Is Deal Or No Deal pure chance or does faith and destiny determine results? On the surface the show would seem to be largely luck, with boxes picked purely at random. Yet interestingly, Noel often asks contestants about their spirituality at the start of the show, and if they believe in fate and destiny. Moreover, contestants have admitted to a spiritual system when they select their numbers. Many people on the show have talked about vibes, and had "feelings" about what was in their box, some with remarkable accuracy, and contestants have frequently asked their fellow contestants whether they had a sense of having something large or small in their box to help them in their selection. Does God intervene to assist? Are the results determined in the stars or the positivity of the contestants and the audience? Is it just nothing but pure chance? Also, have you ever had a strong feeling about how the show would go without knowing in advance, and discovered you were 100% right?

In short, No. It's just chance.

Well that's what I thought originally, but now I'm not so sure - like when Morris predicted he would have a red box and he had 250k, and when Gary knew Sandy had the 250k. Also see my thread "How strange is this" or something along those lines.

In other news, how good would it be to get a psychic on the show? They could just knock em off one by one, 1p upwards...

Sorry to be cynical on the matter. I wish I could believe it were true but I'd imagine quite a few people predict what they have in their boxes and Endemol edit the show accordingly. Just my humble opinion of course.

It's pure chance

For every time where somebody has predicted correctly, there are plenty of times when it's been predicted wrongly. In Dave's game this week Emma B was absolutely positive she had the penny, only to reveal the only red amount left on the board. Richard said he had "a good feeling" about Clare's game the day before and we all saw what happened there...

I'm in no way knocking somebody who uses 'spirituality' to choose their boxes -- it's as good a method as any other. But I don't believe it's better than any other...

I suppose so - it's easy enough to remember good luck and forget bad luck if you see what I mean - we only remember when players make the good predictions.

Of course it's chance - but it's the players on the show believing that it isn't which makes the show so interesting. That's why I can't imagine the American version being any good - not (just) because they're americans, but because the contestants and their good faith is what makes it so endearing. To me anyway.

I think it does encourages positivity - but blind faith about whats in your box is dangerous, as it makes people reckless at times. It is a game of chance, but its nice to see a bit of 'spiritual intuition' at times, to add flavour to proceedings.

It is amazing the number of times the fellow contestants advise the contestant in the chair to go on because they have a good feeling about how well they will do, but all the positivity and hand holding hasn't stopped some disastrous results! Having said that, I really do believe that at times there has been a dimension to certain games that seems to go beyond pure chance.

Well I think it is chance at the end of the day but I think its comforting for the players if someone else says what they're feeling about a box.

A study in new scientist a few years back showed that when people try to predict which box an object was in. It showed that people were more likely to guess the box than not. I believe it only showed around 5.5 - 6.0 times out of 10 they would guess correctly so not astounding but this test has been repeated around the world with similar results.

I note we had the first all blue round before the first all red round too.

Amazing coincidences seem to happen regularly, or are they more than coincidences? For example, on the last two consecutive games (April 26th and 27th 2006), Dot's and Richard's, the second banker offer was £12,000, turned down in both cases, and in each show the immediate next box they both opened was the £250,000! At least Richard went away with £1,000 more than the rejected £12,000.

To me it's pure chance. All the hand holding and positivity in the world aren't going to change what's in a particular box. Yes, some people seem to make good choices based on their "system" (whatever it may be) but by the law of averages, some people are bound to get things right from time to time. I remember one guy who was very into spirituality but managed to swap a £20,000 box for a £10,000 one at the very end after some serious meditation on the subject. Oops.

That was Finn, I really liked him until he started to "feel" the boxes, it made him look like a right wally IMO

Ahhh yes, I knew it was a monosyllabic name but couldn't remember for the life of me what it was. He was in the audience for Lucy's game if I remember rightly.

Hilary's game today, 28th April was amazing in the sense that she seemed convinced that £50,000 was in her box so much so that she was prepared to gamble between £5 and £50,000 at the end with the banker's offer of £15,000. The fact that she was prepared to give a significant amount of money as a deposit to her daughter for her house is interesting. Here's another interesting stat. When Raj had 10p and £500 as his last two boxes and got an offer of £200 from the banker, Andy was prepared to offer Raj £200 if Raj went for it only to find 10p in his box which as it turned out he did. Andy was picked for the show the very next day and won £20,000 , a hundredfold return on his generosity. Some might believe in karma, others the biblical promise of reaping a hundredfold return on sowing a seed, still others will believe that it is all chance, and the supernatural doesn't exist at all, but either way it's interesting isn't it? Personally, I believe that there is a God who wants to bless us financially. It is true that people don't always get what they deserve, but sometimes they get much better!

True, but there are also lots of contrasting examples - most notably Fadil, who was going to give all his money to his wife and ended up with 1p!

Well maybe he secretly wanted to get the penny after saying that!

Try telling that to the 1p club!

There are more sources to receive financial rewards than just Deal Or No Deal, and certainly some people just were unlucky on the day, simple as that. Also, just think of it, the 1p club could end up being hired for after dinner speaking, sell their story, make a book, or something similar and be able to make good money, and who knows, they might end up being able to star in some kind of DOND special cos they won 1p, then win lots of money!! So just cos things didn't work out on DOND, doesn't mean that they won't have a wonderful financial future!