Super Bowl coin toss bettors know they are betting against history by picking 'heads' Sunday as profits start rolling before kickoff between the 49ers and Ravens.
Super Bowl 2013: Coin toss odds, tails is best bet
Super Bowl coin toss bettors who like trends will pick tails. Coin toss bettors who bet based on odds will flip their own coin to decide whether to bet on heads or tails.
Ezra Shaw
While online sportsbooks are offering the coin toss at even odds for Super Bowl XLVII, handicapping experts know that history suggests ‘tails’ is almost guaranteed to come up.
There have been four streaks of four in a row for either heads or tails in the 46-year history of the game. Never has the same side come up five times in a row.
“Since the last four tosses have been heads, it only stands to reason that tails must come up this time,” said Jack Randall of OddsShark.com, with his tongue jammed firmly in his cheek.
However, that Super Bowl coin toss trend might just be the leveling of a prior patern that saw eight of nine tosses end up ‘tails.’
History also tells us that the 49ers are likely to win. In the past 15 games, the NFC rep has won 14 of them. The crack in this foolproof trend is that the AFC Patriots won last year.
Thousands of bettors bet the Super Bowl coin flip, and the NFL in recent years has complied with the interest, turning the toss into an event worthy of celebrity, pomp and circumstance. It even has a sponsor.
Bettors now employ handicapping strategies to the Super flip, tracing back the history to see whether “heads” or “tails” is on a streak, or due, and whether winning the flip leads to winning the game.
The eternal battle is priced at -105 either way. Finally, Bovada is offering a price of -115 on the team that wins the coin toss Sunday going on to win the game. But in reality, the team that has won the Super Bowl coin toss has lost 24 of the previous 46 Super Bowls.
Careful what you wish (or flip) for.
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