I’m taking part in a Super Bowl square for charity this year, and a number of people not familiar with these squares were taking part, so it got me thinking about what numbers and pairs are really good.
Being the geek that I am, of course I needed to figure it out. What follows is a bit dry – it is, after all, statistics. So if you want to cut to the chase, here is a quick summary of numbers that I believe from the results below are good and bad:
Best numbers: 0, 1, 3 and 7
Worst numbers: 2, 5 and 8
Best pairs: 0-0, 3-0, 7-0, 5-1 (yes, really), 7-1, 7-3, 7-4
Sure, there are already web pages with information on the subject, but 1) I didn’t write them, and 2) They didn’t always look at the numbers the way I wanted, and in at least one case didn’t seem to use the right scores. And I wanted to play more with Excel.
First, you may ask, “What is a Super Bowl Square?” The Square is a gambling device used in football (and really, any similar game with similar scoring and defined periods – the more “random” the scoring the better – basketball would be another good one) in which a 10×10 grid is laid out, the numbers 0-9 are written across the top and down the side, and people buy squares. The rows correspond to one particular team, and the columns the other team. If at the end of a quarter or the end of the game the last digit of each team’s score matches your square, you win the prize for that quarter. Typically the prize for the final score is worth more.
Continue reading
