Super Bowl 2024: Coin toss trends (and why the betting odds aren't even money)

Does tails ever fail? And why aren't the odds 50/50?

One of the easiest bets anyone can place on the Super Bowl is a wager on the coin toss.

You don’t need to know anything about football or sports in general. You need to simply have seen a coin at some point in your life. There’s a side that has a head on it. There’s a side that has a tail on it. Hopefully this is not brand new information. The two Super Bowl teams meet at midfield before the game and flip a coin to see who gets the ball first. And betting on which side of the coin will prevail is a time-honored tradition on Super Bowl Sunday.

But if you’re looking to place this bet at a sportsbook, you might be confused why two outcomes with equal probability don’t result in odds that pay even money (+100).

Typically you’ll see books list the betting options as Heads (-105) vs. Tails (-105)

In other words: Why would you only win $4.76 on a $5 bet for correctly guessing the outcome of the coin flip? The answer is something called “the hold”, and it’s another way sportsbooks make money besides collecting on losing bets.

The hold is essentially what you pay the sportsbook to accept your bet. A commission of sorts. So instead of betting Heads (+100) or Tails (+100), the sportsbook lists each option at (-105) to make sure it will retain a portion of the total amount of money wagered no matter which side wins.