Super Bowl XLIV (44) Prop Bet: The Coin Toss

To see our coin toss prop bet analysis for the 2011 Super Bowl XLIV (45) between the Green Bay Packers and Pittsburgh Steelers, click here.

Over the next week and a half leading up to the Super Bowl, we'll be taking a look at various proposition bets for the 2010 Super Bowl, Super Bowl 44, Super Bowl XLIV, The Big Game, or whatever it's called these days.

The Super Bowl is growing nearer and nearer each day, and many bettors are torn on which side they won't to throw money on. Not between the Indianapolis Colts and New Orleans Saints, but between heads or tails--the two sides of the Super Bowl coin toss.

As we stated last year, the coin toss is always a popular prop bet because, well... it just is. It's a guy flipping a quarter into the air, only much more intense because millions of quarters are wagered on that one special coin. For whatever reason, it's one of the most wagered Super Bowl prop bet despite the fact that the wager is decided before kickoff.

For casual fans or those just watching the game for the Super Bowl commercials, it's nice to bet on the coin toss since it requires no knowledge whatsoever of the actual game being played and is completely random.We'll do our best to at least give you a little knowledge about the history of the Super Bowl coin toss.

People try to read a lot into the coin flip. Some common degenerate questions include: Does one side of the coin weigh more than the other? Does tails really never fail? Does the coin bounce differently off of FieldTurf as opposed to natural grass? Am I really wagering on the coin flip? We won’t be able to answer all of these question, but here are some fun facts to help you through betting on the coin flip:

• Heading into Super Bowl XLIII (43) last year, the Super Bowl coin toss had landed on heads 21 times and tails 21 times, astonishingly splitting the first 42 Super Bowls. Last year, only because the coin couldn’t land on its side, tails was the winner, giving the tails side of the coin a 22-21 all-time advantage. So, yes, tails never fails—except for nearly half of the time.

• The team to win the coin toss has a losing record in the Super Bowl of 20-23, but these "winners" have had even less success recently. In the last 13 tosses, the winner of the toss was the loser of the game in 10 of those contests, including five losses in the last six (the Giants of two years ago bucked this trend when they knocked off the unbeaten Patriots).

• Amazingly enough (and of very little meaning) is the fact that the NFC has won the last 12 tosses and is 29-14 all-time in calling the correct side of the coin. So you can either bet against the remarkable trend or ride it until it dies. Might as well enjoy the ride.

So, the bottom line is, when betting on Super Bowl props, the coin flip is always a toss-up.

Our recommendation? Guess. Blindly. This is a prop just for fun to get the action going on what is hopefully a long and enjoyable (and profitable) Sunday. Don't take the coin flip too seriously if you plan on flipping your wagers into some serious coin.

Stay tuned for more in-depth analysis of some fun and some crazy Super Bowl 44 prop bets.