Date: Fri 26-Jan-1996

Publication: Bee

Author: KIMH

Quick Words:

Super-Bowl-Pool-Odds

Full Text:

What Are Your Real Chances Of Winning The Super Bowl Pool?

One hundred squares.

Ten across and ten down.

Seems like simple math, right? You scrawl your name into one of those 100

squares in an office or tavern Super Bowl pool and you figure you have a

1-in-100, or 1%, chance of winning.

At least that's what they tell ya, when they pocket your buck.

You do have a 1% chance, per square, of winning . . . that is, before the pool

manager picks the numbers that will correspond to each of the 100 squares.

Once he or she does, though, that's when your odds, most likely, will start to

fall.

Super Bowl pools are as common as warts on a frog and are the great link, at

least for one day, between the everyday sports fans, the casual fans, and the

people who normally don't give a rat's (insert word from Michael Irvin's

vocabulary here).

But even everyday fans probably have little idea of how the odds work in these

pools and what's the likelihood that any one of the 100 combinations will show

up.

Before the numbers are picked, each square has a 1% chance of winning. Once

the numbers are picked, though, the odds fall for 56 squares. For 23 squares,

the odds stay the same. And for just 21, the odds actually rise.

This is based on a quick study of the 1995-96 National Football League season,

all 240 games, and the percentage that each number, from 0 through 9, showed

up as the last digit in a team's score.

In a look at 480 individual team scores, the number 7 showed up as the last

digit 22% of the time while the number 2 showed up just 3% of the time, the

high and low points of the spectrum. Zero, 1 and 4 are fairly common, while 5,

6, 8 and 9 are not.

With the combos figured, of course, the odds get small. Sure, 7 is a likely

number to show up for one team, but how about both? What are the chances that

the 7-7 square will have your name in it?

Well, 5% actually. The most likely possibility of the Dallas-Pittsburgh rumble

in Tempe. Maybe 27-17 or 27-7 in favor of Dallas . . . or Pittsburgh, if

you're a Steeler fan.

If you have the 2-2 square and you spent more than $1, you better start

figuring out a way to write off that money on your tax return next year. The

chance that the 2-2 will be a winner is only 9/100ths of 1%.

As a public service to all the poolsters who, on Super Bowl Sunday, will have

a list of their numbers stuck in one hot little hand and some nacho-type

substance stuck in the other, let's take a look at the most likely and least

likely number combinations that will appear.

The six most likely are 7-7 (5%); 7-0 or 0-7 (4%); 7-4 or 4-7 (3«%); 0-0 or

0-4 (3%); 0-0 (3%); and 4-4 (2«%). The six least likely are 2-2 (9/100ths of

1%); 9-2 or 2-9 (12/100ths of 1%); 5-2 or 2-5 (15/100ths of 1%); 9-9

(16/100ths of 1%); 8-2 or 2-8 (18/100ths of 1%); 9-5 or 5-9 (20/100ths of 1%).

Think about it. Think about the permutations you are likely to see in an NFL

game with a seven-point touchdown (with extra-point) and a three-point field

goal as the most common forms of scoring. The new two-point conversion adds a

wrinkle, but not a very wrinkly one.

For example: If you have 2, say, you won't see 2 and likely won't see 12, 22,

or 32 unless your team gets a safety or a two-point conversion. Forty-two is

possible, but that's six touchdowns and not many teams get into the 40s

without kicking at least one field goal or missing at least one extra point.

In fact, only one team scored 42 points throughout the entire NFL regular

season.

If you have 7, you can see 7, 17 (two touchdowns and a field goal), or 27

three touchdowns and two field goals). Thirty-seven and 47 are less likely,

because they require a lot of scoring, but still are very possible.

In our Super Bowl Survey this week, we polled more than 30 people and while we

didn't get any truly weird scores (like 18-16 or 26-11), only one person, Rich

Colbert, a Stamford-based attorney and graduate of Newtown High School, picked

the most likely possibility, 7-7, saying Dallas would defeat Pittsburgh,

27-17.

As it is, through the NFL regular season 17 was the most frequent score

recorded by a team, while 27 was the fifth-most frequent. Twenty, 24, and 10

were no 2, 3, and 4 on the hit parade. As for least frequent, from 6 to 49,

the only scores that did not occur were 12, 39, and 46, while there were a

whole host of scores - 8, 9, 11, 15, 18, 22, 23, 29, 32, 33, 36, and all the

numbers in the 40s - that occurred four times or fewer.

Those are a lot of numbers to digest and all it boils down to, I guess, if

that if you have 2, 5, 6, 8, or 9 in the Super Bowl pool, it would probably be

best to hide the slip of paper with your numbers on it.

Believe me, you'll be watching the game and with Dallas, say, ahead 10-7,

you'll drive yourself crazy trying to figure out, with safeties and two-point

conversions, how Dallas could get to 22 and how Pittsburgh could get to 18 by

halftime.

It's not worth the agony.

Just enjoy the game, okay?