Let me ask you a question:
Isn’t it time for sports betting to extend beyond Earth’s atmosphere and into the vastness of Space?
While perusing the online sportsbook’s “Entertainment” section, I happened across a wager with the following description:
“The first ever betting on a coin flip in Space. A coin flip will occur in Outer Space and be broadcast on Super Bowl Sunday. Place your bets.”
A coin flip in Space!
One can’t help but wonder how a coin toss works in zero gravity. Does it spin forever, suspended in the air until one of the astronauts decides to grab it?
We’ll worry about the logistics of the bet later. What’s more important is the opportunity – and the tremendous betting odds.
American Odds
- Matchup Odds
- Heads-101
- Tails-101
In the meantime, there are still questions that need answered.
Is the coin toss in Space going to be an official part of the Super Bowl, or is it merely happening on the same day – like as a promotional event?
I ask because I’ve been unable to locate any official announcements about this event.
All I’ve found are articles referencing the Super Bowl XLIV coin, which traveled aboard space shuttle Atlantis’ STS-129 for 11 days, completing 171 orbits around the Earth before returning home.
It was then delivered to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio, en route to Super Bowl Sunday and the opening coin toss. (For the record: the well-traveled piece landed on “Heads;” the New Orleans Saints won the toss and the game.)
Here’s how it went last time:
Either BetOnline knows something that hasn’t been announced by the NFL yet, or the coin flip in Space is a marketing event running concurrent to the Super Bowl.
Maybe the sponsor funding this ordeal will broadcast it as a commercial during the game. If so, you’d expect whoever is footing the bill for the stunt to be a bit more vocal about their plans!
Not our problem.
The betting odds are up, and BetOnline says it’s going to happen – that’s good enough for me!
Now, we need to concern ourselves with is winning this wager. It consists of two elements near and dear to my heart:
- Wacky space-based betting, and
- Idiotic novelty props.
I’ll address both “sides of the coin” (pun very much intended) separately.
Betting On Space Stuff
The bookmakers at BetOnline may be correct in their assertion that this is the first-ever opportunity to bet on a coin flip in Outer Space. However, it’s far from my first rodeo handicapping activities beyond Earth’s atmosphere.
In fact, I’m probably the world’s foremost authority on Space/UFO handicapping. Nobody has published more content about extraterrestrial prop bets!
Here are six different articles way overanalyzing various novelty props about aliens and UFOs:
- Pentagon Releases UFO Videos, Helping Us Bet on Humans Reaching Mars
- Which Organization Will Be the First to Send Humans to Mars?
- Stop Whatever You’re Doing and Come Bet on Some Aliens!
- Which Country Will the Aliens Attack First?
- New Alien Props – Who will Win the Alien vs. Human War?
- New Alien Props – Which Celebrity or Public Figure will be Abducted by Aliens First?
And those are just the ones I wrote for this website!
In the past, I penned a piece for another blog where I made my own betting lines for where that Chinese satellite that was due to crash into Earth would land.
This is my jam!
What makes this coin flip wager different is that it will get resolved. Unlike the betting markets in the articles above, there will be winners and losers!
- The damn aliens have been so slow to reveal themselves, declare war on humans, or kidnap our celebrities, none of my previous alien props have ever settled.
- And after watching the Netflix film Don’t Look Up, I’m more convinced than ever that humans won’t be sent to Mars until minutes before some cataclysmic event wipes out the planet. While us plebs are staring at the inbound object, awaiting our fiery fate, we’ll see a quick glimpse of Elon, Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, and the rest of them streaking by in their private rockets, on their way to the Red Planet.
Back to the Coin Toss
So, this is the first Outer Space prop bet with real stakes (assuming there isn’t an alien attack before February 13). And the only info we have is BetOnline’s “Coin Flip from Space” section under their “Entertainment” category and the accompanying note I shared at the top of this page.
- We don’t know whether it’s an official coin toss to determine who kick-offs or receives,
- or whether the event will be separate from the Super Bowl broadcast.
- We don’t even know in which spacecraft this coin flip will occur!
As you saw from the video, the coin floated away without a winner the last time NASA attempted this.
I’m guessing whoever is behind this stunt is aware of the lack of gravity in Outer Space and has a plan for addressing the issue. If not, this event will be much more hilarious than it is now.
Here’s the thing, though: How many details do you really need?
From there, you have two options: “heads” or “tails.”
It’s a random outcome with a 50/50 chance either way.
All the knowledge in the world concerning the spacecraft, where the event will air, and how they’ll address no-gravity wouldn’t make a lick of difference in your decision-making process.
