How to use this generator
- Name your teams. Set the two labels at the top — the default is Team A and Team B. You can leave them generic if the matchup is not set yet and rename later.
- Claim the squares. Type a name into any square, or paste your list of participants and use Distribute names to spread everyone evenly across all 100 boxes.
- Draw the numbers. Once the board is full, press Randomize numbers. The digits 0-9 land on the columns and rows in random order. This is a one-way action — the tool warns you if the grid is not full yet.
- Print or share. Print board lays the grid out on a single page in clean black and white. Copy share link encodes the whole board, so anyone who opens the link sees the same names and the same drawn numbers.
How Super Bowl squares work
A squares board is a grid of 100 boxes, 10 across and 10 down. One team is assigned to the columns and the other to the rows. Players buy or claim squares by putting their name in them — most pools let a person take as many squares as they like until all 100 are gone. At the end of each quarter, you take the last digit of each team's score, find that column and that row, and the person in the square where they cross wins that quarter. No skill or football knowledge is involved; it is a game of chance built around the final digit of the score.
How the numbers get assigned
This is the part every good squares board gets right and every rigged one gets wrong: the numbers are assigned after the squares are claimed, never before. Once all 100 squares have names in them, the digits 0 through 9 are shuffled into a random order along the columns and, separately, along the rows. Because you claim a blank square before knowing which number it will carry, nobody can cherry-pick a good number. Assigning the numbers first would let people grab the strong digits and quietly break the game. That is also why this generator shows a short seed next to the drawn board — the numbers come only from that seed, so every participant can reproduce the draw from the shared link and check that it was fair.
How payouts commonly split
Payouts are set by the group, not by any rule, but a few splits are near-universal. The pot is simply the price per square times 100. From there, the most common approaches are an even split — 25% of the pot to each of the four periods — and a 20/20/20/40 split, which superbowlsquares.org describes as the standard, weighting the final score more heavily than the three quarter breaks. Some pools escalate the payout each quarter (for example 15/20/25/40) to keep late-game squares exciting. On a $10-a-square board the pot is $1,000, so an even split pays $250 per quarter and a 20/20/20/40 split pays $200, $200, $200 and $400. The payout helper above does this arithmetic for any price and split you enter — but it is display maths only. The tool never collects entry fees, holds a pot, or pays anyone; participants settle up among themselves.
Two edge cases worth agreeing on before kickoff, both flagged by printyourbrackets and easyofficepools: in overtime, most pools treat the final score as the score that pays the last period, and if a quarter ends scoreless the winning square is simply whoever holds the 0-0 box at that point. Larger pools often redraw everyone's numbers each quarter so a single square cannot win all night. Whatever you choose, write the payout structure on the board itself so there is no argument later.
Which numbers are best
Squares is famously not a uniform lottery. NFL points come mostly in 3s (field goals) and 7s (touchdown plus the extra point), so team scores end in certain digits far more often than others. The digits 0 and 7 are the strongest, followed by 3 and 4. ESPN's study of more than 850 games across three seasons ranks 0 and 7 best, then 3, then 4 and 6, and reports that the 2-2 square did not appear once in the 3,400-plus quarters it looked at. An independent analysis by The Data Jocks, built on Pro-Football-Reference play-by-play, found squares made up only of 0, 3 and 7 accounted for more than 75% of first-quarter outcomes but only about a fifth of final scores — a square's value shifts as the game goes on, because an early 0-0 can mean a tie or a two-score lead, while a 0-0 final almost always means a blowout.
One honest caveat that most "strategy" pages skip: the shape of the board — corner versus centre — makes no difference at all. What matters is the numbers, and you do not choose your numbers; they are drawn at random after you claim your square. So the best-numbers table tells you which squares to hope for, not which to pick. Turn on the optional heat map above to see the strong and weak squares shaded once your numbers are drawn.
Frequently asked questions
How do Super Bowl squares work?
Super Bowl squares is a party game on a 10-by-10 grid of 100 squares. Each column is tied to one team and each row to the other. Before kickoff, participants claim squares by writing their name in them. Only once the grid is full are the digits 0 through 9 assigned to the columns and rows at random. During the game, whoever holds the square where the two teams' last-score digits meet wins that period, usually paid out at the end of each quarter. No football knowledge is needed — the winners come down to the final digit of each team's score.
How are the numbers assigned in Super Bowl squares?
The numbers are drawn only after every square has been claimed — that order is the whole point of the game and the thing that keeps it fair. Once the grid is full, the digits 0-9 are shuffled independently for the columns and for the rows and written along each axis. Because nobody knows which numbers their square will get when they claim it, no square is 'better' at claim time. This generator draws them from a published seed, so anyone holding the shared board can reproduce the exact draw and confirm it was not rigged.
How much does a $20 square pay out?
It depends on the total pot and how your pool splits it, not on the $20 alone. At $20 a square, a full 100-square board makes a $2,000 pot. Under an even split — 25% to each quarter — each quarter pays $500. Under a common 20/20/20/40 split, the first three quarters pay $400 each and the final score pays $800. A single square only wins the periods its numbers happen to hit, so most squares win nothing while a few hit more than once.
How much do $50 squares pay?
At $50 a square, a full board makes a $5,000 pot. Split evenly across the four periods that is $1,250 each. Under a 20/20/20/40 split it is $1,000 for each of the first three quarters and $2,000 on the final score. Larger-dollar pools often redraw everyone's numbers each quarter so one lucky square cannot sweep the night. Use the payout helper above to plug in your own price per square and split — it is arithmetic only; the tool never collects or holds the money.
What are the best numbers in Super Bowl squares?
Historically 0 and 7 are the strongest digits, followed by 3 and 4. NFL scoring is built from field goals (3 points) and touchdowns with the extra point (7), so scores cluster on those numbers and their sums. ESPN's analysis of recent seasons ranks 0 and 7 best, then 3, then 4 and 6, and notes the 2-2 square never came up once across the 3,400-plus quarters it reviewed. The catch: you do not pick your numbers — they are drawn at random after you claim your square — so the best numbers tell you which squares to hope for, not which to choose.
Sources
- ESPN — Super Bowl squares best-and-worst numbers analysis (recent-seasons scoring frequency).
- The Data Jocks — Super Bowl squares probabilities, per-quarter, from Pro-Football-Reference play-by-play.
- Pro-Football-Reference — underlying NFL play-by-play and final-score data.
- superbowlsquares.org and printyourbrackets — commonly used payout splits and overtime conventions.