Perhaps not as important as you might think.

Blue in box - 67 contestants - average win £14,652.94
Red in box - 55 contestants - average win £20,676.76.

The blue figure is inflated slightly by the fact that the biggest winner of all time actually had a blue in her box, but got a surprisingly generous offer when left with that and £250,000 at the end. But it still shows what's actually in your box tends to have less impact than people might expect.

Very interesting point Power5. Has anyone simply gone on and gone through numbers 1-22 yet? If everything is as random as its ment to be you should have just as much chance that way as any other.

Not yet, But (Dave) started that way and then skipped number 9, on 'instinct', which happened to have a great number in it (£50,000) So securing a great offer.

(vauge memories in brackets)


In answer to the thread question, you could have a penny in your box and still win about £170,000. You just have to get lucky in your box picking.
But it is obviously in your favour to have a big red, as you can't eliminate it, thus giving the banker something to think about.

I think someone did almost do that once, but they missed out one or two that they were saving until the end. Also, Geordie went across the studio from left to right I seem to remember (didn't serve him too well as he had the only ever all-blue final five!)

As with picking lottery numbers etc., there's no reason why any particular system should be better or worse than any other. Of course, the longer you go on, the more influence what's in your own box has, but even if you have the penny you can still win big if you're lucky with not picking off the high amounts early on.

Dave did, but missed 9 and 20 as they were his favourite numbers. 9 had £250,000 so he was always going to have a strong game.

My vauge memory is now partially refreshed. Didn't he walk away with £50,000? That number is sticking in my mind.

In Dave's game, £250,000 was in the box he missed out on instinct (Box 9), but he went away with £20,000 in the end.

Surely not! If you've got the penny in your box you're never going to eliminate it, so the best situation you could end up with is a £250k/£100k/£75k/£50k/1p final five, or a £250k/1p final two. Neither of these would see a banker offer anything like as big as £170,000. Maybe half of that...

To get a £170,000 offer, you would have to go to the last 2 boxes and keep the £100,000 and £250,000 in play. The chances of the happening are remote but not impossible.

If you were in that situation, would you deal or no deal? - HONESTLY!!!
Would you risk £70,000 for a 50/50 chance of an extra £80,000? I really don't know if I would. I used to ponder that scenario pre Deal or no Deal but never had to make that choice

To be honest, I would hope the banker gave me a smaller offer in that situation to sort of make the decision for me (like £135,000). I would want to go on and play the game, so I think if I was offered anything less than £150,000, I'd take the gamble... Anything more than that, I'd see how impulsive I felt on the day!

I'd no deal there, I think I could more than easily live with £100k, and it's easily worth the risk just to be able to say you won the biggest amount there.

I'd like to think that'd be a "No deal" for me - I'd be very happy with £100k, but the chance of £250k would possibly be too much to resist... That said, £170k would be enough to pay off the mortgage & my debts, so it'd probably be down to just how mental I felt on the day

Cheers

Michael

Imposter Mr Spikey here (dont tell Clare!)

I would go on for sure! Its not just the 80,000 that you could get but the spin offs!

You would be famous for atleast a week so you could earn some cash from that!!

I'm sure I'd deal before I got into that situation (as Sara did when it actually happened). That's assuming sensible offers though, and I'm not so sure they'd come.

I think I would probably go on with both of those two left, unless there was a really inflated offer.

There would usually be a significant safety net in the form of moderately high reds - unless it was a board like Janet had today, in which case the offers would almost certainly be low anyway.