Well…more on that later.
Super Bowl Prop Bets
The NFL season wrapped up this weekend, bringing us to one of the most thrilling times of year for sports betting. Some may argue that March Madness is the pinnacle, but for my money, the period starting with the playoffs through Super Bowl Sunday is the best stretch of wagering all year.
Football betting sites will be inundated with creative prop bets after the NFC and AFC Championships. Once the two Super Bowl teams are decided, that’s when the oddsmakers go nuts.
Last year, when I was focusing more on politics betting, our top-ranked online sportsbooks provided me with enough ammunition to write four whole blogs highlighting a variety of politics-Super Bowl crossover wagers!
They set odds on everything.
- There are halftime show bets,
- cross-sports bets (“Will Tampa Bay score more than LeBron James on 2/13?”),
- over-unders for every conceivable stat and eligible player, and
- classic Super Bowl novelty props – the color of Gatorade dumped on the winning coach, length of the National Anthem, and – of course – the coin toss.
The Super Bowl coin flip has become a staple of NFL betting.
Every year, some wealthy person (usually a cryptocurrency billionaire type) stakes an ungodly amount of money on the opening toss, generating enough headlines and social media engagement to make it worth the risk probably.
However, the Super Bowl coin toss usually comes with a much higher vig.
(The vig is the cost of doing business, more or less — the house cut.)
- The standard price for wagers with a 50/50 likelihood of either outcome is –110 to –120 moneyline odds.
- If you bet $100 at –110 and win, you earn $90.91.
- -120 is a 20% vig, so the same bet wins you $83.33.
The coin flip in Outer Space is exceptional not because of the location it will occur but because of the unfathomably low vig!
You never see wagers with a definite 50% probability of landing on either side listed this close to even money. 1% is nothing!
If you’re considering having some fun with the novelty markets like the coin toss, it’s well worth your time to jump on this one early.
That’s my practical argument for betting on the coin flip in Space; now, let me take you into my world.
Space-Brained Betting
When I wager, I like to get weird with it. I understand intelligent handicapping — betting value, implied probability, and all that good stuff; I just choose to ignore it in favor of bizarre superstitions, magical thinking, and the esoteric.
After receiving the 14th pick in the draft, I spent the rest of the season putting curses on my coworkers – going so far as to pay kooks from around the world to record themselves performing strange rituals meant to smite my opponents.
I didn’t make the playoffs, but I blame the witch doctors I hired off of Fiverr, not my methods.
Trust me; when it comes to contests taking place outside of Earth’s atmosphere, I can’t miss. The problem with fantasy football is all the gravity. It throws off the voodoo.
So, how do we ensure victory on a coin toss in Outer Space?
We’re already getting phenomenal odds; we just need to make the correct call to capitalize on BetOnline’s generosity and collect the cash.
You might be saying to yourself, “A coin toss is random; there’s no way to predict the outcome.”
Under mundane, Earthly conditions, you’d be right. But to win bets in Space, one must think like an alien.
If a highly televised coin flip takes place in Outer Space, the extraterrestrial beings orbiting and observing Earth in their cloaked spacecraft will be interested. Obviously. And as everybody knows, the aliens are masters of telekinesis.
Much like they’re known to park UFOs above military installations and disarm nuclear weapons, we can assume they’ll find meddling in this historic event irresistible.
Whichever way the coin lands, you can bet your bottom dollar it was guided there by alien brain powers.
The only question is whether they’ll choose heads or tails.
Let’s work this out with flawless logic…
Heads
What’s an alien’s most defining feature? Their massive noggins and big dark eyes.
If the extraterrestrial interfering with the toss wanted to send a subtle message to only us super-smart humans like me who know what’s going on up there, they might place the coin on heads. Like saying, “Hey, it’s me with the big head controlling this thing!”
Would an alien understand the concept of “heads” and “tails?”
That may be our only problem. The commemorative coins they use for these events never feature the standard designs. It’s always a picture of football helmets on one side and the stadium or some landmark on the other.
Although, if there are helmets on the coin being used for this thing, I’d expect species capable of intergalactic space travel to deduce that that’s the “heads” side.
Let’s assume the aliens will see the astronauts responsible for flipping this thing when they explain which side is which.
Tails
We know they could be partial to “heads” in reverence of their massive domes; why might they choose “tails” instead?
Well, I’ll keep this short and sweet. Think about everything you’ve ever heard about alien abductions. When it’s time to start probing people, where do they start?
I rest my case.
