One live board your whole group opens from their phones, with scores, winners, and payments tracked in the same place.
Pick the NFL or college football game your group is watching, set your price per square and the prizes, and you have a board in a few minutes.
Players open it on their phones, claim the squares they want, and pay you through your own Venmo, Cash App, PayPal, or Zelle link.
Scores update in real time, the grid shows who's on track to take the quarter being played, and the winning square gets worked out for every period.
100 squares available
Playing as: You. Choose your squares!
Built on three core principles: Easy, Fun, and Fast. If this is the first board you've run without a printed sheet, our full guide to hosting a football squares pool covers everything from pricing the squares to paying people out.
Players claim their own squares
They open your link, pick the squares they want, and enter a name and email — the squares are theirs immediately. There's no app to download and no account to set up.
Scores and winners handled for you
We pull the live score for the NFL and NCAA football and work out the winning square at the end of every quarter, so nobody has to sit through the game with a pen.
See who's winning while it's still being played
The grid highlights the square that takes the quarter if the score holds where it is, so players can check for themselves instead of messaging you about it.
Collect the money in one place
Players pay you directly through one-click Venmo, Cash App, PayPal, or Zelle links on the board, and you keep one record of who has settled up.
Fill your board from a single link
Send the same link to a group chat, a work channel, or an email list, and watch the open squares disappear as people claim them.
Built for phones first
Almost everyone will only ever see your board on a phone during the game, so that's what the whole thing is designed around.
Set the prizes however your group plays
Pay out the four quarters, add the reverse score rule, or write your own custom prize, and the board keeps track of every one of them for you.
The same board for Saturdays and Sundays
Run an NFL board one weekend and a college football board the next, then carry the same pass into NCAA basketball, the NBA, and baseball.
| Our App | PDFs/Sheets | Other Sites | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Automatic winner detection | Sometimes | ||
| Real-time updates | No/Manual | Sometimes | |
| Mobile-optimized | Yes/Limited | Varies | |
| Setup time | <5 minutes | 10-15+ minutes | 5-10 minutes |
| Fun animations | Rarely | ||
| Flexible payment options | Sometimes | ||
| Multiple games on 1 board | Rarely | ||
| Board Creation Limits | Unlimited | Per board | Per board |
| Cost | One Game Pass - $12.99 | Free | Free to $25/board |
Real feedback from people running Play Squares boards.
“After years of using pen and paper, this was such a welcome upgrade. It was easy to set up and share for our Super Bowl party.”
“As a host, this saves so much time and eliminates manual errors. The interface is easy for players, and I'll use this for every event I host.”
“Even my older uncle had no issues picking squares. I felt confident sharing it with everyone, and it was completely worth the price.”
Running football squares online gives your group one shared grid that everyone can open from their own phone, instead of a printed sheet that stays with whoever brought it. Squares get claimed on that same board, the digits are randomized where everyone can watch it happen, and the score keeps updating on its own while the game is being played.
Anybody who has hosted a paper pool knows the routine, because the same three messages keep arriving all afternoon: which numbers do I have, did my square just win, and who took the first quarter. An online board answers all of them without you picking up your phone, and it goes one further by showing the pending winner rather than only the settled one. While the second quarter is still being played, the grid highlights the square that takes it if the score stays where it is, so everyone watching has something to follow instead of waiting for you to announce it at halftime.
Every square gets claimed before any digit is assigned, so buying in early gets you a spot on the grid and nothing else. Doing it online just makes that visible to everyone, because the draw runs on the board the whole group is looking at and the grid locks the moment it finishes. If your players want to argue about which pairings actually come up most often, send them our football squares odds breakdown or the walkthrough of how a squares board works.
An online board earns its keep when your players aren't all in the same room, when you want the money tracked properly, or when you'd rather watch the game than run it. If your entire pool is eight people around one table paying in cash and settling up before they head home, a printed sheet is genuinely fine, and our free printable squares template prints straight from the browser.
The rules are identical either way, and the awkward moments almost always come from something nobody agreed on beforehand. Our rules guide covers overtime, ties, and repeat winners, and if you're running the board to raise money for a team or a cause, a football squares fundraiser works off the same grid with a split you decide.
The host pass is the only money that ever comes to us. What your players put in goes straight to you through your own payment links, because we never hold prize money or pay out winners ourselves.
Best for single-event hosts.
Best for hosting multiple pools over a short period, such as playoffs, tournaments, or busy game stretches.
Best for frequent or season-long hosts.
30-Day Satisfaction Guarantee
If you're not satisfied, we'll refund you. No questions asked.