This is going to be a bit of a rant but hopefully at the very least an interesting one. First off: some background. I'm not an avid deal or no deal viewer although it seems everyone around me is so I inevitably encounter it on a regular basis. I'm currently home from university where I'm studying maths (only my first year lol, still working harder than ever before in my life) and so I have a decent understanding of probability etc. This is aided by the fact that about a year and a half ago I got into playing online poker which has become something of an obsession of mine. I'm no high roller (only a student after all!) but without going into too much detail I turn a solid profit and have a good understanding of the game.

And so begins the rant. I find poker to be very analogous to deal or no deal in many ways - ways that will hopefully become clear as my post goes on. Both are deeply rooted in the realms of probability and expected value obviously, and with this, unfortunately (or fortunately from a poker perspective) comes superstition. Ignorant, defiant-of-the-facts superstition. This is nothing groundbreaking, and in fact from a poker perspective this is a good thing because it leads to people making -EV decisions based on flawed logic. Time and time again though I have to bite my tongue as the irritating one liners roll out: "4 is my lucky number so I'll keep it to the end", or "I have a good feeling about this box!", or "I can tell this one is going to be a blue!" How many people have we had on this show who've claimed they can predict the boxes? That they can get 'feelings' from them? And no matter how often they fail, no matter how often the evidence proves them to be wrong, the one time they get it right it's 'spooky'. And as if this isn't enough, the show itself endorses and contributes to this itself! I know it's good publicity and it's 'exciting' but the death box? The newbie? Box 13? Really? How, as intelligent human beings, are we still not beyond believing that we can somehow influence random chance? And now and then you get someone on there who's a maths student, or a poker player, or a statistician, and I never cease to be amazed when they display exactly the same superstitions as everyone else. And now that the show's been extended we're probably in store for even more of this needless deliberation, "should i go with this lucky number? Or that one? Or hold on wait a minute, maybe I should leave them to the end!?" Just pick a box!

The fact is, these so-called 'spooky' scenarios are nothing. Anomalies happen. They're actually inevitable and it'd be more worrying if they didnt happen. But with every person comes a tiny sample size and a selective memory, and this is where the big picture gets lost. Of course in isolation the chance of a number being in the same box for 3 consecutive games is unlikely. But over the course of however many thousands of games have been played? It's near enough a statistical inevitability. Just as in poker the 1-outers will come, aces will get cracked and you'll go on "impossible" runs where you lose 10 coinflips in a row. And yet the weeks go by where box 22 contains blues and no one pays any notice, but the minute it has a couple of power 5 numbers in a row we get this "The death box is back! Avoid the death box!" nonsense.

After the people who simply don't understand the statistics there are those who misapply them. The banker does it, noel does it, and the contestants do it with stunning consistency. "I've had the quarter of a million the past two games in a row so I can't have it again, pick me!" Or, with two boxes left: "The quarter of a million was here yesterday, what're the chances it's here again?" Am I the only one who finds themselves muttering "Fifty. Percent." through gritted teeth when this happens?

The final thing that really gets under my skin is this "playing on as if you were in live play" gimmick. Obviously I understand it's needed to keep the show lengths consistent, to add suspense, etc, but no one seems to get how irrelevant and fruitless this truly is. To make an analogy to poker, the "correctness" of a decision is based solely on EV. A -EV decision is -EV, regardless of the individual outcome. Poker decisions are complex and involve many different factors, but here's a simple scenario. A player moves all-in for 5000 chips. You are next to act and also have 5000 chips. Now, suppose the player in question accidentally exposes his hand, or you in some other way know that he has AA (no, I don't mean through 'intuition' or 'having a feeling', i mean know he has it). The fact is, calling here with 23o is a mistake. Fact. If you fold and it turns out the board would've been 333KQ, does that mean you were wrong to fold? No, of course not. In poker this is called "results-orientated thinking", the notion that making a bad call and getting lucky somehow makes the play correct. But nothing's changed. The situation was the same, and your decision remains correct. Just as in deal or no deal, if you somehow get an offer that's above the average then it's +EV to take it, regardless of what's in your box. The opening of the box at the end is just a formality - it might get a few "ooh"s and "ah"s from the pilgrims, but the individual contents of the box do not change what it's value was at the time that you dealt.

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Guess what I'm wondering is, am I the only person who notices this stuff? Am I the only one who, if on deal or no deal, would just literally select boxes at random and think through every decision rationally in terms of EV and utility? Thinking about it it's probably for the best that I don't go on because I'd eventually snap and shoot down a well-wishing contestant for spouting some nonsense cliché and make an ass of myself.

Now take a deep breath, relax its only a GAME.

If something/someone gets you that mad then don't watch.

Yes i did say i have had the £250k twice, i also said i had one of the power 5 in my box for the past 4 games, just as one of them had been on the table for the same amount of games (whats the odds lol) why did i say that? to give Sobia something to think about when she was putting a lot of pressure on box no 7, my box.

