Classic Squares — Commissioner Setup Guide

Creating your pool

Classic Squares is created directly — no multi-step wizard.

Import a list of people

If you sold the grid offline — names and money collected before the pool existed — you do not have to place people one at a time. On the grid’s Participants screen there is “Import a list of people”: paste one person per line as name, email, squares, paid (email and paid are optional, so “Sharon Callahan, 5” is enough). A plain number is how MANY squares they get; if people picked their own off a paper grid, put a # in front to name them — “Dave Miller, #14 #27 #88” — numbered the way the grid prints, left to right and top to bottom. You can mix both in one list, which is what a real sheet looks like, or download the CSV template from the same panel and upload it back. You can tick “mark everyone paid” for a list you have already collected, and “spread squares randomly” if you would rather friends who signed up together not land in one block. It previews what will happen before anything is written, and the whole import lands together or not at all — if one line is wrong nothing is assigned and it tells you which line.

Contest name

What players see on the link and the join page, e.g. “2026 Super Bowl Squares.”

Price per square

What you collect for each of the 100 squares. Sellable revenue is simply 100 × this price at a full board.

Limit squares per participant

Off by default (players can claim as many as they want). Turn it on and set a max to spread squares across more people.

Show square numbers (1–100)

Numbers each square 1–100 so players can reference their square in a payment note.

Live game view

On the grid’s Settings tab, under Display. Once the game is under way the board shows the score above the grid, marks the one square the score is sitting on right now, and lists underneath what each person would need to win from here — “Dave needs a Lions touchdown”. On football it also shades every square with its chance of being the next one to win, because a football score only moves in a handful of known ways; every other sport gets the score and the live square with no percentages. It is never a prediction of who wins the game, and the board explains how the number is worked out. New pools have this on. Pools that were already being played when it shipped have it off, so nothing changed mid-season — turn it on whenever you want it, and it appears the next time anyone opens the board.

Swap the axes

On the grid’s Settings tab, under Display. Puts the away team across the top and the home team down the side, so the board matches your printed sheet or the TV graphic. Only the picture changes: every square keeps its owner and its numbers, and who wins is decided exactly as before. The PDF follows it too.

The game

Attach a game

On the grid’s Settings tab, the Game card’s “Attach a game” button opens a short flow that starts by asking what KIND of game you want: what’s coming up on the schedule, the playoffs, a particular team, or something not on our schedule at all. Attaching a game is what makes scores arrive on their own and gives the grid a kickoff to close selling against — home team, away team, start time and location all fill in from the schedule.

The playoffs (before anyone knows who is in them)

A postseason fixture has no teams yet — both sides read TBD until the bracket decides them — so looking one up by team never finds it. Choose “The playoffs” instead and you get the real rounds: Wild Card, Divisional, Conference Championship, the Super Bowl. Attach one in September and the matchup fills itself in in January; the grid keeps its date the whole time. The option only appears when we actually hold a postseason for that league, so it can never be a dead end.

Not on our schedule

Type the matchup in yourself — home team, away team, date, kickoff time and location. Worth knowing before you choose it: scores will not arrive on their own, so you enter them. If a library game IS attached, these fields act as overrides on top of it.

Grid locks at kickoff

The grid closes to new claims automatically at game time, and you can set an earlier lock time to cut off sales sooner. One exception worth knowing: a playoff slot whose kickoff the league has not published yet shows “time TBD” rather than a made-up time, and a grid on one of those will NOT close itself — set a closing time by hand. The grids screen tells you when that applies to you.

Numbers: assignment & reveal

Who assigns the numbers

CAS random draw (recommended) generates the 0–9 row and column numbers for you, or enter them manually if you drew them another way.

When numbers apply

“Same all game” uses one set of numbers for every quarter (the classic format), or “per payout” draws separate numbers for each payout period.

Stop selling

On the grid's Settings tab. A grid linked to a real game closes at kickoff on its own — you do not have to do anything. If you want it closed earlier, pick "1 hour before kickoff" (or 2, 6, 12 hours, or a day) and it holds to that instead. It is a LEAD, not a fixed timestamp, so if the network moves the game your cutoff moves with it and never needs re-setting. When a kickoff time has not been announced yet, there is no cutoff at all and selling stays open — the grid will not close itself on a placeholder time.

