Super Bowl “Squares” Analysis

I’ve heard of a few people playing a game for the Super Bowl where you put your name in a square on a 10×10 grid. Each column and row gets a random number, 0-9. The last digit of the score at the end of each quarter determines who wins that square. So if the score was 7-0, whoever had the 7 column and the 0 row’s cell would win. If the score was 14-12, the 4 column and 2 row’s cell would win. It’s pretty simple, but if you’re still unclear, check out this page that has a few nice illustrations.

I thought I’d take a look at the last 49 results and analyze how often each square won. Here’s what I found.

End of Quarter 1

vs	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9
0	11	0	0	3	1	0	0	1	0	0
1	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
2	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
3	7	0	0	4	0	0	0	1	0	0
4	3	0	0	0	0	0	0	2	0	0
5	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
6	0	0	0	1	1	0	0	0	0	0
7	7	0	0	2	0	0	0	3	0	0
8	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
9	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0

End of Quarter 2

vs	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9
0	2	0	1	3	0	0	0	1	0	0
1	1	0	0	1	1	0	1	0	0	0
2	2	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
3	1	0	0	2	0	0	0	2	0	0
4	3	0	0	2	1	0	0	0	0	0
5	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
6	3	0	0	2	1	0	0	1	0	0
7	4	0	0	2	2	0	1	2	0	0
8	2	0	0	0	0	0	1	0	0	0
9	3	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0

End of Quarter 3

vs	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9
0	1	0	0	1	0	0	0	3	0	0
1	2	0	0	0	0	0	0	3	0	0
2	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	1	1	0
3	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	3	0	0
4	4	0	0	2	2	0	0	2	0	1
5	1	1	0	0	0	0	0	1	0	1
6	1	0	0	2	0	0	1	2	1	0
7	1	0	1	2	0	0	1	0	0	1
8	1	0	0	1	0	0	1	0	0	0
9	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	1	0	0

End of Quarter 4

vs	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9
0	0	0	0	1	0	0	1	1	0	1
1	1	0	0	0	1	1	0	3	0	1
2	1	0	0	0	1	0	0	1	0	1
3	0	0	0	0	1	0	1	1	1	0
4	0	2	0	1	0	0	0	3	0	1
5	2	2	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
6	1	1	0	1	0	0	1	1	0	0
7	2	0	0	1	2	0	0	2	0	0
8	0	1	0	0	1	0	1	0	0	1
9	1	0	0	0	0	0	1	1	0	0

Data: http://www.nfl.com/superbowl/history/boxscore/sbxx and a bunch of other similar pages.