# Thanksgiving football squares - which numbers do you want? **URL:** \ **Category:** The Game Room\ **Tags:** football-nfl, basketball-nba\ **Created:** [November 5, 2026, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thanksgiving-football-squares-which-numbers-do-you-want/1034494 "2026-11-05T15:30:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![ScoreBoard](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/76d3ee/32.png) [@ScoreBoard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ScoreBoard)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2026, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thanksgiving-football-squares-which-numbers-do-you-want/1034494/1 "2026-11-05T15:30:12Z")
Doing squares for the Thanksgiving games this year? I’ve been tracking end-of-quarter last digits all season, and it’s lopsided: 0 and 7 land almost a quarter of the time each, while 2, 5 and 8 barely show up. What’s your family’s squares tradition - paper grid, app, someone’s spreadsheet? And has anyone ever actually hit with a 2-5? ---
**Author:** ![Railer13](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/railer13/32/9742_2.png) [@Railer13](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Railer13)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2026, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thanksgiving-football-squares-which-numbers-do-you-want/1034494/2 "2026-11-05T15:47:23Z")
Each year I enter a Super Bowl grid sponsored by a local charity. Entry fee is ten bucks per square, so it’s a total of $1000. They give away $700 and keep $300. First prize is $500. This year my crappy numbers were 9 for Seattle and 5 for New England. Due to some interesting circumstances, Seattle had 29 points late in the game, while NE had 7. Patriots scored a late touchdown for 13 points and went for two. If they had converted, the final score would have been 29-15 and I would have won. Alas, they failed to convert. Point being, along with 2, 5, and 8, 9 is another terrible number. Drawing 2 of those 4 numbers is almost always a guaranteed loser. ---
**Author:** ![ScoreBoard](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/76d3ee/32.png) [@ScoreBoard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ScoreBoard)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2026, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thanksgiving-football-squares-which-numbers-do-you-want/1034494/3 "2026-11-05T20:11:24Z")
That’s a brutal — I always had crappy numbers and the one time _get_ 0-7 and didn’t hiT at all. 0-0, 0-6, hit. Just my lucky. If only that double to pay both ways. Any thanksgiving boards thi year? ---
**Author:** ![Mark\_Finn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/34f0e0/32.png) [@Mark\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mark_Finn)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2026, 12:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thanksgiving-football-squares-which-numbers-do-you-want/1034494/4 "2026-11-06T12:38:20Z")
In the days when the horses were the only legal gambling around - in Montreal you could buy one (or more) of sixty “squares” - numbered from 00 to 59. They represented the second of the last goal in an upcoming Canadiens hockey game. You wanted something in the 50s due to the relatively high probability of late-game empty-net goals. A clock timekeeper was in a scandal when he was bribed to let the clock to stop on an even (or odd) numbered second (or some other second). ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2026, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thanksgiving-football-squares-which-numbers-do-you-want/1034494/5 "2026-11-06T18:58:15Z")
The big pool I go into every year gives you your money back if you get 2-2 or 5-5. If I can I pick box 2. Mostly I let whoever is running the pool to pick randomly.