Ship or head
The earliest known version comes from ancient Rome, where children and adults played a game called navia aut caput, "ship or head". Roman coins carried a ship on one side and the head of a ruler on the other. The modern words "heads" and "tails" come from the same idea: the obverse of most coins shows a head, and the reverse is the "tail" end.
Coin tosses that decided real outcomes
- The first powered flight, 1903. Wilbur and Orville Wright reportedly tossed a coin to decide who would try the first flight. Wilbur won the toss, but his attempt failed. Orville made the first successful flight a few days later.
- The naming of Portland, Oregon, 1845. The city's founders, Asa Lovejoy of Boston and Francis Pettygrove of Portland, Maine, are said to have flipped a coin to decide the name. Pettygrove won, best of three, and the city became Portland.
- Hewlett-Packard. The founders reportedly tossed a coin to decide whose name went first. Bill Hewlett lost the toss, which is why the company is not called Packard-Hewlett.
Coin tosses in sport
Almost every team sport that has ends, serves or a first turn uses a coin toss to start: football, cricket, rugby, hockey and American football all do. Its value is simple: it is quick, everyone understands it, and neither side can influence the result.
From pocket change to pixels
Today, many coin tosses happen on a phone. A well-built digital flip uses a cryptographic random number generator rather than a physical coin, which removes the tiny bias of a hand-flipped coin. You can try one on our flip a coin page, or read about the maths in is a coin flip really 50/50?