Noel says we respect the fact that Franny couldn't risk the chance to drop back down to £7,500.

Noel reveals that Franny has also won a holiday for 2 to Egypt for 1 week from his holiday box he got earlier.

We get to see an out-take of Noel filming the intro in the sleigh.

Didnt like that ending at all. Just leave him alone with his 15k and holiday!

Like Lyn said, pressure was off, throwing for £15k would have been different.

Really like Franny and not a bad result especially after yesterday.

Is this a DOND first where the destiny of the game is not decided by box opening but an alternative skill?

Franny may have thrown the first snowball in, but it would have been very different if he had had to throw
with the pressure of being in live play.

Well done Franny on 15K and the holiday!

In a sense, it was throwing for 22.5k, since if he didn't make it he'd lose half of his 15k, leaving 7.5k rather than 30k if he got it in.

It depends how you see it. The US version (an episode recorded in South Africa) had a contestant eat five mopani worms to win an extra $10,000. Where the Deal Wheel twist had contestants dropping a ball into a moving upstraight roulette wheel. You could say some skill is involved as to when to drop the ball (applying physics and all that).

They planned this when they planned the twist, it was no job done overnight. I have a sneaky feeling they will use this again but for something like Banker's Birthday Week or the Summer Week (e.g. having a coconut shy).

I was thinking that too. The only thing I can think of that comes close is people doing dances or singing etc (such as Russ's 'Tiddly-Winky' dance) to get the offer increased. But I don't think anyone's ever had to actually partake in a skill-based game like today's.

It was a bit of a silly twist but quite an intriguing one. I also thought it was quite easy - especially with 4 balls and therefore 4 chances. Also don't forget that the distance that Franny had to throw the ball probably would've been smaller in real life than it appeared on-screen (due to camera angles). It's a shame he didn't take it on but I can see why he didn't.

I liked Franny so it was great that he got a really nice sum out of the game and hopefully he'll be able to keep the roof above his head!

Alternate Reality

Franny accepts The Christmas Gamble. Throws one snowmall and misses, telephone rings, Noel holds it to his mic. The Banker doing an impression of The Cube "three lives remaining", he hangs up.

In a way it's harmless but would see the format be ripped from the heart if it's done all the time. I suppose they could do a skill based gamble once per theme week and that would be it.

Did anybody think the christmas gamble could've been used yesterday but had to be put back to Boxing Day based on the result?

Personally, I see it as a totally separate game. No matter what happened in the studio after the final box had been opened, Franny's game of Deal or No Deal would still have given him £15,000. If he'd wanted to gamble some of his winnings from it on a separate throwing task, then that's another issue. (On a similar note, my spreadsheet shows that Daimon won £5000 from his game last Easter. The fact that Daimon immediately gambled away those winnings doesn't change the result of the game itself.)

I think it would have been difficult for anybody to take on the gamble today with no experience of how those balls would behave when thrown. Would they fly straight? Would they get blown off course easily? Would they bounce off the lip of the chimney thing in the right direction? How hard would you need to launch them? With no idea of any of that, I wouldn't have liked to risk any money at all, so I don't blame Franny for not going for it.

An enjoyable game, i found Frannie to be an engaging and entertaining contestant and that board was wonderful.

Suspect he might have hedged his bets and dealt at 8 box in normal game mode but even without the Santa or Scrooge twist that board was well worth playing out. Shame it didn't net him a bit more money but £15k is still a good result

The end game twist was certainly a novel and intriguing one off though i wouldn't want it to become a regular occurance. I suspect it was thought up to help pad out one of the one hour shows

On a side bar does anyone think the West Wing has hogged this week a bit? The last 5 players have all come from that side of the studio and all but one of the Banker's special prizes went over there too. If i was a player on the East Wing i'd be feeling a bit left out right now.

I don't think that had £10k been won yesterday, risking £5k of it to win another £10k given the circumstances of the win would have been likely. Agree that had they done something like giving 3 attempts at the snowballs and paying £1k per success, it would have seemed like the cop-out they gave PJ all that time ago.

Quote of the season, and almost good enough to make this shocker of a twist worthwhile.

With the opportunity to outdo the eight-box offer, and going from a shocking eight-box offer to a ludicrously generous one at five-box, this whole game reeked of goading a cautious player on. Massive respect to Franny for recognising what was important to him, and even Noel had to admit it at the end.

A game I'm quite happy to have missed.

Yah brought back good memories of last year Happy New Year Love Ell xxxx

well done franny enjoy your money ,should have took that one oppurtunity though ,but you did whatever you thought was right

Well that went from very stingy on a fanatstic board to ensure the game got to 5-box, to being way too generous on a board which had turned average in one round. Glad he got a good get-out I have to say.

But please, DOND, no more twists based on skill. DOND is a game of chance primarly, the only skills needed should be reading the offers against the board, and getting the banker's respect. No fairground-type stuff please! Even though the odds were in his favour, I was pleased he turned down the gamble, at least to discourage them to do it more. Also doing things for no money is a million times easier than doing them for £7,500 so there's no saying he'd have done it with the pressure on, especially if he needed £15k to save his accommodation!

I thought eggs at the end of the game to do all-or-nothing in Tony and Daimon's games was bad enough but at least that was pure chance!!