Who thinks that the banker's hypothetical offers (in inactive play) are sometimes larger than what he would offer if the player was in active play?

Definitely not all the time but certainly sometimes.

There are very very clear examples of inflated and deflated hypothetical offers, so 'sometimes' is the obvious answer.

Usually it seems to depend upon how much of a Noel guilt-trip the Banker/producer/whoever wants the contestants to face...

There haven't been many examples of overinflated hypo offers, maybe Brian's perhaps and that was only a little bit and is debatable, most offers
have been ridiculously deflated lately!

It seems quite... cyclical, and we're currently in a cycle of deflated in-game offers and proveout offers that aren't much higher!

it's a bit weird, I think may 07 offers would be good, they were pretty balanced. it's a striking contrast to Feb/March when people were dismissing good offers all the time. We need people playing the board and realising the offers are bad so we have better player vs banker battles.

From about October right the way through till April, the offers in play or hypothetical were stupidly high, and everyone dealt [with the exception of Laura and the £45k].

Like KP said, sometimes is the obvious answer - take a bloke's game recently [i dont remember his name] where he had 10p or £35k and the offer would've been £15,000. Then you have Annie's game, where she had £50/£35,000 and would have been offered £7k. So sometimes really is the obvious answer, and thats what i voted.

I think the banker's gone mad because Robert and stephen both had 10p vs 35K. robert was offered a hypo 15K and Stephen was offered a hypo 4.4K. The banker has lost it!

Only sometimes, I think

Some are ridiculous..others arent too bad though.

I've voted sometimes as the banker does often inflate hypothetical offers to make it seem like the deal was worse than it actually was. It does tend to vary from person to person, and also it varies in cycles - sometimes he goes through a stage of making consistently high offers, sometimes consistently low, sometimes high in-play and low in proveout and sometimes low in-play and high in proveout!

There was a topic about hypothetical offers in the statistics section a while back - http://www.dond.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?t=8017

Seconded. He just doesn't know what to offer now, and so he just sticks in any random amount. But £4,400 you have got to be kidding me, especially when less than a week before, a guy would've been offered £15,000.
But i dont blame him for the VERY quick and drastic fall, and hopefully demise, of DOND. I blame Noel.

And Tom, you're joking right? Just about all of them are either way too low or way too high, juding by the past 530 or so shows i've watched

not overinflated, UNDER inflated! especially once the player has made it to the final two after knocking out a few high numbers before.

eg

deal at 20k
hypo offer at 50k
final two offer at 3k with a blue and 35k left

Just a thought, but maybe they're lower at the moment as they didn't know quite how the show's source of revenue might be affected by the telephone scam thing. I know that in the general scheme of things, the £20000 or so that they might give away on an average day isn't a huge sum of money to Endemol, but everyone has profit margins to keep to and that income from the viewers competition (along with advertising) must be the biggest chunk of revenue for the show as a whole.

that's an interesting point but surely they must have the revenue to make some of the stingy offers a few grand higher. They can't be that desparate to same a few grand per game by trying to force people to the end, can they? It's an interesting thought provoking point though.
There are different factors to consider with offers though. They could just be altering them for entertainment value.

Taking it one step further, it might also explain why the Banker's offers were generally lower when the show first started back in 2005. They might not have been sure when they recorded the initial shows just how successful the show and the viewers competition were going to be so had to keep it tight as a result. As the show prospered, so did the Banker's offers. Might be something in it!

Haha, what's poor Noel done? I don't see what he's got to do with the banker's weird offers... although, having said that, I'm certain the guilt trips he took people on in March 2007 encouraged the banker to inflate his proveout offers...

Here's the thing; if everyone goes to the end, the average win ought to average out to £25,712.12. In fact, it's generally eight or nine grand short of that. There are two fair ways to minimise prize winnings if that's a priority (you can think of the unfair ways yourself, I'm sure):

1. Good offers. Not high ones, not low ones, good ones. Medium-high with the occasional stinker might work, for it will make players unsettled enough to potentially deal the first decent offer they see.
2. Picking cautious players. This is a far more reliable approach.

I don't know if Endemol are using either - frankly we'll never know if some of these 22 are cautious or not because there's been nary a big decision for days.

Yes I hope we have a decnt game soon where the player is at least a moderate risk taker, there's decent luck and the banker trys to buy the box.

it's been very odd lately how the banker offers rubbish then there's disatrous rounds to follow. Robin, pete etc.

Although Caroline's given good advice assesing the board so I'm looking forward to her game.

Interestingly the players are winning in season 3 overall. The banker has paid out an average of £17934.5296 for boxes worth £14802.91.

Offering stupid offers all the time will occasionally backfire because you'll occasionally get a game like rossano's which'll up the winnings. It must be pretty hard to control the payout unless the box contents are known by the banker.