How to Read Football Squares on Every Board Size, From 100 Squares to 4

You read a football squares board by matching two numbers: the last digit of the home team's score against the numbers across the top, and the last digit of the away team's score against the numbers down the left side.

Every 100-square board is built the same way. The ten numbers along the top edge belong to one team, the ten numbers down the left edge belong to the other, and the hundred boxes in between are the squares people claimed before kickoff. Those edge numbers are drawn at random only after the board is full, which is why nobody knows their digits until the draw, and why the numbers look scrambled instead of running neatly from 0 to 9.

Say a quarter, which is football's scoring period, ends with the home team ahead 17 to 10. Drop everything except the last digit of each score, which leaves 7 for the home team and 0 for the away team. Find the 7 along the top, find the 0 down the left, and trace down from one and across from the other until your fingers meet. That box wins the quarter, and it's the highlighted square on the board above.

The first digit of a score never matters, so a team on 7, 17, 27 or 37 points is a 7 every time, and a team on 0, 10, 20 or 30 is a 0. Touchdowns with the extra point come in sevens and plenty of quarters end with one side still scoreless, which is why 0 and 7 turn up on winning squares so often. If you're curious how often each pairing really comes up, the football squares odds tool ranks all 100 from five seasons of NFL games, though it can't change the digits you're dealt.

Whichever team the host wrote along the top is the top team, and there's no universal rule, so read the team names printed on the edges of your board before you read a single number.

Most hosts put the home team along the top and the away team down the left, and that's the Play Squares default, but a paper board can go either way. Super Bowl LX shows why it matters. Seattle beat New England 29 to 13 on February 8, 2026, and ESPN listed New England as the designated home team, so on the board above the Patriots run along the top and the Seahawks run down the side. The final gives New England a 3 and Seattle a 9, and the winning square sits where the 3 along the top meets the 9 down the left.

Swap the teams and you're suddenly looking at the box where a 9 along the top meets a 3 down the left, which is a completely different square, usually with a completely different name in it. That single mix-up starts more arguments at a squares party than anything else, because the person reading it wrong is nearly always reading their own name. If you're printing a board, write both team names in big letters along the edges before you make copies, and on a board shared online the names sit right on the axes so nobody has to guess.

The same care applies to the Super Bowl itself, where the home team is really just a scheduling label at a neutral stadium. Don't assume the team you're cheering for goes on top, and don't assume the team named first on the TV graphic does either.

Find each square with your name in it, read straight up to the number at the top of that column and straight across to the number at the start of that row, and write the pair down with the home team's digit first.

Do it as soon as the numbers are drawn rather than at the end of the 1st quarter, when everybody is crowding around the sheet at once. On the board above, one player holds three squares. The first sits under the 7 along the top and beside the 0 down the left, so it wins any quarter that ends with the home team's score finishing in 7 and the away team's finishing in 0. The other two read 9 and 8, and 1 and 6, again with the home team's digit first.

Then turn each pair into scores you can actually picture, since that's what makes the game fun to follow. The 7 and 0 square wins on 7 to 0, 17 to 10, 27 to 20 or even 7 to 20, because only the last digits count. The 9 and 8 square needs something like 19 to 18 or 29 to 28, which comes up far less often, and the 1 and 6 square needs a score like 21 to 16. That's simply the luck of the draw, because every square had the same chance of landing good digits before the numbers were randomized, and an awkward pair still wins whenever the score happens to stop there.

If your pool runs on an online board, you can skip all of this. The board reads your squares to the edges for you, lists every number pair you hold the moment the digits are drawn, and notifies you automatically when one of your squares wins, so you don't have to do a thing but watch the game.

You always read the running score, meaning the total each team has on the scoreboard when the quarter ends, never the points either team scored during that quarter on its own.

Box scores list the points from each quarter in separate columns, and that's where new players slip, because they read the number in the quarter's column instead of the total. Super Bowl LX makes a perfect example, since its line score reads 0, 0, 0 and 13 for New England and 3, 6, 3 and 17 for Seattle. Here's each quarter read both ways, with New England's digit first.

Only the 1st quarter reads the same both ways, since nothing came before it. After that the quarter's column points at the wrong box every time, and in the 3rd quarter it sends you straight back to the 1st quarter's square, so somebody could easily believe they'd won twice. The fix is to use the score in the corner of the TV screen when the quarter ends, which is the number your host will use and the number every online board uses. Our list of Super Bowl quarter scores gives the running score at every quarter for all 60 Super Bowls if you'd like to practice on real games.

On a 25-square board every column and every row carries two digits instead of one, and your square wins if the home team's last digit is either of the two at the top of your column and the away team's last digit is either of the two at the start of your row.

