A coin toss is held to determine which team will take possession first ; the first team scrimmages the ball at the opponent's 35-yard line and advances through a series of downs until it scores or loses possession.

On January 1, 2007 George Lucas served as the Grand Marshal for the 2007 Tournament of Roses Parade, and made the coin toss at the 2007 Rose Bowl.

The gambler's fallacy can be illustrated by considering the repeated toss of a fair coin.

With a fair coin, the outcomes in different tosses are statistically independent and the probability of getting heads on a single toss is exactly ( one in two ).

In general, if we let A < sub > i </ sub > be the event that toss i of a fair coin comes up heads, then we have,

Now suppose that we have just tossed four heads in a row, so that if the next coin toss were also to come up heads, it would complete a run of five successive heads.

When a future event ( ex: a coin toss ) is described as part of a sequence, no matter how arbitrarily, a person will automatically consider the event as it relates to the past events, resulting in the gambler's fallacy.

The entropy is maximized at 1 bit per trial when the two possible outcomes are equally probable, as in an unbiased coin toss.

A single toss of a fair coin has an entropy of one bit.

The entropy rate for the coin is one bit per toss.

For example, consider the entropy of a coin toss.

When a coin is fair, that is, the probability of heads is the same as the probability of tails, the entropy of a coin toss is as high as it could be.

There is no way to predict what will come next based on knowledge of previous coin tosses, so each toss is completely unpredictable.

A single toss of a fair coin has an entropy of one bit, but a particular result ( e. g. " heads ") has zero entropy, since it is entirely " predictable ".

Though the Vikings won the coin toss, Atlanta went on to win it 30 – 27 in overtime on Morten Andersen's 38-yard field goal.

They were ousted in overtime, 31 – 28, on a 40-yard field goal after losing the coin toss.

There is a classical analogue to the quantum no-cloning theorem, which we might state as follows: given only the result of one flip of a ( possibly biased ) coin, we cannot simulate a second, independent toss of the same coin.

This law, which is a consequence of the axioms of probability, says that if ( for example ) a coin is tossed repeatedly many times, in such a way that its probability of landing heads is the same on each toss, and the outcomes are probabilistically independent, then the relative frequency of heads will be close to the probability of heads on each single toss.

If an individual coin toss or the roll of dice is considered to be a random event, then if repeated many times the sequence of random events will exhibit certain patterns, which can be studied and predicted.

The possible outcomes for one coin toss can be described by the sample space =

) This is the case of a coin toss or the series 1, 2, 3, 4 ,...

Miami won the coin toss and elected to receive.

Pro Football Hall of Fame running back Red Grange participated in the coin toss ceremony.

The coin toss ceremony featured Pro Football Hall of Famer and longtime Chicago Bears owner / head coach George Halas.

A technical glitch led to Fleming and Cope's commentary going out over NBC's television broadcast in place of the network's own audio during the coin toss ceremony.

The coin toss ceremony featured longtime Steelers owner Art Rooney.

The coin toss ceremony featured Marie Lombardi, the widow of Pro Football Hall of Fame Green Bay Packers head coach Vince Lombardi.

The coin toss ceremony featured hall of fame quarterback Bobby Layne.

The coin toss ceremony featured Pro Football Hall of Fame running back Elroy Hirsch.

The coin toss ceremony featured Pro Football Hall of Fame fullback and defensive tackle Bronko Nagurski.

It was also the first time that the sitting U. S. president participated in the coin toss ceremony.

In honor of Inauguration Day, Reagan, himself a California native and former Governor of the state from 1967 – 75, became the first president to participate in a Super Bowl coin toss ceremony.

The coin toss ceremony featured Pro Football Hall of Fame defensive lineman Willie Davis.

Trumpeter Herb Alpert performed " The Star-Spangled Banner ", while Pro Football Hall of Fame wide receiver Don Hutson participated in the coin toss ceremony ( the game happened to coincide with Hutson's 75th birthday ).

The coin toss ceremony featured the recent inductees to the Pro Football Hall of Fame: defensive back Mel Blount, quarterback Terry Bradshaw, offensive lineman Art Shell, and safety Willie Wood.

Former NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle joined the coin toss ceremony.

The coin toss ceremony featured Pro Football Hall of Fame head coach Chuck Noll.

To honor the 25th anniversary of the New York Jets ' upset win in Super Bowl III, that game's MVP, former Jets quarterback Joe Namath joined the coin toss ceremony.

To honor the NFL's 75th season, several former players who were named to the league's 75th Anniversary All-Time Team joined the coin toss ceremony: Otto Graham, Joe Greene, Ray Nitschke, and Gale Sayers.

To honor the 30th Super Bowl game, several past Super Bowl MVPs joined the coin toss ceremony.

The coin toss ceremony featured the following past Super Bowl winning head coaches: Hank Stram, Mike Ditka, Tom Flores, Tom Landry, Chuck Noll, and George Seifert.

To honor the 40th anniversary of the 1958 NFL Championship, also known as " The Greatest Game Ever Played ", the following participants of that game appeared during the coin toss ceremony: Raymond Berry, Lenny Moore, Jim Parker, Art Donovan, Gino Marchetti, Frank Gifford, Roosevelt Brown, Don Maynard, Sam Huff, and Tom Landry, the defensive coordinator of the New York Giants.

To celebrate the 30th anniversary of Super Bowl IV, the following participants of the game were featured during the coin toss ceremony: Bud Grant, Lamar Hunt, Bobby Bell, Paul Krause, Willie Lanier, Alan Page, and Jan Stenerud.

To honor the 30th anniversary of the 17-0 undefeated, perfect season of the 1972 Miami Dolphins, the following members of that team appeared during the coin toss ceremony: Don Shula, Bob Griese, Larry Csonka, Larry Little, Jim Langer, Nick Buoniconti, Paul Warfield.

From 1633, the Book of Common Prayer of the Anglican Church contained a ceremony for this, and it was traditional for the monarch ( king or queen ) to present to the touched person a coin – usually an Angel, a gold coin the value of which varied from about 6 shillings to about 10 shillings.