Scientists toss 350,757 coins to prove theory that coin tosses aren't 50/50
Researchers used coins from 46 currencies to test their theory
Sometimes you need to make a decision and you're stuck between two equal options.
In these situations flipping a coin to resolve the issue is a common theme.
With a 50/50 chance of landing on either side, it appears an easy way to use the chance to decide the result.
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It turns out, that 50/50 chance isn't actually quite true, and the reason doesn't involve the coin landing on its side.
The revelation comes from a preregistered study which recorded the results of 350,757 coin tosses, and suggested that there is in fact a tiny bias involved in the flipping of any coin, says Unilad.
The study involved 48 people who flipped 350,757 coins from 46 currencies. After all of this flipping, the researchers found that the coins had a 50.8 percent chance of landing on the side that it started on.
This is down to a theory called the Diaconis Model, which the researchers used to claim that coins are more likely to land facing the same way they were when the coin toss began.
A paper explains: "According to the Diaconis model, precession causes the coin to spend more time in the air with the initial side facing up.
"Consequently, the coin has a higher chance of landing on the same side as it started (i.e., 'same-side bias')."
So, because the coin faces the same way more in the air as it did when it started, there is in theory a tiny bias towards that side.
To help put the findings into context, the team continued: "The magnitude of the observed bias can be illustrated using a betting scenario.
"If you bet a dollar on the outcome of a coin toss (i.e., paying 1 dollar to enter, and winning either 0 or 2 dollars depending on the outcome) and repeat the bet 1,000 times, knowing the starting position of the coin toss would earn you 19 dollars on average.
"This is more than the casino advantage for six-deck blackjack against an optimal-strategy player, where the casino would make $5 on a comparable bet, but less than the casino advantage for single-zero roulette, where the casino would make $27 on average."
So, with this knowledge on your side, why not challenge someone to a coin toss and see if the odds are in your favour?
