You possibly can 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 get together’s prop sheet virtually something even vaguely associated to the Tremendous Bowl. By that customary, betting on the results of the coin toss is comparatively tame and regular, and it entails 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? Effectively, that’s one other story.
On BetMGM, there are -102 odds for each heads and tails. You too can wager on which staff 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 sometimes draw -110 odds on both sides. That’s as a result of they know there’s no insider data or threat to affect them. It’s a real 50-50 proposition, and also you’re getting lower than even cash. It’s a detrimental anticipated worth wager however not as unhealthy as, say, betting on crimson at a roulette desk.
The Chiefs, the so-called street staff within the Tremendous Bowl, would be the staff to name heads or tails.
Relating to writing content material a few coin flip, it’s not all that simple. Folks care about all the pieces relating to the Tremendous Bowl, so we proceed to create a narrative concerning the coin toss yearly. We’ve needed to get inventive. Final yr, 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 notice about attempting to get NASA concerned with astronauts aboard Discovery.
“Sadly, plans have been scrapped when NASA identified {that a} coin wouldn’t truly flip within the weightlessness of area. The astronauts as an alternative did an illustration throughout 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 an interesting 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 yr we began the league“). It landed with Girl Liberty dealing with 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 as we speak.”
Tremendous Bowl cash are extra official now. The Highland Mint gives 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 tons of 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 % of the time, however even when that have been the true likelihood, betting on the coin flip with -102 odds would nonetheless be a detrimental anticipated worth wager. A -102 wager has implied odds of fifty.5 %.
In conclusion, please don’t wager on the coin flip. Know a few of the historical past for a possible trivia night time, have enjoyable choosing it in your get together 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 Photos)