Super Bowl Stakes
By Peyton Schultze
Quarterback Tom Brady looks for his latest, and seventh overall, Super Bowl ring next Sunday against the reigning champion Kansas City Chiefs (via The Boston Globe).
Did your team fall just short of a Super Bowl appearance last weekend? Or did your team miss out on the playoffs during the last week of the regular season? Or are you a Raiders or Cowboys fan with sights on the Super Bowl every year, only to come up extremely short every time? The NFL season is full of disappointment and misery for many fans around the league, but Super Bowl Sunday is a great time to finally kick back, relax, and enjoy the sporting world’s biggest event every single year.
Whatever the case may be, everyone is looking to have a great time on Super Bowl Sunday, especially with two great teams like the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Kansas City Chiefs facing off. There are storylines abound between these two squads, but when you have the legendary Tom Brady facing off against the new star on the block in Patrick Mahomes on the big stage, there are sure to be fireworks all around with immediate focus on the two starting signal callers. And from Super Bowl Squares to Prop Bets, there are also plenty of ways to jump in on the action for yourself as we prepare to be just under a week until kickoff for Super Bowl LV in Tampa, Florida. With that said, if you’re looking to participate in the fun and make the weekend special, here are some of the best games to play with friends and family at home at your own Super Bowl setting.
Super Bowl Squares
Arguably the most well-known Super Bowl game in the book, Super Bowl Squares are cheap and simple, with a hint of luck dashed in between.
Each participant puts $5 in a pool and chooses one or more squares of their choice. Each number on each side of the chart represents the second digit of the final score (in this case, the left side stands for Kansas City and the top stands for Tampa Bay), and the final score determines the overall winner of the game. Hypothetically, this means that if someone were to choose the box at the top left corner of the chart and the final score was Chiefs with 27 points and the Bucs with 22 points, that person would be the winner. In addition, that same person with that box could also win in other scenarios such as if the Bucs had 39 points and the Chiefs only had 17. However, if the score was the Bucs with 24 and the Chiefs with 33, the person who had the box at the top left corner would not win and the prize would then go to whoever had those options (in this case, the winner would be the bottom right corner). Each person is given a variety of chances to win in terms of the final score, and the overall outcome of the actual game may not really determine who wins this game in the event of a blowout.
So what is the key strategy for winning? It certainly varies from year-to-year, but with two high-scoring teams in the Chiefs and Buccaneers, expect a lot of touchdowns on the board. With that said, look to fill in boxes that have common digits like 5, 7, or 8 (all common second digits for offense who put a lot of touchdowns on the board). Super Bowl scores do tend to get a little weird in terms of two-point conversions and missed PATs, but that is just part of what makes the game itself so entertaining and fun to watch over the course of all sixty minutes.
Prop Bets
A game that is taken straight from the pages of Las Vegas, Prop Bets is a unique game that keeps you engaged in the action all night long.
A little more complicated than others due to how much control the organizer has over the game, Prop Bets can be run many different ways. Nevertheless, in this format, the organizer will create a sheet of about twenty questions that will be answered in some way over the course of the evening. These questions could relate to all sorts of things: the game, certain statistics, the halftime show, the commercials, the national anthem, the Gatorade at the end, or the Super Bowl MVP. Anything. Each sheet is passed out to each player, who enters with a certain amount of money to play, and answers each question. An example of a write-in question could be something along the lines of “Which performer will be the first on stage alongside The Weeknd on Sunday?” While one person may answer this by saying “Travis Scott”, another player could get creative with some figures and try to gain a big point by guessing someone like “Future'“ or “Drake”. The organizer may also want to print out a sheet from the sportsbooks of Vegas in the event of some open-ended questions that could make-or-break the game. In the end, after everyone has submitted their answers and the game is over, the organizer totals up how many questions each player guessed correctly. The winner goes to whoever guessed the most correctly and they collect the total prize that was set in order to enter.
