In 2009, Doug produced a Super Bowl Squares post, itself a revival of his old Sabernomics post eight years ago. In those posts, Doug derived the probability of winning a squares pool for each given square (or set of numbers). Unsurprisingly, he found that those lucky souls holding the ‘7/0’ squares were in good shape, while those left holding the ‘2/2’ ticket were screwed. You can download the Sports-Reference Super Bowl Squares app here, which is free, and should help you taunt your guests at your Super Bowl party.

Let’s say that this year, your Super Bowl squares pool allows you to either pick or trade squares: if that’s the case, this post is for you. I looked at every regular season and postseason game from the last ten years. The table below shows the likelihood of each score after each quarter, along with three final columns that show the expected value of a $100 prize pool under three different payout systems. The “10/” column shows the payout in a pool where 10% of the prize money is given out after each of the first three quarters and 70% after the end of the game; the next column is for pools that give out 12.5% of the pool after the first and third quarters, 25% at halftime, and 50% for the score at the end of the game. The final column is for pools that give out 25% of the pot after each quarter — since I think that is the most common pool structure, I’ve sorted the table by that column, but you can sort by any column you like.
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