A 25-square board is a 5 by 5 grid, so the ten digits on each edge have to share five columns and five rows. Each edge cell lists a pair, and each square covers four of the hundred possible last-digit combinations rather than one. On the board above, the column headed 6 and 3 crosses the row headed 5 and 9 at a single square, and that square wins any quarter ending with New England on a 6 or a 3 and Seattle on a 5 or a 9, which means 6 and 5, 6 and 9, 3 and 5, or 3 and 9.

Reading one is the same move as before with a wider target. Find the column that contains the home team's digit, find the row that contains the away team's digit, and trace them to where they cross. Every square has four times the chance of a single box on a 100-square board, which is the whole appeal for a group that would rather sell 25 squares than 100. If you're still choosing a size rather than reading one, our breakdown of how many squares are in a football pool compares all four.

A 4-square board reads like a 25-square board with five digits on every edge, while a 10-square score-sum board has no rows or columns at all, because you add the two scores together and read the last digit of the total.

On a 4-square board the ten digits on each edge split into two groups of five, so each square covers 25 of the hundred combinations. On the board above, the left column is headed 6, 3, 9, 0 and 4 and the top row is marked 2, 8, 5, 9 and 1, so the 13 to 29 final lands in the top-left square. With only four squares in play, one square winning two or three quarters is perfectly normal, and it doesn't mean anything went wrong with the draw.

The score-sum board only looks like the others. Each of its ten squares carries one number from 0 to 9, drawn at random, and a square wins when the last digit of the combined score matches its number. Super Bowl LX ended 13 to 29, the two scores add up to 42, and so the square marked 2 would take the last prize. There's no top or side to mix up, which makes it the easiest board of all to read, though it also means there's no reverse score rule, since a total can't be flipped.

With the reverse score rule, a quarter pays two squares, the normal one and the square where the same two digits sit on opposite edges, while overtime is read from whichever score your host said the last prize would use.

Take that 17 to 10 quarter again. The normal square is the home team's 7 against the away team's 0, and with the reverse score rule switched on, the square with 0 along the top and 7 down the left (the reverse digits) collects a second prize, which is usually the smaller of the two. The board above shows both squares lit up together. When both teams end on the same digit, flipping it lands on the very same square, so a good host writes down beforehand how a tie like 7 to 7 or 14 to 14 gets paid.

Overtime only changes which score you read for the last prize. Super Bowl LI is the classic case, since Atlanta and New England finished regulation tied at 28 and New England won 34 to 28 in overtime. Atlanta was the home team, so a board paying the last prize on the true final reads Atlanta's 8 along the top against New England's 4 down the side, while a board paying at the end of regulation reads 8 against 8. Both are fair, and most pools go with the true final, but the only answer that counts is the one your host wrote down before kickoff. Our football squares rules cover overtime, ties and repeat winners in more depth.

On an online board you don't have to trace anything by hand, because the board follows the score and highlights the winning square for you, including the square that's on track to win while a quarter is still being played.

A paper board only tells you who won after somebody checks the score and traces the grid, which is why the host's phone fills up with “did I win?” messages at every break. On Play Squares the board pulls in the score as the game goes, settles each quarter's winner the moment that quarter ends, and in between shows the pending winner, meaning the square that would win if the score stayed exactly where it is right now. In the example above the 1st quarter ended 7 to 3 and that square is locked in, while the 2nd quarter sits at 14 to 10, so the square where the home team's 4 meets the away team's 0 is the one to watch until somebody scores again.

If you claimed your own squares with your email address, the board also lists the digits each of your squares ended up with right above the grid once the numbers are drawn, so you never have to trace your name back to the edges to work out what you're cheering for. During the game it flags which of your squares is winning right now and which ones sit a single likely score away. Players check that for themselves instead of messaging the host, and the same live board runs on our Super Bowl squares page for the biggest game of the year.

Check these five things before kickoff, because each one changes which square you'll read later and none of them can change once the numbers are drawn:

1. Which team runs along the top and which runs down the side.
2. Which quarters pay, and that halftime is the 2nd quarter.
3. Whether the last prize uses the true final or regulation.
4. Whether the reverse score rule is on, and what it pays.
5. Which digits your own squares got once the numbers were drawn.

Reading football squares stops being confusing the moment you know those five answers, since everything else is just finding two digits and following them to the box where they cross. Jot your digits down somewhere you'll see them during the game, or if your board is on Play Squares, keep the link open on your phone and let the board do the reading for you. And if you're the one hosting, a board everyone can read for themselves answers most of these questions before anybody has to ask you.