Is a coin toss really 50–50?
Fair coins tend to land on the same side they started: Evidence from 350,757 flips
A team flipped coins 350,757 times and found a coin lands the same way up it started slightly more than half the time.
Ig Nobel 2024
A physics model predicted that a flipped coin should be a tiny bit more likely to land on the side it started on. So a big team of volunteers sat down and flipped coins from dozens of currencies, filming every single flip.
After 350,757 flips, coins landed same-side-up about 50.8% of the time, just as predicted. That’s a small edge, but if you call it right, you could win the occasional extra coin toss. Somebody’s thumb deserves a rest.
Heads or tails? Check which way up it started.