I am not one of those who work out the odds, i went on my instincts on how each and every game was going and gave advice when asked.

Great post and one that I totally agree with. In the end, all the talk of curse of the newbie and death box etc just makes good television and builds the tension. As someone who also plays a bit of poker and has a maths degree, I totally get where you are coming from but in the end, you just have to accept that if players want to play the game with lucky numbers, superstitions and feeling about boxes, they have the right to do so, even if there is no mathematical basis to it.

In a way, if every player played the game in exactly the same way, the show wouldn't have just passed 1500 shows but unless quiz shows, there is no part of the application process that tests people's ability to play the game and I don't think I'd want it that way. Yes, the show would be more satisfactory to watch in a pure mathematical way but it wouldn't make good TV. I think even the most cautious of viewers gets a thrill in someone taking that big gamble at the end every so often just for the reason that it makes good TV.

I should probably not have forgotten to give some kind of disclaimer at the start of my post that I really am not looking to offend individual people. Obviously I understand its human nature to do these things and that's not going to change but I've always found it curious that I've not seen one person on there who has the same line of thinking that I would. I don't claim to have watched nearly all of the episodes that there have been but still.

Also, to Jules:



What I would say to this is: what exactly are you giving her to think about? You're leading her from one arbitrary box to another, both with the same inherent value, based on haphazard facts that don't influence the current scenario. Rather than overloading someone at a crucial decision with fallacious information, would it not be more pertinent to offer other kinds of advice? Again, I know you were obviously only meaning well but I think sometimes more harm than good can come from misinformation like this. Just something to think about.

I think there are a few of us on here who think the same but you learn to live with it and accept it.

BTW, when did the Death Box become the Death Bo? . I know there's a thing with the highest numbered box in other versions round the world but what sequence of games caused Noel to christen Box 22?

I don't actually know, but i think it was really early on in the show's run.

Btw, as a poker player, would you approach most offers with bankroll management in mind? Obviously statistically it's always +£ev to no deal because the offer never exceeds the average, but taking into account utility etc shouldn't it always boil down to bankroll management? As a student I don't have a lot to my name, so if I get offered £15,000 how can I turn it down? Say I have £5000 to my name and get offered £15,000. Even if it's +EV to continue, how can I? This situation to me is comparable to someone with a £20k bankroll putting £15k into one sng or one decision... its ludicrous, even if you have like 3 to 1 on your money (which i doubt you ever do in DonD) you can't take that because the risk of ruin is too great.

Yet I never seem to see anyone take this into account either...

I think it was in the early days of DonD when box 22 was notorious for having large amounts. I didn't start watching the show properly until November 2007 so not right for me to comment perhaps.

And Cookie Monster. I think a bit of advice from the wings isn't a bad thing. I recall Emma in November 2009 when she would offer advice during her duration on the show. Ironically, her own game became something of a trainwreck.

Now the pilgrims and moreover family and friends can sometimes be an inconvenience when making decisions for the player, as has been proven often. The one game recently (forgot her name) but her boyfriend was making her game very uncomfortable for her. (I think I'd have personally punched the git! It was HER game, and not his.) Even Noel looked angry which is very seldom seen bearing in mind it's supposed to be a family show.

But as the old adage goes... 'If in doubt, ask!' I don't see a problem with offering advice of any sort unless, as example said above, they try to take over and influence the player into making rash decisions under duress.

Phil.

Oh no, certain types of advice are good! Advice to imagine the money in your bank account, the 'which would you regret most' scenario (even though ive mentioned why regretting taking less than is in your box is illogical, to most people this regret is still a real factor so it should be considered), you're only here once... they're all to an extent clichés but they have their uses, I'm not denying that at all.

What I think is dangerous is the misleading advice, when contestants are led to believe they're more likely to succeed than they are (based on no big numbers coming to the table recently, for example) which may lead them to take risks they can't afford. I'm not saying that it happens often or that it's down to a single piece of bad advice but it all factors in. And I think when people are making big decisions with such large sums of money on the line people should be very careful what they say. I know I for one would be very careful when giving advice to make sure that it wasn't biased or incorrect.

Faith in things can be great and can spur you on, but too much of it can be very dangerous. It's when people turn down large sums of money because they have their lucky numbered box or the like that it becomes a real problem. Instead of considering this the contestant should be really considering the monetary offer and the true statistics (if they so choose), but sometimes (albeit rarely) superstition overshadows that.

Every gameshow has its little quirks and trademarks - Weakest Link with Anne Robinson's wink, Millionaire with Chris Tarrant asking if it's the "final answer", Dale Winton shouting "BRING ON THE WALL!", Philip Schofield dramatically telling people to "enter The Cube" and so on. DoND is no different, which is why its built up these trademarks over the years - and by "trademarks", I mean the stuff surrounding box 22, the "curse of the newbie" and so on. It's just that with DoND, these trademarks apparently abuse the foundations of maths at times, but the general viewer won't really care (or even notice).

