This page provides a facility that enables two people in different locations to conduct a remote, unbiased "virtual coin toss" at any time, the result of which can be independently and remotely verified after the event by both parties.
The concept is that a virtual coin is "tossed" at regular 5-minute intervals around the clock, and the results recorded for later look-up. Both parties agree in advance to use the virtual toss at a specified future time and which of them will win if it comes up 'Heads'. They then wait for that moment, and after it has passed they can both look up the result for that time to see what the outcome was.
All the coin tosses are fully random and fully independent of each other, thus giving exactly 50% odds of a head or a tail for each and every toss. Results of past tosses are retained for a little over 8 months. It is designed primarily for use in the UK and the UK local time-zone, but it can be used from anywhere by anyone. It was adapted from an idea taken from a similar scheme for a US time-zone which can be found at http://cgi.cs.duke.edu/~des/vct/vct.cgi.
The current time is:
For the curious numismatist, the coin displayed is a British £5 sovereign, 22ct gold, technically legal tender but not something that you would be likely to encounter when out shopping!
For the purists, the random numbers used here are not "pseudo-random" but are obtained from Random.org and are generated using pure atmospheric "white" noise. This is better than using the Lottery Bonus Ball, which is slightly biased (about 51%) in favour of odd numbers.
