Oops. 29 members of the 1p club is getting silly now...!

Still, Bel seems to be taking it well so she obviously played the game exactly the way she wanted to.

...NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

Wow, what a game! Definitely the most exciting game of the month so far!

It was depressing to see such a stable board get worse and worse with each round, so her decision to take £6,500 was understandable. I thought that the banker's gamble was exceptionally generous; risking 6.5k to potentially win 68.5k. Luckily, Bel recognised this and went for it... only to win 1p. I was sure that we were finally going to get our first season 5 win of over 50k, but it clearly it wasn't meant to be.

I think that's the first time someone's taken a banker's gamble and ended up winning the lower amount as well. Useless fact: six of the last seven penny winners have been women.

Bel had a wonderful start only losing the big one and l dont blame  her for having a stab at the BG at the end.never mind,some you win and some you lose.

Well, I can't see anyone else taking the Gamble for a very, very long time after that

Once again we are robbed of a £50k plus win, Season 5 is not looking good...

I might sound a tad cynical but was it only me who felt the Banker actually urged Bel into either taking the original DEAL ("you won't be invited back") or swapping (considering how close the swap offer came to the box opening)? Now I know the Banker isn't the greatest for telling the truth but this is more a case of trying to shepherd (or sheep dog) the better situation. It is situations like this that sometimes make me a tad suspicious about whether the contents of a box is known or not. Other examples are the huge build ups Noel gives at times (as if to give the player a chance to change their mind) before something like the £250k falls.

Feel really sorry for Bel as I would have liked her to have much more but it seemed like the joke about the man in the sea when his boat sank and he put his faith in God. He defers a rescue by ship and helicopter and ends up at the pearly gates whereupon God says to him "I sent a ship and helicopter, what more could I do?"

Oh noooooooooo indeed. It was well worth going for the bankers gamble so such a HUGE shame she didn't win big, I was screaming at the telly (why do I do that??!!!) to go for it. So so disappointing for Bel, she seemed like such a lovely lady.

So disappointed for Bel today, but it was a 50/50 gamble she really had to take particularly as she must have thought she couldn't have 1p in her box two days running!
Why do all (or most) of the nice contestants walk away from DOND with low winnings???

Horrible ending but I think given the stakes of the banker's gamble, I'd have been a heck of a lot more disappointed if she'd turned it down then could have had the £75k. And I think she did the right thing not swapping, both numbers left at the end meant something to her so she'd regret what happened less than if she'd swapped and won the 1p that way.

This run of bad luck is getting silly now! (But at least there was some excitement!). I thought she couldn't fail to win something pretty substantial looking at the 11-box board too - what a block!

Why does everyone I really like do badly (except Tina?). Actually I liked Carmine too and he did OK.

On the plus side, I coouldn't stop laughing at Mo having the £250k AGAIN (and I have a thing about not picking Box 1 too)!

I highly doubt the banker knows what's in the box. The only times he knows is if someone picks scrooge or trick or whatever when that special twist comes up, and eve then, he can either lie or tell the truth, and since it's around 50/50, you're better off pretending that he doesn't know.

Really, there's no evidence to suggest that he knows what's in the boxes normally. Consistently high and low offers have been given for high or low value boxes at various stages, suggesting he doesn't know. And let's be honest, DOND has been running for over 4 years now. If they did do stuff like this, I'm 99% sure they'd have uncovered it by now a la the phone-in scam.




The 1p 'Mally's Law' might have been going through her head, even though of course the boxes have no memories and thus it still had a 50% chance of 1p in it.

Statistically, turning down the BG would have been an incredibly poor decision. It was roughly 32% of the FD, and 16% of the mean, making it roughly as generous as 3k David's BG (31% of the FD and 17% of the mean). Bel realised this, though unfortunately luck wasn't on her side and she ended up with a penny. It's very annoying that the one time someone takes a generous BG, it turns out to be the wrong decision!

I've been more than a tad suspicious for sometime. To answer Matt26's comments, I don't think the banker necessarily uses what he knows mainly so as to try not to show that he does know and also because some contestants are not "good viewing" so he/they don't really care about the outcome of some shows. I don't think Noel is in on it as that would be far too risky. The bottom line is, why does anyone need to know what is in the boxes, even the "independant adjudicator". Out of interest how do DONDs in other countries handle putting money in the boxes?

Cast your mind back about 15 years with gameshows like Play Your Cards Right which had end games that were impossible to win if the producers decided the star prize wasn't going to be won that week and you'll realise why DOND has to be deemed to be above board. Somebody has to put the amounts in the boxes and if it were a member of the production team who choose who plays each day, then it would give rise to accusations that some days the £250k would be put deliberately in the players box and some days the 1p.

Back to today's game.
Let's start with the positives for the game, a lovely player, a player conversation with the banker that was heading towards something that wouldn't be suitable for transmission at 4.30pm and taking a banker's gamble that was paying out over 10-1 on a coinflip.

On the negative side, it really does seem that the boxes aren't rewarding sensible decisions (although for me that 11 box offer would probably have sent Noel into one of his "11-box bad" rants when I dealt it)

29 members of the 1p club is getting silly now. It's very odd that there aren't anywhere near as many members of the 10p or 50p clubs. Even taking into the account that there are less combinations where the 10p or 50p are the lower of the 2 amounts, the number of members of the 1p club must be statisically significant compared to the number of member of the clubs for other blue amounts.

