Super Bowl Coin Toss Among the Most Popular Game Bets

Just as the toss of a coin will determine which team goes first, Super Bowl betting on the coin toss has become one of the biggest props and among the most random. 

"It can go either way - heads or tails - and this is why oddsmakers tend to place even odds on the all so popular Super Bowl coin toss," commented Sports911.com's Tyrone Black. 

The historical origin of coin flipping is the interpretation of a chance outcome as the expression of divine will. A well-known example of such divination (although not involving a coin) is the episode in which the prophet Jonah was chosen by lot to be cast out of the boat, only to be swallowed by a giant fish (Book of Jonah, Chapter 1).

Coin flipping as a game was known to the Romans as "navia aut caput" (ship or head), as some coins had a ship on one side and the head of the emperor on the other [citation needed]. In England, this game was referred to as cross and pile.

There are actually some stats and mathematical probabilities associated with the coin toss.

A new mathematical analysis now suggests that, in a typical toss, a coin is more likely to land on the same face as it started out on.  So if we new what face it started on, maybe we would be at a great advantage betting on the Super Bowl coin toss.

In the physics of coin tossing, the most important parameters are the coin's upward velocity and its rate of spin. When the spin rate is low, the coin acts like a thrown pizza. It's unlikely to turn over, even if it travels a long distance.

While interesting, you can't really bet on the outcome as the coin is being tossed into the air.

Coin tossing is almost random. A look at the spread in the way real people flip real coins indicates that heads and tails would each come up about half the time.

In the last six Super Bowls, five teams who won the coin toss [and the opening kickoff] ended up losing the Super Bowl. The only team to win in that time frame was the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in Super Bowl XXXVII.

In the last 12 Super Bowls....just TWO coin toss winners won the game. The Buccs are joined by the Rams in Super Bowl XXXIV.

Of the last 16 Super Bowls....11 teams who called the opening flip ended up being right.

And what will be called?? It really depends. Over the past 10 Super Bowls, heads was called 6 times and tails called 4 times. In the past 17 Super Bowls....heads was called 9 times; tails called 8 times.

But it does land a certain way. Of the last 9 Super Bowls.....8 times the coin flip landed tails. The lone time heads won....Super Bowl XXXVI when the Rams picked heads, it was heads.

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Don Shapiro, Sports911.com

Originally published February 4, 2007 2:27 pm ET