• Super Bowl Sunday is arguably the best betting holiday of the year. And after talking about the side, over/under and the never-ending props for two weeks, the action hardly stops once you finalize your wagers — especially if you watch the game at a party or with a few friends.
• A lot of people run Super Bowl squares contests — also known as block pools, grid pools, or box pools — for the big game in February. But why not do them every week? The basic rules: Pick an NFL game and start with a 100-square grid, with numbers 0-9 listed along each axis.

OK, so you want to get in on the Super Bowl squares fun, but don’t know how to run a pool? Don’t you worry. We got you covered.

Super Bowl squares is a game of chance where people can purchase squares on a grid, each of which are assigned two numbers. Those numbers correspond to the box’s given value in the X and Y (or horizontal and vertical) coordinates.

The box pool or 100-square pool is king of the Super Bowl office pools and is one that many people have seen before. It’s simply a 10-square-by-10-square box, giving you a total of 100 squares.

This sounds more complicated than it is.

Types Of Super Bowl Pools

How to set up the Super Bowl squares grid

Make a square. Then carve that square up into 10 rows and 10 columns. (If you want a bigger squares pool, you can go up to 100 x 100 for a grid, but if you’re running that serious and massive a pool I doubt you’ll need me to explain to you how to run it.)

There are different ways to play, but usually the x-axis applies to one team, and the y-axis applies to the other team.

Participants can then purchase squares on the board. People don’t know what number they will be assigned; they’re just purchasing the chance to own a square, and can purchase as many as you want to limit.

In a 10×10 grid, obviously enough, there are 100 squares available to purchase. You can sell squares for as much or as little as you like, and limit people on how many they can purchase if you see fit.

Once names are assigned in random squares, you randomly assign numbers 1-10 to both the rows and columns. So it will look like this:

The names should be filled in the boxes, and you’re ready to go.

Office Bowl Pool

How do you score in Super Bowl squares?

Most people carve up scoring by quarter, half, and then final score. The pot can be carved up however you want. A popular way of doing it is 50% of the pot for final score, 30% for halftime score, and then 10% for 1st and 3rd quarter score, but it’s totally up to you. Some people just do 25% of pot after each of the four quarters.

The way you find a winner is whoever’s square correctly matches to the ones digit of the score of each team. So if the score after the first quarter is 14-10 Patriots, the player who has square that coincides with the 4 in the Patriots column and the 0 in the Rams column will win that quarter.

Super Bowl Pool Template Free

Each quarter gives you a fresh chance to win.

What are the best squares to have in Super Bowl squares?

I’m going to lean on my colleagues at USA TODAY Sports to handle this one:

The Harvard Sports Analysis Collective wrote that the single best square to have is seven on the favorite’s axis (the Patriots are the favorites this year) and zero on the underdog’s, with the 0-0 square a close second. The Washington Post lists 0-0 as the best square to have, with the two combinations of seven and zero (7-0 or 0-7) right behind it. Three, four and one also aren’t bad numbers to have from an odds standpoint.

Is there any skill in Super Bowl squares?

What Is A Super Bowl Pool

Zero. None. Total game of chance. Still fun to do!