Are The Odds In Flipping A Coin Really 50/50?

Back in 2004, as Mental Floss reports, a team of scientists from Stanford and the University of California-Santa Cruz decided to set up an experiment to determine if coin tosses are truly random. They are not. Long story short: Whichever side is facing up when the coin is flipped has a slight advantage when it comes to the final outcome. Specifically, the side that's facing up will be the winner 51 percent of the time, assuming the coin is if caught in the air. If it lands on the floor, well, all bets are off (no pun intended). As Science Focus explains, back in 2008 a Polish team looked at things even further and determined that there may be a bias in flipped coins caught mid-air, but when they hit the ground, chaos takes over.

It's also important to consider that, unlike machines used in a casino (such as a roulette table), coins aren't manufactured to mitigate bias, and one side or the other may be slightly heavier, affecting the odds. And of course, there are millions of different coins. Indeed, in the U.S. alone, the government has manufactured over 100 different coin styles.

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