Everything a pool admin needs to know to set up, run, and hand off a Football Squares pool on this site.
On this page
Creating a pool is a one-time payment, there's no subscription. Two plans are available:
If you started on the Single Pool plan and want to run a second pool later, you don't need to buy another single-pool plan (you can't, since that plan only ever covers one). Instead, look for the Upgrade to Unlimited button on the pool picker page. It upgrades your account on its own, without requiring you to fill out a new pool's details first, so you can secure the upgrade now and create your next pool whenever you're ready.
The person who sets up the pool becomes its admin automatically. If you're creating a pool on someone else's behalf, there's an optional "assign to" field at creation time to hand it straight to them instead.
Every pool has its own web address and a passphrase. Share both with your group, the passphrase is what lets people find the pool if they don't have the direct link (via the "Find Your Pool" page) and is required for anyone signing up a new local account on the pool afterward.
Players can sign in one of two ways:
By default, anyone with the pool's link can also just view the board without signing in or entering the passphrase, that's only required to join and pick squares. See Board Visibility below if you'd rather restrict viewing too.
Every pool is a standard 10x10 board (100 squares, one digit 0–9 per row and column) unless you choose the 5x5 Big Board instead, either when creating the pool or later from Start New Game. A 5x5 board covers the same 100 possible score combinations with fewer, bigger squares by giving each row and column a random pair of digits instead of one.
Give the board a display title, then set each side's team independently: choose NFL or NCAA to pick from a real team (this colors the grid headers and axis labels to match, and adds that team's logo), or Custom to type any name you want.
Set a cost per square and, optionally, a payment method (Venmo, Cash App, Zelle, or PayPal) with your handle. Once set, each player's row in the Players list gets a "Pay via…" link pre-filled with what they owe, pulled from the boxes they've claimed. Payments still happen directly between you and your players, this site never touches the money.
Set a cutoff time after which only admins can add or change squares, useful if you want picking to close before kickoff even if you haven't revealed digits yet.
When the board is full (or picking closes), click this once. It randomly assigns a digit 0–9 to each row and column (or, on a 5x5 board, a random pair of digits to each) and locks the board, players can no longer add or change squares themselves after this.
Players normally claim their own squares once signed in, but as admin you have a few extra tools:
The Players table updates live as squares are claimed and scores are posted, no one needs to keep refreshing.
Four sections handle who can access and manage this specific pool:
Add another admin by their email (Google) or local username. Anyone you add gets the same full admin access you have. You can't remove yourself, add someone else as admin first if you need to step back.
Everyone who's signed up with a username and password on this pool. From here you can reset a forgotten password or delete an account entirely.
A log of every Google account that's signed in on this pool's page, with when they first and most recently showed up. If someone needs to be blocked, you can ban them from here, this stops them from signing in or saving changes on this pool (and can be undone with unban at any time). Banning doesn't affect any other pool they may use the site for.
If the same person ends up with both a local account and a Google account on this pool (say, they signed up locally before ever using Google here), you can link the two together. Once linked, either login is treated as the exact same account: same admin access, same claimed squares (existing squares under both identities are merged into one immediately), and a ban on either side blocks both.
Under Quarter scores, choose how payouts work before entering anything:
Enter each team's score as the quarter ends and save, the board immediately shows the winning square for that quarter to everyone watching, no refresh needed. Scores default to a dash until you post them, so it's always clear which quarters haven't happened yet.
Instead of entering scores by hand, click Link to a Live Game, choose NFL or NCAA (College Football), and pick this pool's real matchup from that week's schedule (a text filter appears for NCAA, since there are far more games to scroll through than the NFL's 16). Once linked:
Picked the wrong game, or want to track a different one? Click Switch to a Different Game to pick again without unlinking first. This resets all four quarters back to unposted (and clears any recorded winnings), since the new game starts from scratch, your payout percentages/amounts stay as you set them.
Click Unlink / Switch to Manual Entry at any time to disconnect it and go back to entering scores yourself, your team names and any scores already posted stay as they are.
As quarters post, a Winnings section appears on the main board listing every winner, which quarters they won, and their total. A Paid Out column lets you check off each winner once you've actually sent them their money, with a running "Still owed" total so you can see at a glance who's left to pay after the game ends.
Two ways to find out the moment a quarter (or the Final) posts, instead of having to keep the page open and watch:
The admin panel's Send Test Notification button sends an immediate test through Discord and every browser currently subscribed to push (including players notified automatically), useful for checking setup without waiting for a real game.
brave://settings/privacy → enable "Use Google services for push messaging".That same name menu also has a Theme slider (Light, Dark, or Match System, light by default), a list of any other pools you administer for quick switching, and your Log Out link.
By default the board itself (grid, scores, pot totals) is visible to anyone with the link, signed in or not, only joining and picking squares requires an account. Two independent toggles let you lock that down further:
Turn on either or both. A locked-out visitor sees a short gate screen asking for whatever's still missing, and it updates automatically once they sign in or enter the right passphrase, no reload needed. As admin, you're never locked out of your own pool by these settings.
At the top of the admin panel, Get Share Link gives you a link (and, with Show QR Code, a scannable code) to this pool that you can text, post, or print. Checking Skip the lock screen and passphrase requirement below embeds a bypass code in that link, so anyone who opens it gets straight into the board even if you've turned on Require signing in and/or Require the passphrase under Board Visibility above, and can create a local account without being asked for the pool's passphrase either.
Only hand this link out to people you actually want in the pool, since anyone who has it gets in the same way. If it ever ends up somewhere you didn't intend, click Regenerate Link to issue a new one, the old link stops working immediately (this doesn't change the pool's actual passphrase).
Two actions live together here since each one affects the whole pool at once, and neither can be undone: