It’s relatively new - they implemented it just a few years ago I believe.
I thought the one-point safety was a whoosh, but I looked it up, and I’ll be damned. It would take a catastrophic series of highly-unlikely fuckups for one to happen, but it could happen. I’d love to be in the room when it happens.
Isn’t that one of the minor rule differences between college and pro football? Or maybe it was, until a few years ago when the pros changed the rules?
Having never heard of Super Bowl squares, but being a keen gambler, I was reading this a couple of days ago. I liked the fact that " The worst draw is a pair of twos, which has happened only 3 times in the 13,557 regular season or playoff games in the Super Bowl era (since 1966)." So 42-12 it is.
If I’m not mistaken, if an NFL team forfeits a game, their opponent is awarded a win in the record books by a 1-0 score. So that’s also another way to score just one point - in fact, the only possible way for a game to end 1-0.
Nope, it’s 2-0.
From the NFL rulebook:
SECTION 1 - VALUE OF SCORES
ARTICLE 1. WINNING TEAM
The team that scores the greater number of points during the entire game is the winner.
Note: If a team forfeits a game, the opponent will be declared the winner by a score of 2-0, but the points will not be added to the winning team’s record for purposes of offensive production or tie-breakers.
Since the question is gridiron football, I’ll mention that it’s possible to score 1 point in CFL three-down football. On a field goal attempt, the entire end zone is the scoring area.
If the ball goes through the uprights, it’s a three pointer.
If the ball doesn’t go through the uprights the other team has to run it out of the endzone (or much more rarely, kick it out). If they fail to do so, the kicking team scores one point.
It is thus possible in the CFL to have a 1-0 game. It’s only happened once in league history:
From the article:
The Rough Riders failed to return the ball out of their end zone and thus conceded a single point and opened the scoring after 56 minutes of play.
More generally for the OP’s question, I don’t know how the option for a one-pointer (called a “rouge”) affects the calculations overall?
To date, of the 56 Super Bowls played this far…
… — err, excuse me:
To date, of the LVI Super Bowls played thus far there has never been a 2-2 final score winning Super Bowl square (e.g., 32-12, 42-22, etc). Only four Super Bowl final scores included one 2:
Super Bowl XXXVIII — Patriots 32-29 Panthers
Super Bowl XXVII — Cowboys 52-17 Bills
Super Bowl XXII — Redskins 42-10 Broncos
Super Bowl XI — Raiders 32-14 Vikings
Interestingly, the 2 in each of these was from the winning team.
Unsurprisingly, in the LVI scores of all Super Bowls, the most common final score is 7/4. (This is without regard to winner or loser.) This score has occurred 5 times.
Several combos have occurred 3 times: 4/1, 5/1, 7/0, and 7/1.
Again unsurprisingly, the number 7 has appeared in 20 final scores of the 56 games. There have been two games in which both teams score ended in the number 7, both of which were scores of 27-17.
The number 1 is second on this list, appearing 16 times. No games ended with both teams scores ending in 1.
4 and 0 have both appeared 15 times in final scores, although there have no games in which both teams scores ended in 4 or where both teams scores ended in 0. And there’s only been one game where one score ended in a 4 and the other ended in a 0.
3 has appeared 12 times, 6 has appeared 10 times, 9 has appeared 9 times, 8 has appeared 6 times, 5 has appeared 5 times, and, as noted by @Bullitt, 2 has appeared 4 times.
So if you’re going to go to DraftKings and bet on a square combo, take the square where the 4 row intersects with the 7 column, and the square where the 4 column intersects with the 7 row.
Is it too obvious to note that a typical squares game of chance pays out in 25% increments (end of every quarter and final score) and that all four results of every SB should be evaluated for frequency?
Though I’ve seen some squares games pay out 20% for each quarter and the final 20% on the final score, which can differ from the fourth quarter if there’s OT.
Also, I’m surprised to hear from people who describe themselves as regular gamblers yet have never heard of these things. They are absolutely ubiquitous around my neighborhood for this game and have been for decades.
Where are you from? My brother lives in Philly, and all of his kids use the Super Bowl for school fundraisers. It’s like the biggest money making venture of the year for them, and my Facebook feed is filled with their posts this time of year (this year especially).
I’m in the Baltimore burbs and squares have been popular in bars and workplaces and just about every other kind of social group or gathering since at least the eighties. Because they require no knowledge of football, they appeal to an additional group of people who just want a fun gambling experience.
I won’t hijack any further but I’ve always had access to a large variety of prediction contests my whole adult life.
Yes, good point on the fact that there are four payouts per game. That looks like a while lotta work to evaluate, however.
Every squares game I’ve played has a larger payout for the final score than the first 3 quarters. Usually it’s 20%, 20%, 20%, 40%, which is essentially what you mentioned, but if the game goes into OT, there’s no 4th-quarter payout.
I have enjoyed my fair share of gambling. My gut instinct is that all of those prop bets are sucker bets, and thus I have never participated or looked into them in any way.
I also avoid slot machines for the same reason.
That’s the usual, but we also did (on $10 squares) $125 for first and third quarter, $250 for half, $500 final.
Participating in a ‘squares’ game isn’t really betting per se, IMO. It’s essentially a game of chance, where your square has a 1-in-100 chance of winning, just like the other 99 squares. So somebody is going to win.
They aren’t prop bets typically. They are done by friends watching a game together or as an office pool. All of the money that goes in goes out. You select a square and then the numbers are randomly added afterwards.
I have been aware of these since I was a kid in the 70s and they had one at the Rose Bowl watch party at my parent’s friend’s place. I am completely surprised that any American sports fan no matter how casual hasn’t encountered one of these.
Here is an explanation.
Now that I think about it, this payout is more common than what I mentioned above.
My local American Legion has 2 or 3 of these contests each Super Bowl. They keep 25% of the pot and pay out something like 15%, 20%, 15%, and 25%. It’s a good fund-raiser for them, plus a fair amount of people gather there to watch the game, which increases the liquor sales.
Somebody at work thought the rest of us were suckers. He’d set up the game each year but the square you got wasn’t random - you got to literally pick “7-4” or whatever, and he’d always pick several squares first before going around to other people.
I was always surprised at how many people chose to take part in such an obviously rigged version of the game.