You’ll be able to place loads of bets on the Tremendous Bowl, from typical wagers on the sport itself to bizarre and weird props. Someplace, somebody is providing a wager on or together with on a watch celebration’s prop sheet virtually something even vaguely associated to the Tremendous Bowl. By that commonplace, betting on the results of the coin toss is comparatively tame and regular, and it includes nothing greater than luck.
The Tremendous Bowl coin toss might be the most-watched flip of a coin in American sports activities. So, in fact, folks wager on it. Ought to they? Nicely, that’s one other story.
On BetMGM, there are -102 odds for each heads and tails. It’s also possible to wager on which group will win the coin toss. In that case, the Philadelphia Eagles and Kansas Metropolis Chiefs each have -102 odds.
That’s the smallest maintain you’ll see on a two-way wager from a authorized sportsbook. For comparability, betting on the unfold or level whole will usually draw -110 odds on either side. That’s as a result of they know there’s no insider information or threat to influence them. It’s a real 50-50 proposition, and also you’re getting lower than even cash. It’s a unfavorable anticipated worth wager however not as unhealthy as, say, betting on purple at a roulette desk.
The Chiefs, the so-called street group within the Tremendous Bowl, would be the group to name heads or tails.
In the case of writing content material a couple of coin flip, it’s not all that easy. Folks care about every part in terms of the Tremendous Bowl, so we proceed to create a narrative concerning the coin toss yearly. We’ve needed to get inventive. Final 12 months, Nando Di Fino dove into the archives to seek out some oddities about Tremendous Bowl coin flips.
Ronald Reagan’s presidential library has an 11-minute video of him practising earlier than he went stay for Tremendous Bowl XIX in 1985.
There’s additionally a enjoyable be aware about making an attempt to get NASA concerned with astronauts aboard Discovery.
“Sadly, plans had been scrapped when NASA identified {that a} coin wouldn’t truly flip within the weightlessness of house. The astronauts as a substitute did an illustration in the course of the pregame present — the place Canadian astronaut Roberta Bondar held a coin as her crew members spun her backwards — and Chuck Knoll formally flipped the coin again on Earth. It got here up heads (each instances).”
The cash themselves have a captivating historical past. George Halas flipped the coin for Tremendous Bowl XIII when he owned the Chicago Bears and went fancy and nostalgic in his strategy:
“He purchased a $317 1920 gold coin (to commemorate “the 12 months we began the league“). It landed with Woman Liberty going through up, which Halas had designated as heads. He claimed the loser of the flip (the Steelers) would get the coin — and you’ll see on this video he truly known as over Jack Lambert and gave it to him. It’s price about $3,000 right now.”
Tremendous Bowl cash are extra official now. The Highland Mint affords commemorative variations of the official coin on the market. Three years in the past, we acquired just a few forward of the Tremendous Bowl and flipped them a whole bunch of instances till we misplaced our minds within the identify of science (or one thing).
Our whole tally was 882 tails and 869 heads. It was a foolish experiment that proved completely nothing. Tails got here in 50.4 p.c of the time, however even when that had been the true chance, betting on the coin flip with -102 odds would nonetheless be a unfavorable anticipated worth wager. A -102 wager has implied odds of fifty.5 p.c.
In conclusion, please don’t wager on the coin flip. Know a number of the historical past for a possible trivia night time, have enjoyable selecting it in your celebration prop sheets and roll your eyes at us for posting a model of this yearly, however don’t wager on it.
(Photograph credit score: Rob Carr / Getty Photographs)