Click the wheel or press Space Tap the wheel to spin
Heads or Tails
No coin in your pocket. Same odds, bigger spectacle.
A coin flip without the coin
Two slices, Heads and Tails, and an even chance of each. The wheel does the same job as the coin in your pocket, minus the part where you have no coin, or it rolls under the sofa, or somebody catches it before anyone saw which way up it landed.
Every spin draws from your browser's cryptographic random number generator - the same source used for security tokens - rather than the ordinary one. The winning side is chosen first and the animation is then solved to land on it, so how long the wheel spins has no bearing on the result.
Is a real coin actually fair?
Less than people assume. A 2023 study recorded 350,757 real coin flips and found a small but consistent bias: a tossed coin landed the same way up as it started 50.8% of the time. The effect had been predicted decades earlier from the physics of a wobbling toss, which keeps the starting face up marginally longer.
It is a tiny edge and it will not change who does the washing up. But it is a real one, and it comes from the flip rather than the coin - which is the part a browser does not have to reproduce.
The practical difference is smaller than the fuss it invites. A coin is fine. This is fine. Neither is worth arguing about, which is rather the point of using one.
When heads or tails is the right call
The same test as any chance-based decision: small, reversible, and already taking longer than it deserves.
Where a flip earns its keep
- Who goes first. Board games, pickup teams, whose turn it is to drive. A flip is the referee nobody argues with.
- Splitting a stalemate. Two options, no new information coming, and the discussion going in circles. A flip is faster than a fourth round of the same points.
- Sport and the classroom. Kick-off, first serve, which team starts. A visible flip is easier for everyone to accept than a call from the front.
- Surfacing what you wanted. Flip, then notice which result you were hoping for. The wheel does not have to be obeyed to have been useful.
Adding a third side
Nothing forces this wheel to hold two options. Add Maybe and the odds become one in three; add a list of names and it stops being a coin at all. The entries panel takes any list you type or paste.
You can also weight a side. Heads at 3 against Tails at 1 wins three times as often - which is no longer a coin flip, but is occasionally exactly what someone wants, and at least the wheel shows the bias instead of hiding it.
What is on the Coin Flip Wheel
- Heads
- Tails
Questions
Coin Flip Wheel FAQ
Is this coin flip actually random?
Yes. Each flip uses crypto.getRandomValues(), the cryptographic generator browsers provide for security tokens, rather than the ordinary Math.random(). The result is drawn before the animation runs, so spin duration and frame rate cannot affect it.
Is a virtual coin flip fairer than a real one?
Marginally, yes. A 2023 study of 350,757 real flips found coins landed the same way up as they started 50.8% of the time - a bias caused by the wobble in a human toss rather than by the coin itself. A digital flip has no starting face, so it has no such bias.
Can I flip more than once?
As often as you like. Turn on Count in Settings and the wheel keeps a tally of heads against tails, which over many flips shows the split converging on even.
Can I use three options instead of two?
Yes. Add any third choice - Maybe, a name, an option - in the entries panel and the wheel rebuilds with equal odds across all of them.
Does it work offline?
Once the page has loaded, yes. Every flip is computed in your browser, so no connection is needed after the first visit.
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