17 of the players on the wings would take box 23.

Michelle says

DEAL

She returns her £1,800 winnings...

Didn't expect that. Hopefully it has +£10,000.

Noel opens box 23 and reveals

MONEY BACK

Michelle's winnings remain unchanged at £1,800

No change there then. Fair result.

Fair enough. I highly doubt the Banker would've stick at 5 box in live play, so she did a good job dealing when she did, especially as no one else on the wings would've dealt any of today's offers.

EDIT: I just realized the lowest blue at 5 box was £100, so I suppose the Banker really would've stuck at 5 box due to the relative stability of the board.

Well, I wouldn't have dealt any of today's offers either, largely because it was gambling relatively low-stakes on low-risk boards. With high blues, it was worth a punt at 5-box, with a 70% chance of getting that £1,800 back at least, and a decent chance to take £5k to box 23 and make a "smile money" game into a chunky one a couple of ways...

While assuming a stick at £1,800 on a blue/£5k finish is a reasonable assumption, the Banker has been known, especially lately, not to be reasonable. I'd rather have brought £1,800 to Box 23 than risk it with a odds-on chance that it would turn into something in the low hundreds (as I wouldn't have dealt anything less than a stick on a blue/£5k finish and I'd proably try for the £10,000 on a blue/£10k finish even with a reasonable offer so that I wouldn't have to rely on Box 23). Again, though, that's just me. In fact, this is a somewhat similar situation to the four £100/£1,000 finishes we had last month, where I dealt the £400ish offer on all four occasions to ensure I had something significantly spendable to bring to Box 23 while everyone else on the "What Would You Really Do?" thread claimed that they wouldn't have dealt the final offer on all four occasions.