Looking to add to some zest to your Super Bowl party? Try our printable squares sheet.
The idea of a squares pool is to land the correct final digit for each team’s score at the end of the game (or at the end of each quarter, depending on the rules and payouts).
Squares are assigned at random, because everyone wants 7s, 3s, 4s and 0s, since that's where NFL scores most often end.
If you had the Rams 3, Patriots 3 square last year, you would have taken home the biggest prize since the final score finished 13-3.
Printable Super Bowl Squares Sheet
Click here or on the image below to download and print your Super Bowl Squares sheet.
How Do You Do Super Bowl Squares?
There are four basic steps to setting up a Super Bowl squares pool.
- Print your sheet.
- Assign a monetary value to the squares. Let's use $5 per square as an example, meaning there will be $500 in the pot.
- Get your friends to buy up all 100 squares and fill in their names depending on how many squares they buy. Do not fill in the numbers until are the squares have names written in, or the first participants will take the best numbers (Chiefs 7, 49ers 0; 49ers 7, Chiefs 3, etc.).
- We've already put each team on an axis of the sheet, so you don't need to assign a team to either side. Then, randomize the numbers 0-9 by picking out of a hat and assign them to a spot along the X axis, then do the same for the Y axis.
Here's a randomized example:
How Do You Do Super Bowl Squares Payouts?
Now that everyone has their Super Bowl squares, you need to decide on the payouts.
Let's stick with the $500 total in the pot example from above. You can use any percentages you want, but here's an easy breakdown of payouts:
- First quarter: $75 (15%)
- Halftime: $150 (30%)
- Third quarter: $75 (15%)
- Final: $200 (40%)
Let's say you have Chiefs 7, 49ers 0 as one of your combinations. If the Chiefs lead 7-0 after the first quarter (or lead 17-10, or trail 10-7), you'd cash that quarter and win $75.
If the final score is Chiefs 37-30, you'd also win the final score and cash 40% of the pot.
There are plenty of ways to do payouts — you can give the entire pot to the final score winner, you can pay out with every score change, and much more.
Which Numbers Do You Want in Super Bowl Squares?
We'll have more specifics on this later in the week that factor in the matchup, but you generally want "football" numbers — so 0, 7, 4 and 3. They each land at least 13% of the time.
That's because touchdowns are worth 7 points, of course, and field goals are worth 3.
The worst two numbers are 5 and 2, landing just 5% of the time in all NFL games since the league moved the extra point back in 2015.