Well, what a rollercoaster of a game, ultimately ending in yet another dreaded 1p win! It's a gamble most would've taken, and frustrating it didn't work out of course, but an exciting game nonetheless.

After Carmine's OPW yesterday, another interesting name. Belissimo!

Hourglass figure apparently. I'm not watching so can't judge. I can judge that there's the possibility of spousal intervention, but historically it's WAGs influencing their male partners that is more common.

No, it doesn't matter what the player's had before. The £250k going there will certainly make people think that now, and I have a bad feeling she'll change her plan. Three blues and an orange beside that, though, and the other two oranges fall in short order after the obligatory 17-box speedbump (which was higher than most considering).

It's the Dream Factor Chatline! Calls cost £1 per minute from a BT landline, other operators may vary and on a Bakelite phone could cost considerably more. £12,500? Not quite enough to consider, but thoroughly decent, reflecting the exceptional stability.

All-blue! The lowest-volatility 11-box configuration of the new decade, and it'll keep that title for a long time. Noel uses the c-word, which ensures a genuinely dealable offer will be summarily rejected. OK, not summarily rejected, and she's got a five-figure target. To be honest, she'd have been better dealing that rather than giving all her reasons for taking it and then saying No Deal.

Noel emphasises the importance of keeping a block. So of course the top box goes. Monkeynut, the generosity is because of the stability... and that's gone now, so the offer will be £NO_DEAL, and it is, and she's used that old production-team chestnut, 'you're only here once', which is, in fact, the foundation of the justification for <i>dealing</i>. If you're not 'only here once' you can take the hit from one bad game and make up for it with a big win later - if 'you're only here once' you can't. Oh crumbs she's come for a power 5. See you in ten minutes!

H2010's board, and the same offer as both H2010 and h2005; she won... she does deal? Bit late to realise now that you turned down the last two for all the wrong reasons!

Oh, that wasn't good enough, the production team are really annoyed with you for being true to yourself at the third opportunity to do so, have a ridiculously easy Banker's Gamble. Hilarious discussion over the eligibility of ex-contestants to appear in the audience... of course she wouldn't be invited back if she won 1p, that would entail reminding viewers and the contestant that gambles can go wrong, and that would never do. She gambles, of course she does, and... it goes wrong. Still, unquestionably the right decision to take on that particular gamble; a Banker's Gamble after an 11-box Deal on that finish would've been something, and I might have got one if I was in the chair!

Fix or No Fix. I broadly agree with the point that the offers vary a great deal anyway and that it would have been spotted if it has been manipulated; recall that the phone-in competition did get investigated so if Ofcom had any brains they'd have investigated the rest of the show. On the other hand, Ofcom arguably don't have any brains. And this is Endemol, not exactly a production team noted for their even-handedness on other formats of theirs, or their ability to let the basic idea speak for itself rather than drowning it in twists. Personally, I don't worry much about whether the game is 'fixed' or not now, the evidence is uncertain at best, whereas the evidence that the show unreasonably promotes unreasonable risk-taking is an awful lot more compelling.

I'm afraid this isn't the first dealt banker's gamble that's gone wrong.

In that case could you remind me what other banker's gambles have gone wrong? I've either not seen them (much more likely) or plain forgotten them...



I have to say, I've always thought that myself. For example, if you turn down £20,000 and win £1 or something like that, you never have the chance to win it back. And since £20,000 is a lot of money for the vast majority of people, that would give a reason for taking it.

Why it's been associated with no dealing for so long seems... strange.

I remember Karina and Shaun both dealt the Bankers Gamble, only for them to have the lower amount (though on both occasions, they had an all-red finish).

The most recent one which comes to mind is Shaun from a few months ago, handing back 25k on a 10k/50k finish and finding the 10k.

An exciting game, but it was almost inevitable it was going to crash. Come the half way stage the board was so red heavy that it was all but impossible for Bel to go another round without doing some damage. On the other hand she had such a solid block of reds, very few people could walk away from that.

I can understand why Bel felt it neccessary to deal at 5 box but it'salways dissapointing to me when someone takes the lowest offer of the game, The Banker's gamble was very a very generous twist and she was right to take it.

And no I don't believe the Banker knows what is in the boxes

Guest commentary time.

A game with a lesson. How rare. That lesson is: "Never take the Banker's Gamble on 1p / other amount." This person did, and made a fool of herself in the process. For shame. The fact that she took it so well is even worse. You can sense that deep down, the losers really feel like rubbish for what they did, as they screwed themselves out of thousands of pounds. The onus is on them to make good decisions, and it is appalling to see so many contestants don't, thus failing miserably.

I think it's time to officially retire the 1p(athetic) amount now. Okay, it was fine when there were only 10 winners of it, but it's just getting stupid now. It's lost its lustre, so to speak. At this rate, there will be 83 1p(athetic) winners by season's end, or some ridiculous number like that. I think it's enough. Don't you? Just make the lowest prize on the board £1 or something. But then there will be too many £1 winners. You can't have it all, I suppose.

Yeah, I think this show's getting canned soon. Can't see it lasting beyond this season, and it's not because of rubbish like this. U.S. syndicated version's halted production for the 38th time now, and there has been no news of it starting up again. The host found a new job in the process. I suppose that's the proverbial last nail in the coffin. Surely this version isn't too far behind.