Hello all, first post is a question- given that 24 people to date have won 1p, but only 2 the 250k, and given that the show's been running for 4 years (in the UK) and should have had a chance to even out by now, is this really a random game?

When the £250k is on the board, people are more likely to deal and therefore never get a chance to win it. If the 1p is on the board, people are more likely to no deal (as it usually drags the offers down) and so have a greater chance of winning the 1p. An example is (assuming the player has no dealt to 2-box) if you have a 1p vs £10k final 2, most people would probably decline the ~£2,000 offer. If it were a £10k vs £250k final 2, the offer would probably be upwards of £70k which would tempt most to deal.

Perhaps a more useful statistic to look at would be how many times the 1p/£250k have appeared in the (un-swapped) contestant's box. According to this thread (viewtopic.php?f=37&t=6553), the 1p has appeared appeared at the table 51 times; the £250k 45 times.

Another useful stat would be to see how many times the 1p and the £250k have been in the final 2 (with another value). It's probably a roughly equal number of times, but most have probably previously dealt a large offer with the £250k in play so they don't get a chance to win it!

It is roughly equal, looking at my stats; the £250,000 has been in the final 2 without the 1p, 101 times, and the 1p has been paired with another value 93 times (of course, there's been 2 1p/ £250k finishes, with Debbie and (infamously) Alice). We've seen every 2-box combination with the 1p, but never £250 and £250k in the final 2 (also 3 other pairs we haven't seen; 10p/ £750, 10p/ £1k, and 50p/ £3k).

Thanks for that, it just seems to me that people have the uncanny knack for removing large reds consecutively early on (especially in the last few weeks) and yet we found out recently that the 3 smallest blues have only been pulled together once. The reds appear to be a magnet for a lot of players.
BTW who was the woman with the crystal thing that she pointed and seemed to have an amazing game, can't remember what she ended up with?

There have been 2 people who have had the perfect round of 1p, 10p & 50p (Noel got it wrong when he said there'd only been 1); and conversely, I think there have only been 1 (or 2) people who have had the opposite nightmare round of £75k, £100k & £250k. And there have probably been equal numbers of general all-red and all-blue rounds too.

It's true that a lot of the players recently have taken out chunks of big reds, but there have been plenty of players in the past who have removed chunks of low blues. It's just that you tend to remember the ones who took out the reds, as they normally have the most disastrous games and Noel often mentions them in future games (e.g. Nikki Tucker / Derek Brown). How often does Noel mention people who took out loads of blues in one go (e.g. Keran, stats-man Aaron, Swappy Matt, 1p Colin)? Very rarely, if at all!

If there's a strong game then the entertainment will come naturally in the form of a big-money win; but if there's a really bad game, Noel has to find a way to make it entertaining, due to the lack of money available in the game. Therefore, he tends to dramatise the bad games more than the good ones (e.g. saying "Come back after the break and see if this is the worst game ever"). Also, I think they realise that there are plenty of viewers who would probably want to see a really bad game rather than an average one.