The key for Prop Bets is to have a certain awareness of the events happening on Sunday in order to try to make some accurate guesses. There will be some tough breaks along the way as there always is in sports betting, but the key is to get those one or two questions right that nobody else may have in order to end up on top. Organizers also may want to balance out the questions asked in terms of difficulty to keep the game close, and a smart tiebreaker scenario would be to write-in the winner and the Super Bowl MVP for the game. Prop Bets is super enjoyable for Super Bowl Sunday, and could be something played with any type of group setting for the big game.
Super Bowl MVPs
Another easy game with some true hit-or-miss potential available, Super Bowl MVPs is based a lot on sheer luck and can be quite controversial if a player ends up with someone unlikely to win the award like a kicker or defensive end.
This one isn’t too complicated. The leader of the game sets a designated amount of money to charge in order to enter, and each participant takes at least two names from a hat (or anything else that can hold things) that has a name written on each piece of paper. For example, we will say that 10 players enter the game with 20 names overall inside of the hat. Each player then draws two names from the hat, and whoever they end up with is their designated Super Bowl MVP for the whole game. This comes with some huge challenges for some, as their is always a chance that you could or could not end up with an elite playmaker with Super Bowl MVP awards already on their resume like Patrick Mahomes or Tom Brady. In addition, since the leader of the game is likely to choose the twenty or so best players involved in the game, some players may end up with someone who is good, but unlikely to win the award. Lavonte David and Chris Jones are two great examples in this game of this exact sensation, as their hasn’t been a Super Bowl MVP winner on the defensive side of the football since Von Miller back in his dominant outing versus the Panthers in Super Bowl 50.
There really is not much strategy involved in this game at all; just hope that you end up with a quarterback or an elite playmaker on offense who could take home the award. Luckily for many players, in Tom Brady’s six Super Bowl wins over the course of his career, two wide receivers have taken home the Super Bowl MVP trophy in the form of Deion Branch in Super Bowl XXXIX and Julian Edelman as recently as Super Bowl LIII versus the Rams. This could be great news for people who end up with someone like Mike Evans, Antonio Brown, or Chris Godwin, who could end up having big games on the sport’s biggest stage against the reigning champions.
Super Bowl Bingo
Super Bowl Bingo plays out just as any other bingo game format would, just with an added football twist that relates to the game’s statistics, the broadcast booth, commercials on television, and the final result of the game.
For this particular bingo game, each contestant is handed some kind of unique board with different words and phrases related to the big game. For example, in this upcoming matchup between the Chiefs and Buccaneers, common phrases that could be seen are ones such as “Mahomes Rushing TD”, “Brady Wins 7th Ring”, or “Chiefs Win by 15+”. The entry fee can be set at any price, and there is not really any maximum amount of people that could join or have boards. The game works as any other bingo game does: get 5 phrases or words in a row to win and the holler “Bingo”. The example above is a little tough with so many specific instances, but the overall winner could secure a nice reward if some strange and unique events occur in Super Bowl LV.
This game is great to place with kids, and since it is definitely not quite as serious as other games in this list, there is not much stress involved at all. There is not much strategy to Bingo, as it is largely based upon luck and what phrases that you may or may not have. With that said, get involved with the game by jumping right in and having a fun time with friends and family, and do not worry too much going into the game about what could or could not happen in the Super Bowl.
Commercial Rundown
As a game that has nothing to do with the actual football game itself, Commercial Rundown focuses all on the newest Big Game commercials that often dominate the general viewing’s interest over the course of the three hour game.
For this game, the organizer arranges a set entry fee that is agreed upon by everyone. Each participant is then handed a piece of paper where they write down 15 brands (it could be more or less) that they think will have commercials that debut over the course of the Super Bowl. Each time that a commercial from their list plays, the participant then gives themselves a point (1 point for each brand; not 1 point for each viewing). By the end of the trophy ceremony of the game, the organizer then totals all the points for each partipcant and finds out which participant with the most point. Whoever ends up with the most points then wins the game and is deemed the winner, with the prize money heading in their direction.
Unfortunately, the only way that this game can work out is if participants do not know which commercials are scheduled to appear beforehand. Taking a page from past Super Bowls to determine which brands may have commercials is allowed and would be a good strategy regarding the game, but with many brands releasing their Super Bowl commercials before Sunday in the present-day, the challenge of avoiding the commercials can be a little tricky.