Last year 114.4 million people watched Super Bowl XLIX. That number will most likely increase another couple million for Super Bowl 50. Every American loves the traditions that come with Super Bowl Sunday. People love enjoying some wings, chips and dip, and beverages of their choice while watching the game (some people just watch the commercials).

One tradition that many fans like to participate in it would be the Super Bowl squares game. For those of you who don’t know what I am referring to it works like this. There is sheet with ten rows of ten boxes each (100 total boxes). Then one team is assigned to the column part of the table and the other team is for the row part. The digits 0-9 are then assigned to both sides of the table, therefore each individual box has two numbers. So people pay for the individual boxes and if your numbers end up the last digit of each teams’ score at the end of each quarter, you win the pot!

Senior Jake Tedesco has put a dollar or two on sporting events in his days and had this to say about Super Bowl Squares, “I like them because anyone can win no matter what you know or don’t know about football, it’s totally random.”

Obviously the more common scoring numbers have the greatest chances of winning especially the 0-7 or 0-3 combinations. These will give you the best odds to win especially in the early quarters. But as the game goes on the scoring gets crazier so that even an 8-2 combination can win you the final jackpot (which is normally the largest of all four quarters). You better be careful with your numbers though because as of five years ago, 45 of the 100 possible combinations have never come up in any quarter.

This of course brings up the issue of gambling on sports and what type of gambling, if any, should be legal. This has been a big deal lately with the emergence of one day fantasy football leagues and the legality of them. Super Bowl squares are technically illegal in most states because it is completely based on chance, but I doubt the IRS will come kicking down your door if you win your pool with your friends or coworkers.

What I think is the best part about squares is the added excitement that is brought to the game. Here in Cincinnati we very rarely actually have a team that we care about in the Super Bowl. With these pools it gives up something to root for and a reason to really pay attention to what is happening in the game. People that won’t watch a football game all year will tune in to see if they can win any of the four pots.

Mr. Louis runs the faculty pool and he said that it helps to “keep the game interesting and gives the faculty a chance to come together.”

It doesn’t matter who wins the game because if your numbers hit I’ll guarantee you’ll be happy.