It's a Super Bowl tradition that goes back further than I can remember. Families gather together and risk their love for one another for the sake of winning a prize: the Super Bowl Squares game.
The game is fairly simple. A 10x10 checkerboard is signed by the initials of everyone who wants to play in the game- the wager is usually a couple dollars here or there- until the whole board is filled. Once all the names are signed, digits 0-9 are drawn randomly and filled out on the top and on the side of the board, with each set of numbers representing the score of one of the Super Bowl teams.
The goal is to have the game's score at the end of each quarter match up with your square. Imagine you have signed up and were randomly assigned the squares Ravens 4, 49ers 7. You hope is that the score at the end of each quarter is some variation of Ravens X4 - 49ers X7. That means you can hope for the score to be Ravens 4, 14, 24, 34, etc, and for the 49ers to put up 7, 17, 27, 37, etc. If you match up the score with your square, you win a prize; if you don't match, you lose and wait until the next quarter of play ends and hope for the best.
Got it?
Well, clearly not all squares are created equal. Some games will have automatic prizes for peoples assigned 2-2, 5-5, and 8-8 due to the lack of chance that the score will result in those matches at the end of each quarter of play. Is that fair? We'll see.
The game is fairly simple. A 10x10 checkerboard is signed by the initials of everyone who wants to play in the game- the wager is usually a couple dollars here or there- until the whole board is filled. Once all the names are signed, digits 0-9 are drawn randomly and filled out on the top and on the side of the board, with each set of numbers representing the score of one of the Super Bowl teams.
The goal is to have the game's score at the end of each quarter match up with your square. Imagine you have signed up and were randomly assigned the squares Ravens 4, 49ers 7. You hope is that the score at the end of each quarter is some variation of Ravens X4 - 49ers X7. That means you can hope for the score to be Ravens 4, 14, 24, 34, etc, and for the 49ers to put up 7, 17, 27, 37, etc. If you match up the score with your square, you win a prize; if you don't match, you lose and wait until the next quarter of play ends and hope for the best.
Got it?
Well, clearly not all squares are created equal. Some games will have automatic prizes for peoples assigned 2-2, 5-5, and 8-8 due to the lack of chance that the score will result in those matches at the end of each quarter of play. Is that fair? We'll see.
