes into play).

A winning square is eligible to win in additional periods, too.

Suggested squares prize structure

1st quarter: 15% of pot ($15 on $1 squares)

How Do Squares Work For Super Bowl Commercial

2nd quarter: 20% of pot ($20 on $1 squares)3rd quarter: 25% of pot ($25 on $1 squares)4th quarter/Overtime

How Do Squares Work For Super Bowl Commercials

: 40% of pot ($40 on $1 squares)

Super Bowl squares pro tip #3

How Do Squares Work For Super Bowl Tickets

Bring four empty envelopes with you, mark each one for each quarter and put the appropriate prize money in each. It makes it easier distributing the prizes during the game. Whoever you made the “banker” earlier can handle this chore.

How Do Squares Work For Super Bowl Party

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