As you analyse each player whether a gambler is not that hard if you are actually in the player's company for a few days ,I had the pleasure to be there with Savvas,Derek the Owl and Adam(yes Adam was a gambler from day one although he told everyone else to deal)

The unpredictable one's are player's who get swept up in the Dream factory fever then look at the camera and realise theyv'e done something alien to their character and then can only go two ways euphoria or mass disappointment but that is why I still watch,gambling is about emotion and other's are clinical gamblers with stats and odds in mind(Rodney).

When player's comment during player's games look at the way they comment rather than what they say!

Very, very interesting comment. (From someone I'd reckon counted as a clinical gambler - though with your board it was kind of hard to tell, because you had a stable £50,000 board right the way through, and it's a fine line between 'clear Deal' and 'clear No Deal' on that kind of configuration.)



Something we can't easily tell from the edited versions, especially when Endemol seem to filter through the 'courage' stuff quite a bit assuming (rightly or wrongly) that this adds excitement and drama.



Did the other players know that? Why the contradiction? And while I presume you can only judge this from the edited episodes (if you even saw this era), what about Philip from March, who told everyone to gamble then took an admittedly-generous third offer? Are the players unduly influenced by this advice, or any other advice come to that?



That is probably the single most interesting point I've ever seen a contestant make. While you don't state it - and it may not even be this, at least not all the time - I'm taking it that the majority of this is out-of-character No Deals from the desire to 'play the game', either out of a sense of duty to the audience or simply to avoid a sense of disapproval. Is that not a dangerous thing, particularly for the viewing audience - which, given the timeslot, is going to contain a disproportionate share of the most financially vulnerable groups in society?



That, of course, is probably what Endemol (and many here) try and justify the gambling emphasis with. Entirely correct, were it only balanced. It's not.

Don't forget that Aaron from 2006 admitted that much of him wanted to take the £30k but he felt it was too early to go and basically he seemed to fall into the social trap. If one of the best 'clinical gamblers' in the history of DoND can do that, what hope have the other contestants got of avoiding it?

In Aaron's defense, £30,000 is an amazing sum of money to win so early in the game!!!

Which was the point. That even a £30k second offer - and one he recognised the generosity of as accurately as anyone, he said it being 75% of the mean was why 'a large part' of him wanted to Deal - couldn't take out even a calculating player is a sign that people get sucked in.

(Though Matt was always the type who, if not a true Wakeyist, would always be sucked in - hence him turning down the even more generous £35k he got, well that and having all eleven reds when Aaron had 'only' ten...)

Barry was a clear wakeyist from his wing time.

Graeme - I couldn't read him - he didn't say much.

I don't believe anyone on the show who says they are a gambler. Most of the time it is bull just to get higher offers and deal. Why should a bull****ter walk away with more money than others... horrible.

Whereas those who actually gamble like break leg Jeff and King Khanny you can tell because their attitude to the offers, no pathetic dancing and no dithering over the offers and they actually gamble. Going from the third offer to the fourth isn't a gamble. Hardly anything is at risk unless it's a massively overbalanced blue over red board or something.

I don't think Khanny had connections to any royal family...

I have to admit though, he's one of my favourite ever contestants.

One of mine as well, the lack of dithering after every offer even the 49k was it, was fantastic.

Well the whole point is to get the maximum money out of the game. If that is done by pretending you're a gambler to get higher offers and then dealing, I don't see anything wrong with that. If it's done by appearing you're a gambler to get high offers and then dealing at a late stage in the game (e.g. Rodney), then I don't see what's wrong with that either.

If it were so clearly that easy, the Banker would have long since worked it out and not taken the bait.

Noel did talk about tactics yesterday, though I wouldn't consider Laura's being nice to everyone a tactic?

To get the most money out of your game perhaps you have to bluff to the Banker about your targets and to make him believe you are a gambler instead of target driven. At the end of the day everyone who goes on the show wants to win as much money as possible and if that means bluffing to the Banker and making him believe you are willing to risk it then I guess some people will try that tactic. Sometimes it works and other times the Banker can see right through you.