Football Betting Board Game
If you’re a football fan, if your friends follow the NFL, or if you work in an office, chances are you’ve heard of a football pool.
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. Here’s a quick and simple way to play squares. Create betting grid. This part is pretty simple. You just need a 10-by-10 grid with 100 squares to work with. How to Pay Out for the Betting Board. There are a few different ways to pay out for the betting squares game. Regardless of whether you want to pay out less frequently, or more frequently, you’re going to pay out the chart based on the random numbers (0-9) that match a square (and person’s name in that square).
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, here’s our guide on how to play Super Bowl squares.
What Are Football Squares?
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 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.
How to Set Up Your Super Bowl Squares Grid
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.
Does the Grid Have to Be 10 x 10?
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.
How Many People Are Needed to Play Super Bowl Squares?
You can create a football pool using this squares method using as few as two people and as many as 100. The fewer people are 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.
What If Squares in the Super Bowl Squares Grid Are Empty?
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.
Betting Board For Football Games
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.
Football Betting Board Game
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.
Football Game Betting Board
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.
Learning how to play Super Bowl squares is not that difficult. It doesn’t take much to start a football squares pool.
You just need a piece of paper, or a pre-printed Super Bowl squares template, and some willing participants. It’s a fun way to bet on the Super Bowl among friends.
Once you’ve explained the rules for playing Super Bowl squares, and got the boxes filled out, your only real work is to watch the game!
There are many different variations of how people play football squares, also known as Super Bowl Squares. Most people play during the Super Bowl, but squares can be played for any other game, or in some cases you can use the same squares for multiple games (Example: NFL Playoffs). Basics of the Game:
- Start with an empty 10 by 10 grid. This will give you 100 Squares that you can let your Users select.
- Now assign one team to the columns, and one to the rows.
- Begin recruiting your Users to join your Football Squares pool. If you use our site to Play Football Squares Online, this will be a much easier process since you can simply email everyone the link to your site and let them choose their squares. If you decide to use a Spreadsheet or Printable Sheet, then this process will take you a lot more time simply because of having to try and share a single sheet or spreadsheet.
- Once all the squares have been filled, it is time to assign the numbers. Randomly assign numbers 0 through 9 to each column, followed by doing the same for each row. Now each square represents a specific score in the game based on the column and row numbers.
- Your Football Squares grid is now complete, and you just need to wait til the game is played to determine who will be your winners. A winner is usually determined at the end of the 1st quarter, 2nd quarter, 3rd quarter, and Final Game score. The winner is determined by looking at the last number in each of the teams' score, and then matching those numbers on the grid and seeing which square intersects those two numbers. If the score at the end of the game is AFC 33, and NFC 24, then the square on the grid that has AFC with number 3, and NFC number 4, would be the winner.
- Payouts for the winners vary depending on your setup, but usually the 1st through 3rd quarter get about 20% of the pot each, and the final score would get the remaining 40%.
Other Options
- Assign a different set of numbers per Quarter
- Assign a different set of numbers per Half
- Use a 5 by 5 grid, where each square has two numbers for each team