Flip a Coin

How the coin flip works

Press Flip and the coin lands on heads or tails, each with exactly a 50% chance. You can flip once, or flip up to 100 times in one go and see the tally and the longest streak.

Wheelova uses your browser's crypto.getRandomValues(). According to MDN, browsers implement it as a cryptographically secure pseudo-random generator seeded with system entropy — the same kind of source used for security features. It is unpredictable in practice, but it is not a physical "true random" device such as atmospheric-noise generators.

Is an online coin flip fair?

Yes — and arguably fairer than a real coin. Statistician Persi Diaconis predicted that a flipped coin is slightly more likely to land the same way up it started, because of how coins wobble in the air. A 2023 study by František Bartoš and colleagues tested this with 350,757 real flips and found coins landed on their starting side about 50.8% of the time. An online flip has no starting side and no wobble: every flip is an independent 50/50 from the random generator.

Streaks are normal

People expect heads and tails to alternate. They don't. In 10 flips, getting three or more of the same side in a row happens about 83% of the time. In 100 flips, a streak of six or more in a row happens about 80% of the time. If you see a long streak in the tally, that's randomness behaving normally — not a broken coin.

When to flip a coin

Tie-breakers: who goes first, who picks the film, which team kicks off.

Two good options: when both choices are fine and you're wasting time deciding. Notice your reaction to the result — if you feel disappointed, you probably wanted the other option.

Teaching probability: flip 10, 100 and 1,000 times and watch the tally get closer to 50% as the number grows.

For yes/no questions with a third option like "maybe", try the Yes or No Wheel.