I agree with StatsMan. It's all a bit dull at the moment.

Is £3,000 really the most that has been gambled by a player (excluding Joey)? 27 days in that's a pretty poor statistic.

£3,000 or less it's just a boring gamble. Does anyone care if someone gambles £3,000 and gets nothing? If it was me I wouldn't be losing much sleep over it.

The idea I like the most is replacing NOTHING with QUARTER.

The banker's offers aren't helping either. The worst thing about them is that players are actually dealing them. What could have been some incredibly high wins have been modest sums due to players dealing early. The fact that Deal-Eye is already on £500,000+ compared to the player's £100,000+ speaks volumes about how little risk the players will take.

Roger was asking advise about 23 with his £5,000 today. The overall advice was to keep the money! Why are they all so negative?

I would personally like to see what would happen with Box 23 during a themed week. Generally, theme weeks see the contestants performing some kind of task in order to get a holiday, playing one-box-at-a-time, or some other kind of bonus. But if they fail, either nothing happens, or the Banker looks inside their box.

What would be interesting is if the Banker would offer a choice after a failed task. He could either look inside the contestant's box, or the contestant could allow him to look inside Box 23 instead.

Additionally, perhaps one or more of the Box 23 outcomes could be modified to fit the theme of the week, or perhaps some new options could be added. Box 23 already adds to the game a bit, and theme weeks will allow for more excitement (or awkward situations).

I'm sure it's because of the psychological effect of the player (Roger, in this case) already having won the money. I know it's only a 20% chance of winning nothing due to box 23, but you can see why players on the wings don't want to advise something that could potentially turn a reasonably feel-good ending for Roger into a relative 'disaster'.

I think losing £5,000 in that case is totally different to someone no dealing while the game's still 'live' and then ending up with next-to-nothing. Rightly or wrongly - and it's been said many times before - maths is only a small part of the equation (pardon the pun) for most players.

Box 23 has been dealt 9 times out of a potential 23 times so far.

The winnings that have been risked on box 23 so far are:

£10,900
£3,000
£100
£5
£5
£5
£1
£0.50
£0.10

The winnings that have NOT been risked on box 23 so far are:

£40,000
£15,000
£12,500
£12,000
£11,500
£8,000
£8,000
£8,000
£7,500
£7,500
£6,282
£5,000
£5,000
£5,000

Full breakdown of box 23 stats here: viewtopic.php?p=821017#p821017

You know, I'm starting to think Box 23 isn't working out as they had hoped it would. I think they pictured it as a way in which players could add a little bonus to their already good winnings. Instead, it seems to be used by blue/orange winners as a lifeline.

I mean, the idea was good, but they hadn't reckoned on most people value £5,000-£10,000 as big enough sums not to risk.

Maybe, what they should do is drop Box 23 as a permanent fixture. So, say, in today's game, Jason could only have gone for it if he'd dealt, or had the £5,000. Then, maybe it'd look more like a good chance to increase winnings, and not just a lifeline for blue winners.

Of course, I'm happy for Tash and James that they got the extra money, but others aren't.

If Joey hadn't taken Box 23, I don't think it would've got the initial good reception it did.

I think Box 23 was designed to be a lifeline for blue winners at least as much as a bonus for those who won significant sums. In James' game for example, whereas previously some people might have turned off when the £50k was found, 23 offered them some incentive to stay tuned, a bit like the 5-box twist did for Rachel and Pete's games at Christmas. That said, Box 23 also reminds me a lot of the twists we got at Easters 2009 and 2010, where players were offered extra money for finding the 'good egg' or 'happy cat'. Those games gave us a blue win increased to a few grand, but also 2 £5k wins reduced to nothing - not surprising then that it didn't become a regular feature at the time.

Initially Box 23 may have given some players a spur-of-the-moment incentive to play further into the game (Kash, Jamie, even Lily to an extent) although it may also have given other players spur-of-the-moment incentive to take a good sum early so as not to have to rely on it later (Patrick, Graham). The players on January haven't really had long to work out how to incorporate the box into their strategy - the ones who would have been filming their games at the studios over the past few weeks would have been among the first to be entering the game with prior knowledge of Box 23 and what it can do, so who knows, maybe a few of them (not all) will have thought more about how they could use it.

Ultimately for a lot of players, if they're worried about the 10% chance of the worst possible round at 5-box, they'll be worried about a 20% chance of going home with nothing. So far the producers have kept it simple and made all winnings go towards Box 23; if they were to give players the option of putting a fraction of their winnings on it (maybe £5k minimum or something) and having that amount doubled/halved/given back/wiped/enhanced by £10k, there might be more incentive for players who have won significant sums to have a punt. Box 23 is still in its infancy; the producers are probably already wondering what else they can do with it.

Apologies for the long post. Hopefully I've made a fair point in there somewhere.

That's not a bad idea actually. A bit like they do in Jeopardy! when the players can wager some of their money on one final question.

There'd have to be a minimum wager amount though; so you wouldn't be allowed to, says, put 1p on Box 23 in the hope of getting the extra £10,000. The minimum would have to be, say £3-5,000.

That would make players who've won good sums more OK with taking the final punt. I mean, apart from Joey, the largest sum that has been risked on Box 23 so far is £3,000, and the next highest is £750. And, as I've said before, Joey may well have only gone for it because he expected it'd have something good in it for its first game. If Joey had gone for it and it'd had NOTHING...