Reveal numbers

Numbers stay hidden as “?” until they’re revealed. Default is when the grid locks (i.e., at kickoff) — recommended so no one can shop for a better square. You can also reveal at game time, when all squares are claimed or paid, manually, or immediately.

Reveal at a specific date & timePro

Schedule the reveal for an exact moment rather than tying it to an event.

Keep selling after numbers are drawn

Off by default. Turn on to let players keep claiming unsold squares even after the numbers are visible, right up until the grid locks.

Undraw numbers

Drew too early, or auto-draw beat you to it? "Undraw numbers" on the grid settings clears the draw so you can start over. Only available before the game starts and while nothing has been scored — after that the numbers have already decided who won.

Unsold squares at lock

Assign unsold squares to the club (recommended — every number is covered, and the club keeps any winnings on them) or leave them blank (a winning number on a blank square pays no one).

Payout periods & ways to win

Set on the Rules tab; dollar amounts are set on the Payouts tab.

Payout periods

Add any combination of End of 1st Quarter, Halftime, End of 3rd Quarter, and End of Game. The classic split is all four.

First scorePro

Pays the square matching the scoreboard the instant the first points go up — for the game as a whole, or after the start of any quarter, which gives you four live payouts instead of one. It is the square that wins, not the team that scored. Football only, and only on a grid linked to a game from the schedule: the winner is read from that game’s play-by-play, because an end-of-quarter score cannot say who scored first (a quarter that ended 7–3 could have gone either way).

Exact square

The square matching the home and away score’s last digits at that period wins. Available on every plan.

Reverse (mirror) squarePro

Also pays the square with the home/away digits swapped — doubles the winners per period.

Winning row & columnPro

Pays every square across the winning row and down the winning column (18 squares total) instead of just the intersection — a broader, more social payout style.

Entry price, pot & organizer cut

Sellable revenue

Price per square × 100 at a full board — shown automatically on the Payouts tab.

Organizer cutPro

What you keep before prizes are paid — a percentage of the pool, a flat total, or a flat amount per square ($/sq). The prize pool is always shown net of it. Available on Pro Commissioner and Organization; the full pot pays out to winners on Free.

Payout basisPro

“Full grid — guaranteed” pays the exact dollar amounts you set based on a full 100-square board. “Scales with sales” grows the pool as squares sell, with a live projected payout for buyers and an optional guaranteed minimum you cover if the board doesn’t sell out.

Per-period payouts

Enter a dollar amount per winning square for each period, use “Even per square” to split evenly, or “Distribute remaining” to fill in whatever’s left of the pool.

Running multiple grids

Add another grid

Open your contest and go to the Grids tab — “Add another grid” sits at the top. Each new grid is its own 100 squares with its own numbers, price, rules, and payouts, and you can add one any time, not only once the last one fills. Your plan sets how many grids a pool can have; upgrade or add the Extra Grids add-on for more.

Auto-create another grid

Automatically spawn a new grid once a set number of squares sell on this one (e.g. at 90/100), optionally only if that happens by a deadline.

Assign squares manually

Hand-assign open squares to a guest (no account needed) or an existing participant — mark them paid and credit a seller for tracking.

Finalizing & paying winners

Enter or sync scores

If the grid follows a game from the schedule, you do nothing — the live feed writes the score at each period and the boxes on the Scores tab are read-only, because anything typed there would be overwritten on the next sync. If you want to enter scores yourself, use “Unlink from schedule” on the Game card first: your teams, kickoff, payouts and numbers all stay, and scoring comes back to you. A grid that was never linked is yours to score from the start, and editing returns on any grid once the game is final.

Finalize & pay winners

Each period’s winning square (or squares, for reverse and row & column) is computed automatically once scores are in. Winners appear in Payout Assist — on the contest’s Overview tab, once there are winners still owed — with one-tap pay links. Finalizing stops the live feed, so if a period still has no score the screen names it and warns that its prize would never pay — it does not stop you, because a game can genuinely end early (rain, a walk-off) and only you know whether it did. A grid with nothing scored at all cannot be finalized.

FAQ