How to Flip a Coin (and Through Your Fingers)

Everybody has flipped a coin, but surprisingly few do it well. A good flip is high, spinning fast, and caught cleanly. Here is the technique — and the party piece that comes next: rolling a coin across your knuckles.

How to flip a coin

1. Make a loose fist with your thumb tucked under your index finger, as if you were giving a thumbs-up that changed its mind.
2. Rest the coin flat on the side of your curled index finger, balanced on top of your thumbnail.
3. Flick your thumb up sharply. The thumb strikes the edge of the coin, sending it spinning end over end into the air. Aim for about head height.
4. Catch it in the palm of the same hand, or let it land on the floor or the table.
5. Slap it onto the back of your other hand, if that is your tradition, and uncover it.

A heavier coin spins better and is easier to catch than a light one.

Making the toss fair

• Call it in the air, not before the flip and not after the catch.
• The flipper should not see which side is up when they start.
• Flip high and fast — a coin that wobbles up a few inches is not a fair toss.
• Let it land on a soft surface if there is any argument about a catch.

Even a good flip is not exactly 50/50. Here is why.

How to flip a coin through your fingers: the knuckle roll

The knuckle roll walks a coin across the backs of your fingers and back under them. It looks impossible and takes a few weeks of idle practice.

1. Balance the coin flat on the back of your index finger, between the first and second knuckles, with your hand palm down. Your thumb steadies it from below.
2. Tip the coin over onto your middle finger: lift your index finger slightly so the coin rolls over its edge onto the back of the middle finger, pinched upright between them for a moment.
3. Lower the middle finger and raise it again to flip the coin on, to the ring finger.
4. Repeat to the little finger.
5. Return it underneath: let the coin slide off the little finger, catch it with the thumb under the hand, and carry it back to the index finger to start again.

Tips:

• Use a large, heavy coin. A half-dollar or a 40 mm commemorative coin is far easier than a dime.
• Go slowly. Smoothness comes with time.
• Practise while doing something else — watching television, on the phone. That is how everybody learns it.

Decision coins

For the decisions that a coin is really for — where to eat, who deals, who washes up — a decision coin says "yes" on one side and "no" on the other, so nobody argues about what heads meant. Flip it, and let the coin take the blame.