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The 2020 Super Bowl is mere days away and we’ll see which of the Kansas City Chiefs or San Francisco 49ers is able to take home the Lombardi Trophy. The Chiefs are a 1.5-point favorite, and the betting public is split on how they are backing this game.
There will be plenty to sort out for this game, and it will start with the coin toss. Right around 6:30 p.m. ET, the Chiefs will call heads or tails. Teams are more and more often deferring to the second half, but given the high-octane Chiefs offense, if they win they might just decide to get Patrick Mahomes and company on the field quickly.
Whatever the case, they first need to win the coin toss. And naturally, you can bet on the result. DraftKings Sportsbook is offering a host of betting options related to the coin toss. The props include heads or tails coming up, which team wins the coin toss, if the player correctly calls it, and a combo “result of coin toss + game winner” bet.
For the first three, the odds are -103 across the board. A coin toss is generally a 50/50 proposition, and that very well could be the reason people bet on it. It’s hard to get anything close to 50/50 odds in gambling, so why not take your chances there? There is actually some strategy to be found from a mathematical analysis of coin tosses, but for purposes of the Super Bowl, it’s effectively 50/50.
A popular turn of phrase on coin tosses is “tails never fails.” People can sometimes be inclined to call tails based on that, and that might be impacting current betting on the coin toss at DraftKings Sportsbook. As of Monday, 54 percent of the handle and 52 percent of tickets bet on the coin toss were on tails. That’s not a huge difference, but for something that is close to 50/50, it shows some people have a lean.
Tails is not always the popular play. A year ago, the Patriots were expected to call heads because of special teamer Matt Slater’s preference for heads. He called heads in Super Bowl 53, but came up on the short end of the stick when tails landed. Tails can fail in specific situations, but generally speaking, maybe tails never fails offers an edge!
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