Super Bowl squares rules

Squares is the only football game where the person who has never watched a down has the same chance as the office analyst. You claim a square, the numbers are drawn at random afterwards, and from then on you are shouting at a field goal for reasons you cannot fully explain. It is also the format most often run wrong, and there is really only one way to get it wrong.

How the board works

Ten by ten, so a hundred squares. One team along the top edge, the other down the left, and two blank strips that will hold the digits 0 to 9, each used once per strip. Every square is a pair of digits: column 7, row 0 belongs to whoever ends up with a score line ending in 7 for the first team and 0 for the second, which is 17 to 10, or 27 to 20, or 7 to 0.

People claim squares by writing their name in them. Somebody holds the board, a printed grid by the kitchen or a shared image in a channel, and fills in names as they are called out. The board is full when all hundred have a name, and only then does anything else happen.

1. 01

   Draw a ten by ten grid

   One hundred empty squares. One team along the top edge, the other down the left edge, both number strips blank.

2. 02

   Fill every square with a name before any numbers exist

   People claim squares by writing their name in them, while the grid is blank, because a square is only fair when nobody knows what it will be worth.

3. 03

   Draw the numbers 0 to 9 at random for each axis

   Once the grid is full, draw the ten digits in random order across the top and again down the side, in front of people.

4. 04

   Publish the finished board

   Post a photo or screenshot where everyone can see it, so every claim is on the record before kickoff. Nothing changes after this.

5. 05

   Settle at the end of each quarter

   Take the last digit of each team's score at the end of each quarter and at the final whistle. The square where those two digits meet wins.

Assigning the numbers

The digits 0 to 9 are drawn at random for the columns, then again for the rows, after every square has been claimed. Slips of paper out of a mug is the traditional method and still the best one, because everybody watches it happen. Post the finished board immediately, and never redraw because somebody did not like their square.

The reason is arithmetic. Football scores are not evenly distributed: 0, 3 and 7 come up far more often than 2, 5 or 9, because points arrive in threes and sevens. Let people see the numbers while they choose and the good squares go instantly while the rest of the grid never fills.

Scoring by quarter

Four scoring moments, and only the last digit ever counts: 13 and 23 and 33 are all a 3. At 13 to 7 in the half, the digits are 3 and 7, so column 3, row 7 wins the second quarter.

The double weighting on the final square is near-universal, and it keeps the room interested through a one-sided fourth quarter.

Variations worth knowing

Reverse squares also pay the square with the digits the other way round, doubling the winners and spreading a small prize around a big office. Every score change settles on every scoring play instead of four moments: more winners, more admin, more fun with a group watching together. The five by five board gives twenty-five squares with two digits per row and column, right-sized for fifteen to thirty people. And rather than let one person buy twenty squares, run two or three separate boards with one each.

The payout-free office version

Squares is traditionally played for money, and money is what turns a bit of fun into a conversation with HR. A pot, a prize and a winner decided purely by chance is the shape of thing most workplace policies have an opinion about, and remote colleagues in other states or countries make it more complicated rather than less. Our guide on whether office pools are legal walks through the general picture, and it is not legal advice.

Squares loses almost nothing without a pot, because what people enjoy is holding a number and having a reason to care about a field goal. A trophy, a name on a plaque, the winner picking the venue for the next team lunch, a company donation with each quarter's winner choosing the charity: any of those keeps it intact. The one thing not to do is collect cash informally and call it charity. Either the company donates, or nobody pays anything.

What to run for the rest of the season

Squares is one game a year. It is brilliant for that game and does nothing for the other twenty-one weeks, which is worth knowing before you tell the office you have started a pool. The season-long version is a pick'em, a straight-up winner in every game for one point each, usually with a Survivor race alongside it. The practical decisions are in our guide to running an NFL office pool.

To be plain about it: Office Rivalsdoes not run squares, has never built it, and is not going to. It runs those two season formats in a Slack or Google Chat channel, where the week's slate arrives as a private message, each game locks at its own kickoff, the scoring happens on its own, and the recap lands on a weekday morning. No money passes through it at any point. Draw the grid for the Super Bowl, and let something else carry the season.