Super Bowl squares: How to play, and win, football game

The 2024 Super Bowl is taking place tonight

Most of the action will be on the football field on Super Bowl Sunday, or during the highly anticipated halftime show, but that doesn’t mean viewers of the 2024 game can’t join in on the fun at home as well.

Super Bowl squares, otherwise known as football squares, is a game perfect for Super Bowl parties because it lets people bet on the outcome of America's most-watched game.

With the face-off between the Kansas City Chiefs and the San Francisco 49ers fast approaching, this is what you need to know about playing, and winning, Super Bowl squares.

How do you play?

To play the game, you start with a 10-by-10 grid, which results in 100 boxes.

The Chiefs are assigned to either the rows or columns, and the 49ers are assigned to the other side.

Players then purchase however many squares they’d like - which all cost the same price.

Then, a number one through nine is randomly assigned to all of the columns, and all of the rows, which will result in each box having two numbers.

Winners of the game are typically identified at the end of the first quarter, second quarter, third quarter, and end of the football game.

The winner is determined by the last digit in each teams’ score - which will match a box on the grid.

For example, if the final score is Chiefs 23-14, the box belonging to the person who bought Chiefs row three and 49ers column four would win.

How much does each winner get?

Typically, the winners for every quarter get 25 per cent of the pot.

You can also play the game by awarding 20 per cent of the pot to each of the winners of the first three quarters, and the remainder to the final winner.

What boxes are the best?

The game is mostly random, however, The Washington Post suggests zero-zero is the best square to have considering the odds, followed by boxes with combinations of seven and zero.

According to a blog post from the Harvard Sports Analysis Collective, the worst squares are the two-two square and the two-five square, because it typically requires a combination of unusual plays in the game to get a score with those numbers at the end.

Follow live updates from the Super Bowl halftime show here.