How Do Super Bowl Squares Work?

Super Bowl Squares is a traditional betting game often played at Super Bowl parties. It involves assigning each participant a set of numbers, and if one of the numbers matches the game’s final score, you win! Squares is very popular at large gatherings because, unlike other forms of sports gambling, it requires very little knowledge about the sport itself. Rather, Super Bowl Squares is essentially a game of chance, where seasoned veterans and newcomers alike have similar odds of success. Read on to learn all about Super Bowl Squares!

Setting Up The Game

To set up a traditional game of Squares, a 10-by-10 grid with headers is drawn on a large sheet of paper, and a price per square is announced. To begin the game, the participants purchase squares on the board and mark the squares with their names. The money used to buy the squares becomes the winner’s prize. Participants can increase their chances of winning by purchasing more squares. Eventually, each square will represent a possible final score of the game. At this stage of the game, though, there is no way to know which squares are more valuable than others since they are not yet labeled.

Labeling the Board

After all the squares have been purchased (or nobody wants to buy any more squares), one of the teams in the Super Bowl is assigned to the vertical axis and the other team to the horizontal axis. Then, the numbers 0 through 9 are randomly placed at the head of each column, without repeating. The same is done for the rows. It is crucial that the numbers be assigned after squares are purchased! 

Each square now represents a possible final score of the game. The winning square is the square that matches the final digits of each team’s score. Since 7, 3, and 0 are the most common scoring numbers in football, players owning squares with those numbers are in a prime position to win the game. This is where the chance aspect comes in - nobody knew which squares would be most valuable when they made their purchases!

How to Win

Now that the board is prepared, it’s time to watch the game! At the end of the game, whoever owns the square whose number corresponds to the last digit in the score for each team is the winner. For example, if the final score of the game was 21-17, the person owning the (1,7) square would win. This is the simplest version of Squares, but there are countless other variations and traditions used around the world!

Different Ways to Play

Four Quarters: This is a very common method of playing Super Bowl Squares. At the end of each quarter, the player with the winning square gets a portion of the prize. Each of the four winners may receive one-fourth of the jackpot, or different payouts can be established for each quarter’s winner. In higher-stakes games, there are often separate scoreboards for each quarter, so there is a smaller chance of the same person winning twice if no points are scored in a quarter.

Every Score: Every time points are scored, the player owning the winning square gets a portion of the prize.

Reverse Score: Switch it up - both the winner’s square and the inverse of the winner’s square get a share of the prize.

Adjacent Squares: The winner’s square, and each square bordering it, get a share of the prize.

FAQ