Some interesting stats that you can apply on any given day
about the probability of £250,000 being on the contestant's table.
You can also swap the £250,000 for the 1p in this analysis if you
want to know when the penny might next be sitting on the pound table!

The odds of the £250,000 appearing in today's show: 1/22 or 4.5%

The odds of the £250,000 appearing at least once in the next 6 shows=24.4%

The odds of the £250,000 appearing at least once in the next 15 shows=50.2%

The odds of the £250,000 appearing at least once in the next 30 shows=85.8%

The odds of the £250,000 appearing at least once in the next 50 shows=94.42%

The odds of the £250,000 appearing at least once in the next 80 shows=98.6%

The odds of the £250,000 appearing at least once in the next 100 shows=99.45%

Let's hope the £250,000 appears today and the contestant wins it! Are there any circumstances where it would be acceptable for Endemol to intervene to ensure more appearances of the £250,000 boosting the prospects of seeing a jackpot winner?

THanks for the stats - interesting.

I can't see how any situation could be acceptable for Endemokl to fix the gme and get 250k in the palyers box mroe often though.

it's inevitable they will intervene I think. But even if a player has the 250k in their box, it's all down to whether the player plays to the end, so even if they have it, they might not win it. It's so hard to say whether Endemol will intervene or not!

They might do it if the player is a confirmed hard gambler...e.g. they might put 250k in the player's box and 100k as their lucky number.

That's an interesting point H. I think we will definitely see a rise of players who are known gamblers coming to the show in the next few weeks.

Yeah, it definitely doesn't seem to be acceptable for a contestant to deal early these days!

Noel and his stupid chicken noises is stupid.

It was in today's game because it was in response to some cautious advice from the east wing for the contestant to consider dealing at £15,000, a very generous offer given the board at that stage. The game went downhill after that.

Haha, Noel looked stupid making those noises, didn't he? When the game went downhill after that...

Isn't that set of odds a slight version of Mally's Law... i.e. you could say that if the £250k was on the table one day, there's only a 25% chance that it would be there again soon?

Maybe, but Mally's Law is unscientific, although I do quite like it I have to admit!

But even if it wasn't on the table one day, there's still only a 25% chance of it being there soon!

So, Noel's wrong when he says "statistically, it's due here soon"?

Yup...although yesterday he said he realised how annoying he was being, and today he didn't mention it at all! HURRAH!!!!

Sorry, so are the odds of it being on the table higher because it hasn't been there for ages or not?!

No. They're not. There's a 1 in 22 chance of it being there tomorrow, just as there would be if it had been there for the past 50 games.

To be honest then, I don't really see the point of those odds at the top of this page? I don't understand. I got A at GCSE higher mathematics, but probability has always intrigued and confused me in equal measures.

Nice stats. Wish I'd thought to post this a couple of days back...

Although they probably do deserve their own thread.

They're always the odds of the £250k being at the table. There's a 24.4% chance of it being there in the next six games. But if it's there tomorrow, there'll still be a 24.4% chance of it being there in the next six games after that.

The point is that we can get an idea of how long we may have to wait to see it there again. Or at least, we can see how unusual it is that we've had to wait this long.

I don't see how Endemol could intervene to end this run, as if it got out it would be the end of the show.

The independent adjudicator is there for a reason, and that's to ensure all players are given an equal chance of coming to the table with any one of the 22 amounts in their box. Other than the Banker's offers, everyone is treated equally. The long absence of the £250k from the table is statistically unlikely, but then again so is the frequent appearance of the £100k, £75k and £50k recently. If you examine a "random" game like this, there will always be some "unlikely" events which happen - just nobody can predict which ones they will be!