How to Make Super Bowl Squares, From Blank Board to Paid Winners

You need five decisions settled before anyone sees the board: the board size, the price per square, the prize for each scoring period, what the last prize pays on if the game goes to overtime, and whether the board lives on paper or online. Every one of them should be written down before the first square is claimed.

Deciding early matters because nearly every argument at a squares party traces back to a call somebody left until after a quarter ended. A ruling made once people know who it helps always leaves somebody feeling cheated, while the same ruling written on the board a week earlier is just the rule everyone signed up for. Overtime has a standard answer, which is paying the last prize on the true final score whenever the game ends, and the rules page linked above works through that call and the reverse score rule if you want to offer either.

The one thing you don't need yet is the matchup. The two teams aren't known until the conference championship games finish a couple of weeks before the Super Bowl, but players can claim squares long before that, because the digits aren't drawn until the board is full anyway. Label the top of the board for the NFC champion and the side for the AFC champion, since the NFC is the designated home team in Super Bowl LXI, and write in the actual team names once they're set.

Most Super Bowl boards work best as the classic 100 squares, with a smaller 25-square board as the better choice when you'd rather have fewer squares to sell, and the right price is whatever your group will pay without thinking twice. According to our data, the prices that come up most often on Super Bowl and NFL boards are $1, $2, $5 and $10 a square.

On a 100-square board every square stands for exactly one pairing of last digits, which makes it the easiest version to explain to first-timers. A 25-square board gives each side five lines instead of ten, with the ten digits randomly paired two to a line, so every square covers four different score pairings rather than one, as the empty 25-square board above shows. Neither size needs a particular number of people to work, since some groups want one square per person and others are happy with a few friends taking several squares each. Choose the size around how many squares you think you can actually sell, and our breakdown of how many squares are in a football pool covers the 10-square and 4-square formats as well.

Price works the same way from the other direction. A bigger group spreads the board across more people, so it can usually carry a higher price, while a smaller group takes more squares apiece and a lower price leaves room to fill the board. A higher price raises more once the board is full but sells more slowly, and a lower price sells quickly but caps the total, so aim for the price that fills the board rather than the highest one you could put on it.

Write each prize as the actual dollar amount you'll hand over at the end of the first quarter, at halftime, at the end of the third quarter and at the end of the game, and put those four figures on the board before the first square is claimed.

Take a 100-square board at $10 a square, which collects $1,000. You could pay $250 at each of the four scoring periods, or $200 for each of the first three and $400 for the last prize, and plenty of hosts pick the second so the biggest moment of the night is still ahead at halftime. Neither split is fairer than the other, since every square had exactly the same chance before the digits were drawn. A bigger last prize concentrates the money and the drama at the end, while an even split spreads it across more of the evening. Our breakdown of football squares payouts runs the same arithmetic at every price and covers the reverse score rule, which pays a second prize out of the same prize pool.

Dollar figures matter more than they look, because a prize written as a percentage of whatever gets collected quietly shrinks if the board doesn't sell out, and the people who paid full price end up absorbing the empty squares. The cleanest fix is filling the board, with you or the players between you taking any squares that are left at the same price everyone else paid. If that genuinely can't happen, roll an unclaimed prize into the next scoring period, and decide in advance whether a last prize that lands on an empty square gets split across the squares that were claimed or paid to whoever holds a randomly drawn square.

Send one message that tells people the price, the prizes, how to pay you and when the numbers get drawn, and then keep a single record of who has paid for how many squares.

A good invite answers every question up front, so here's one you can copy and change to suit your own board:

Our Super Bowl squares board is open, squares are $5 each and you can take as many as you like. Prizes are $100 after the first quarter, $100 at halftime, $100 after the third quarter and $200 for the final score, overtime included. Pay me on Venmo or Zelle when you claim your squares. Once every square is claimed and paid for, I'll randomly draw the numbers and send everyone the finished board.

Collecting the money digitally is far easier than chasing cash, so ask people to pay through Venmo, Cash App, PayPal or Zelle at the moment they claim, and keep one central record of who has paid. Track each payment against the number of squares a person claimed rather than against particular squares, because squares can still change hands before the draw. If someone claims squares and never pays, put those squares back on the board before you draw the numbers, never after. There's no need for a deadline days ahead of the game, since plenty of boards keep filling right up to kickoff and the draw is the only cutoff that matters.

Draw the numbers once, after the last square is claimed and the last payment has landed, and either do it where the whole group can watch or share the result the moment it's done.

That order is what makes the game fair. While the top and side of the board are still blank, no square is better than any other, so the person who claimed first and the person who claimed last hold exactly the same chance, and nobody ever gets to pick their own digits. Draw the numbers before the board fills and that stops being true, because anyone still claiming can steer toward the pairings that win most often, and our football squares odds data shows how uneven those pairings are across real NFL games. Once the digits are on the board it locks, which means no new entries, no swapped squares and no changed claims.

Any genuinely random method works, so you can pull folded slips marked 0 through 9 out of a bowl, once for the top and once for the side, use our Super Bowl squares number generator, or press the randomize button on an online board. Whichever you choose, write the order down straight away and send everyone a photo or a link to the finished board, since that's the moment players start caring which digits they hold.

On Super Bowl Sunday your job is to confirm the winning square at the end of the first quarter, halftime, the end of the third quarter and the end of the game, and to pay each winner before the night is over.

Always read the running score, never the points scored in that quarter alone. If the first quarter ends 7 to 3 and the second quarter adds 10 points for the home team and 7 for the away team, halftime stands at 17 to 10, so the halftime square is a home 7 against an away 0, not the home 0 against an away 7 you'd get from that quarter's points on their own. Our football squares example works one real Super Bowl through all four winners if you'd like to see it done on a full board.

If the game goes to overtime, pay the last prize on the true final score, as you should already have written on the board, and if one square wins twice, simply pay it twice. Announce each winner in the group chat as soon as the period ends, then pay them through the same app they used to pay you, which keeps the whole money trail in one place.

To make Super Bowl squares on Play Squares, you create a board, choose the Super Bowl from the game list, pick your board size, enter your prizes and payment details, and share the link so players can claim their own squares.

Everything above still applies, but the parts that eat a host's evening come off your plate. Players claim squares from the link or you add them by name, the board shows your Venmo, Cash App, PayPal or Zelle details, and you mark who has paid in one central record, while the money itself moves straight between you and your players because Play Squares never holds it. When every square is filled, one press of Randomize Numbers draws the digits in front of everyone. During the game the board follows the score live and highlights the square that's on track to win the period still being played, not just the settled winner once a quarter ends, so players check the board themselves instead of texting you to ask whether their square just won.

If you'd still rather run it on paper, our Super Bowl squares template prints a ready sheet, while the Super Bowl squares page and our page on running Super Bowl squares online show the live board in action. Either way the order stays the same:

1. Pick a board size and one price per square.
2. Write the four prizes as dollar figures, plus your overtime call.
3. Send the invite and collect every payment.
4. Draw the numbers once the board is full and paid for.
5. Confirm each winner from the running score and pay them that night.

Get those five things right, whether you're making Super Bowl squares with Play Squares or with a pen and a printed sheet, and you'll get to watch the game with everyone else.