Guide to Playing Super Bowl Squares

Super Bowl betting squares are a favorite pastime for the majority of NFL fans. Not familiar with football squares at this level, or don’t know what football pools are in general? This guide should help.

If you’re thinking to yourself, “How do Super Bowl squares work?” then we’ve got you covered. A football pool using “squares” typically a 10 x 10 grid, is an easy way to get a group of people to bet on a football game using a random assignment of numbers to names to find out who wins the pot for every quarter.

Unlike other types of sports bets, you don’t need to be an economist or calculate odds or know anything about the teams (or even the sport) to win. This is a luck-based system, not a skill-based approach, and it’s designed to make a football game more fun and interesting, with some real money on the line.

Football squares pools, are especially popular for the Super Bowl. If you’ve never played before, or want to learn more, the following is our guide on how to play Super Bowl squares. Here’s what we’re going to cover.

How do Super Bowl squares work exactly? Football squares, also known as a football pool or football boxes, is a way of placing bets for a group of people using a basic X-Y axis (remember algebra?) Players enter their names (usually initials) into as many squares as they wish to buy into.

Each square represents a score. At the end of each quarter, the person on the square that corresponds to the score at that time is given his or her share of the prize money. When playing Super bowl betting squares, the winner of each quarter of the big game is typically given a quarter of the money paid into the pool.

The grid used to set up a squares game looks complicated but is actually quite simple to grasp once you get the hang of it. Here’s an example of one.

Essentially, the pool pays out each quarter based on the last digit of the score of each team. For instance, if the score is 17-13, the winner would be the person on the 7-3 square.

Want to know how to play Super Bowl squares? One of the key Super Bowl squares rules is to setup your grid. Let’s walk through the process.

Create a grid ten boxes high and ten boxes wide. This will give you 100 boxes, which means you can potentially have 100 people participating in this pool, although usually far fewer people are used.

Over the top of your grid, write the name of one of the teams competing in the Super Bowl. Vertically, along the left-hand side of the grid, write the name of the other team.

Although the Super Bowl boxes layout is called a ten by ten, you do need room to write the numbers 0-9 along the top columns, one number for each column, and along the vertical left-hand side of the chart as well.

Here’s how the grids looks once the numbers are filled in.

You can choose not to enter the numbers before people pick their squares, and add them in a random order later instead. This is if you don’t want people to know what scores they are assigning themselves to.

For the standard version of Super Bowl squares rules, yes. The football pool uses only the last digit of a score (for instance, if the score is Team A – 12, Team B – 15, then the grid would be followed to find out who is at the intersection of Team A – 2 and Team B – 5.

Since the ending numbers of any given score can range from between zero and nine, which includes 10 number options total, there must be 10 squares on each side of the chart.

Now that you know everything about playing betting squares for the Super Bowl, you may be interested in how to make some of your own.

You can easily download some Super Bowl squares online, but perhaps you want to make one with your own signature style or a special theme. If so, here are the basics to making your own Super Bowl betting board.

There you have it. Creating your own Super Bowl squares betting board isn’t exactly rocket science, but it’s a little more work than some might expect.

If that feels too daunting, consider downloading some free PDF Super Bowl squares betting sheets to save yourself some time.

There are lots of apps and betting sites that offer Super Bowl betting squares, but it is important to choose a high-quality betting site that has all the features you are looking for. You may want additional promotions and betting opportunities, so don’t just look for a site that has Super Bowl squares.

Here are some of our recommendations of the best places to bet on Super Bowl Squares online.

When you consider where to play Super Bowl squares online, make sure you think about the prize pools and the cost to play. It is crucial to find a site where the potential prize justifies the initial cost.

There are many other factors that may influence your decision to choose one betting site over another. Check out our Super Bowl betting site and app recommendations for more information on these betting sites.

You can create a football pool using this squares method using as few as two people and as many as 100. The fewer people involved, the more squares they can buy. If there are 100 people, each person would be able to choose one square. Fifty participants would be able to choose two squares each, and 25 people could have four squares apiece. However, some people may only wish to buy into one square, while others wish to buy into multiples.

You can limit the number of squares available to each participant until all players have had a chance to buy squares. You can then sell the extra squares to players who wish to play more squares to increase their chances of winning.

If you are playing with an actual sheet of paper, hand the grid around before the numbers are assigned across the top and down the left side.

If you are playing electronically, there are automatic pool fill apps that can scatter the names/initials equally across the board.

You may have empty squares on your board. Either only a few people are playing, or there simply wasn’t anyone who wanted that particular square. This is not uncommon.

If the score lands on a space where no one has their name, you can add that money to the prize for the next quarter. Thus, the winner of the next quarter will receive a double payout.

This is entirely up to you and the other participants. A standard buy-in is $5 per square, but it can go as low as $1 per square and as high as you want.

The more people who participate, the higher the energy, and the more fun the squares game is. So you may want to consider a buy-in that will allow as many people as possible to participate.

Yes, players will write their initials in on the squares they choose, but since the numbers along the top and left side of the grid can be entered later, the placement of the names in the squares doesn’t have to be relevant. It just depends on how you want to play.

In the example Super Bowl squares template above, the numbers were in order from 0-9. You can choose to mix the numbers up, though. For instance, across the top ten squares, in which you will write the digits 0-9, you may choose to array them thus: 2, 4, 1, 0, 9, 5, 8, 6, 7, 3. Do the same vertically.

The reason for doing this is to make the game fairer, and to remove any benefit from those who choose their Super Bowl squares before others. Certain scores are more likely to win than others, so it can be an advantage to avoid those squares.

You can use squares grids to create a pool for any football game, from pee-wee to pro. The rules for Super Bowl squares games remain essentially the same regardless.

You and your friends may be avid Monday Night Football fans and can have a pool every week using the same grid over and over, simply changing the names of the teams on the axis or creating a new grid and placing the names in different squares for each game.

A squares games can be used to enliven a sports-themed bachelor/bachelorette party, a birthday party, or even just having friends over on Sunday for the game. This squares game, which gives all players the same chance to win, caters to football fans and non-fans alike, and in fact pulls non-football fans into the excitement by giving them some stakes in the game.

Squares pools can be used for fundraising (check local laws). You can collect the buy-in for each square, as usual, but instead of paying out the entire intake 1/4 at a time for each quarter, you could pay 1/8 of the “pot” to the winner of each quarter, which leaves you with 1/2 of the funds to give to the charitable cause.

Getting a whole office, club, or team on board with a squares pool is a solid way to team-build and start conversations. It gets people talking about the game, creates relationships, and eases the atmosphere.

You can also play squares for other sports and tournaments. March Madness, for example, or ice hockey. With some rearrangement of the prize disbursement and how scores are calculated, they can be used for PGA Tour events and even the Olympics.

When you play Super Bowl squares online for money, timing can be very important. For example, if you get to choose which square you want to bet on, you will want to choose your squares before other players because some numbers are better than others.

You don’t want to wait until you get home to your computer when time is of the essence. That is where Super Bowl squares apps come in handy. They allow you to bet on Super Bowl betting squares for money from anywhere. All you need to do is open the app, choose your square, and claim it.

NFL betting apps also make it easy to collect your winnings at the end of each quarter. If you win, the money from the prize pool will be automatically credited to your account. Some betting apps disburse prizes at the end of every quarter, while others wait until the game is over.

Once the money is in your account, you can withdraw it immediately. In addition, many betting apps offer payouts within 1-2 days so that you can celebrate your win quickly!