AFC or NFC? Who will win the coin flip?
You think flipping a coin is the ultimate fair way to decide who gets that last piece of cake in the fridge. And the NFL thought it would be the ultimate in fairness to decide who gets to receive the opening kickoff in the Super Bowl. While the fairness of the cake scenario might hold up, the Super Bowl coin toss has been an affront to fairness with the NFC winning 13 in a row!
If you thought this was a 50-50 proposition, you were dead wrong and you would have missed out on a chance to make a lot of money over the years. Unlike the game itself – where the AFC has won nine of 12 – the NFC almost always wins it and is currently on a devastating 15-2 run of Super Bowl coin toss victories.
So unlike the over-under (where nearly 70 per cent of bettors are on the OVER Sunday) or the point spread (where [this site] reports nearly the same amount of people betting on Indy), it seems like a good idea for 100 per cent of people to bet the NFC on the flip.
We went looking for answers to the obvious question about how the NFC rigs the coin toss, which had produced a perfect split of 21 heads and 21 tails before last season’s Super Bowl (heads, won by Arizona by the way). But nobody was talking.
“I’m not saying anything because I have too much money riding on heads this Sunday,” deadpanned Jack Randall, NFL analyst and handicapper at OddsShark.com.
Super Bowl XLIV will see captains of each team gather at midfield to conduct the coin toss and sportsbooks the world over offer betting on it – will it be heads or tails and will the NFC or AFC win.
Tails would return the split to a perfect 22-22 through 44 games.
And maybe the AFC doesn’t even want to win it. The last time they won was Super Bowl XXXI and the Patriots lost to the Packers.
It’s enough to make oddsmakers do flips.
“Fortunately, not everyone knows about this Super Bowl betting lock, or else we could be in serious trouble,” said bodog oddsmaker Richard Gardner, with tongue planted firmly in his cheek. “It’s almost like a two-headed coin with NFC on both sides of it.”
Another sportsbook spokesman was similarly impressed and distressed by the trend.
“It’s absolutely mind-boggling, 12 times in a row is just over 4000-1,” said Dave Staley of Sportsbook.com. “I’m not a superstitious guy by any means but I’m jumping all over this. I’m taking the Saints to win the Toss at -105, Saints to receive the opening kickoff at -105, heck, Saints to score first at +115 – all these props have added value if this coin flip trend continues.”
Yet another observer had a more sinister theory.
“The official silver dollar the NFL uses for the all important coin toss has two sides – NFC North and NFC South,” said industry veteran and linesmaker Dan Sharpstein.
It’s one of the most popular – because it requires no knowledge of the game so even a casual Super Bowl observer can knowledgeably bet on the coin toss – of the thousands of prop bets that sportsbooks post to make the big game more enjoyable.
~Source – Oddsshark.com