Half the players this week won reds, the other half blues.

Half the players this week went for Box 23, the other half didn't.

The half that went for Box 23 just happen to be the same half that won blues.

I'll leave you to draw your own conclusions.

Personally, I think Box 23 is just a waste of time.

What's also interesting is that the actual effect of box 23 compared to the potential effect (i.e. if everyone dealt it) is starting to balance out now. In the w/b 6 Jan, the potential effect would've resulted in a significant loss, mostly due to Lily's game where £40k would've been slashed to £20k had she dealt box 23.

The actual effect of box 23 has increased winnings so far by +16.3%; with the potential effect being +13.4%.

I've just looked into things a bit more: so far this year, we've seen more blue wins than we did in the final four months of 2013!

I do think Box 23 is some players to take just one extra risk, or one extra round that they would usually, so if that's the case, I have no quarrels with The box of 23.

...and a few days after I wrote that, I have a feeling the balance will be severely skewed again.

It's going to take a QM / Nothing combination to skew the figures back to anything like equality now.

I had wondered whether the banker would somehow change the box 23 rules in the event of a jackpot win, in order to encourage the player to take the gamble, possibly using the methods discussed in this thread.

I think it was right the rules weren't changed today though, so early on in box 23's tenure, but maybe for a future £250k win the banker could be tempted to do something naughty...

That's probably because the player nearly went for it and gave nearly every indication that he was going for it. Didn't Roop say "there is still one more box" once his box was opened?

I still think that Box 23 has been good for the show, a couple of months since its introduction, but now think that it should be removed after this year. There are a few problems I have with the twist:

The first is that it attempts to be too clever. Players like the fact that even if they win a blue amount, they can still potentially win an extra £10,000. The producers also want it as it makes games watchable to the end, even if the game has gone poorly before and viewers might have tuned out, and is affordable to them.

But just because something is desirable doesn't make it worthwhile. In my eyes, the twist reminds me of the clock twist in Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, which attempted to make the game faster, but instead removed its subtlety and reduced strategy to a scrambled mess of decisions. Even if a player made it to £50,000, they would very rarely make it past £75,000, limiting the range of payouts.

Box 23 is a patch on the selection process, aiming to get indebted players to become less risk averse, but is only effective when players buy it with low amounts of money. Like the clock format, the producers are attempting to be too clever by aiming for a specific effect, which will quickly tire and make outcomes more predictable.

Another problem is its excessive prominence throughout the show. If 23 increased average payouts by 10-25%, that would be worth mentioning repeatedly.

Before Box 23, the mean of the 22 boxes was £25,712. With 23, if players go all the way, and deal 23 only when they've won £15k or less, the mean payout is £27,005, a 5% increase. If you deal 23 every time except for £250k, the mean payout is £26,186, a 2% gain. Including £250k leads to a drop to £25,141, a 2% loss.

23 becomes more significant the more likely a player is to win a blue, but otherwise (at most) a 5% increase is too small to mention, especially during the first half of the show.

A third problem is that Double is eclipsed by the effects of +£10,000. Double is worth more to players who deal 23 after winning more than £10k, but very few players have done that (or are likely to).

Changing Double to Quadruple would have a powerful transformative effect on the twist, actually making it exciting, as a player who wins £250,000 can potentially win £1,000,000, if they're prepared to go home with nothing, and would be justifiable, unlike with the present Double. Of course, the idea of giving that much money away in one show would turn the stomachs of the producers, even if it was very unlikely to happen in actual play.

I still think the twist is a good attempt at making the game more interesting, and achieves some of its objectives. It needs some refinement before it can become an integral part of the the show. In another post, I'll suggest why a new and simpler twist could replace the need for 23 altogether, while achieving similar effects. All in good time.

Yes, the overall "interest" on winnings from Box 23 has been around 5%, so not a big enough impact to warrant such coverage in games...

Anyway, I think my main "issue" with it is that it's slightly distorted the gameplay; we've seen some players were better off having a trainwreck as they got £10k out of box 23. Whilst I can understand it as a 'lifeline', that doesn't feel quite right, where a disaster essentially turns out to be better than a moderately successful game. There's also cases where playing on for a small increase isn't as ideal, as it's an amount you wouldn't gamble on box 23. I think you're right, it tries to be too clever, and ends up being a bit contradictory...

Because of the way they've done it, there's an inherent mathematical "ceiling" for Box 23 (except for very rare occasions) which is basically a flaw. This is where the Italians get it right, their twist box affects the game in some way when it is revealed. There is drama when it is arrived at usually. And basically, the UK version needed something similar, as proven already cautious players are unlikely to risk even modest winnings on box 23. If their top prize was suddenly doubled/ halved however, their whole mindset could change dramatically. AND the basic fabric of the original gameplay (judging purely on the board without box 23 considerations) would remain intact.

In summary, I think a new box should make things more unpredictable... and currently, it's not really achieving that.

So just under 37% of players have dealt at Box 23.

It's starting to look clear that although it's statistically logical to gamble lowish red wins, it's similar to the BG in that psychologically when you have actual dealt an amount, it's harder to them gamble that amount than if you are no dealing an amount that you haven't metaphorically actually had in your hand.