Having said that, I never placed any significance on any of the boxes when I was on the show. When it came to my show, I picked the boxes by going across the wings diagonally - because I knew that otherwise, I'd have just gone along the wings in order or gone "1, 2, 3... etc" and those had been done before and I wanted to do something new. I saw lots of contestants pondering over boxes because it was their lucky number or something, and it was a bit frustrating when you consider all the boxes are loaded at random. I remember one elderly contestant (Doreen) asking what I had in my box. I told her that I didn't have any feelings, as it was just a box, which she chuckled at.

There have even been one or two horrible occasions where people have said that a certain box is the date of birth of their late relative, and then they go to the end, swap for it, and win the lower amount. Alice, who won the £250,000, was considering swapping for her "lucky number" 3. Everyone forgets that had she swapped for box 3, she'd have 1p. Of course, if she'd swapped for box 3 and won the £250,000, then Noel would've frequently mentioned how Alice won the jackpot by swapping for her lucky number.

On the other hand, sometimes placing significance on the numbers "seems to work", so it's not surprising people will remember those occasions. Another 'ex-winger' of mine, Dirk, piped up during Dermot's game and told him that box 4 would have the £250,000, as Dermot had box 16, and 4 is a quarter of 16... in the same way £250,000 is a quarter of £1,000,000 (totally insane logic!). As it turned out, box 4 did contain the £250k and Dermot chose it and blew his game apart. Some other contestants went from thinking Dirk was a nutter to thinking he was a genius. I think Dirk was saying it just to muck about (as he often had fun on the wings!) and he knew it had no mathematical foundations whatsoever.


I think it had something to do with the fact that it's also his lucky number (and his date of birth - 22nd December)!

I think KP has the best take on utility theory on here.

Personally, I don't have many financial commitments at the moment and have a job which pays decent but not exceptional money. I tend to make decisions based on whether the reward of going on outweights the risk but honestly, there is a point in games at 5-box and earlier that for offers of about £30k-£40k, even though statistically it would be the right to go on based on the EV of the next offer, the amount of money being risked would scare me into dealing (but then I'm the type of poker player who tends to always think the worst when some reraises me)

I suppose a lot of what i've said boils down to this; I wasn't able to throw in proper examples to my post but this sums it up very well. That 4 being a quarter of 16 is genius... it sounds so ridiculous but what's brilliant is that it's just as obsolete as every other system and lucky number in the whole run of the show!

There really isn't another gameshow on TV where even though the mechanics of the game very rarely changes (barring special weeks or banker twists), you never know what will happen each day. Some of the remarks made have no logical sense but can be as funny as anything on a comedy show.

Dirk's comment certainly was comedic! What made it even funnier was that it was a very tense part of the game, and people were in tears and so on, and Dirk just randomly yelled out "DERMOT! 4 IS A QUARTER OF 16! 4... IS A QUARTER... OF 16! A QUARTER OF 16! 4!". No-one knew what he meant at first... and I think Noel was a bit pissed off as it slightly ruined the dramatic atmosphere.

I do remember Noel asking me if I'd cracked the perfect system, and I said I had, but that there's a problem with it - it's irrelevant as it's all random. I don't think he was too pleased at that comment.

Haha yes, systems are certainly 'interesting'. I remember someone who had some 'cluster' logic, they grouped the boxes into threes and then chose one from a three, and if it was red i think they'd open the other two (because its unlikely to have 3 reds in one cluster!) and if it was blue i think they moved on. Obviously got very confusing very fast and it also fails to consider that past events have no bearing on probability whatsoever, but still.

The harder the systems try to be clever the funnier they seem to get!

I presume he wouldn't be too pleased either if a contestant kept on insisting that 22 is not the Death Box...

I guess things like "death box" and "curse of the newbie" is implemented and pushed to add character to the show, as the show does pride itself on being very light-hearted and charasmatic. I definitely see where you're coming from, and I do agree that seeing people dither over their lucky number is sometimes an annoyance. Sometimes we've seen it go either way, wrong or right, so to see people believe so much in a number that means a lot of them isn't always a logical thing to do.

Yes, this is a fascinating game, and the irrationality and quasi-spiritual thinking around the show manage to transform the show from televised economics to televised psychology. And let's face it, the latter is an easier sell than the former to Average Joe, and the former's still there under the layers of psychology (indeed, more than a few economists have studied different versions of DoND, ours included).

I too play the game on mathematical principles primarily, but of course there's psychology involved, not least because pre-2-box decisions are dynamic, based on future offers as well as the box (if I'm anticipating, or am promised, a near-mean offer for keeping the one big red through round 6, suddenly the gamble becomes a 40% chance of quite a lot more than I'd otherwise expect, increasing the certainty equivalent of the gamble).

I ought to write a simple guide to utility theory on another thread at some point. I reckon people would read it, as it seems that through my posts it's reached a critical mass of people hearing of it and wanting to know more. One-sentence summary for DoND strategy application: imagine converting all the cash amounts into arbitrary units based on what you can do with them, then play to get the maximum number of those.