Banker's offer:

£1,000 + 1 gift box

Hannah says that £1,000 would be spending money for the holiday if she won it.

Maz says

DEAL

Knew she'd take it TBH.

Maz has £3,000 in her box 15

But there'll be a feel-good ending...

See?

Box 22 with Haroon contains the £5

Now Maz gets the chance to win the holiday to Majorca.

She chooses the RED box and it's LOSE She doesn't win the holiday. The WIN was in the green box; the other LOSE in the yellow box.

Noel now opens the Christmas Day holiday, and reveals it was to CUBA

David correctly guessed it was to Cuba, so he wins £1,500

The banker phones and says he made a promise to himself that if someone guessed the Christmas Day holiday, he'd give it to today's player, so Maz also wins the holiday to Cuba.

Noel wishes everyone a Happy New Year...

I saw the £15,000 too. I thought that would have been a fairer offer for the board

That has to be one of the most frustrating games ever. An amazing 11-box board, which then completely collapses, the player takes a reasonable bail-out to afford a blue win... and they have the higher of the two amounts in the box! I reckon on a normal DOND show she'd have gotten offers that were worth considering, won around 20k or so and we'd have all been happy...

It'd be good to know what monetary value the holidays are as well. For all we know, 1k + 1 gift box might have been an AMO! (Assuming that the holiday is worth over 1.5k)

Good point Matt. I think also that the trouble with these holiday offers is that it doesn't take into account possible "hidden" costs for the player, for example, if they don't have a passport, spending money, travelling to the airport etc...

Geez, even a game like that ends in disaster!

It's 2008 all over again!!!

Good thing Sunday's show will be in another year (and not one ending with an even number ).

A lovely girl and her mum was very much a hands-on back seat driver with advice in her game. Noticed Noel specifically said he wouldn't make any comments about what she should reveal, lest he would jinx it! - he must be listening to critcism and given her superstitious nature that was probably wise of him. Her mums birthday revealed the 75k.

Not many players would have dealt at the top of her game, given the big block of reds which were destined to go one by one.

At Santa/Scrooge she had the 10k offer. With 100k, 35k, 3k, 500, 5. If she had got the scrooge, knowing her box had the £5 its questionable if she would have had a higher offer.

Missed most of it but switched on just in time to see the £100k and £35k go out of the game. Had no idea that the board was wonderful mid-game, you wished it was one of those time where the ADP wasn't at 5-box.

There's no way under the sun they weren't giving her the holiday though.

BTW as I missed the start, what is "Maz" short for? It's been intriguing me for ages as I can't think of any shortened girls' names it could be!

Maz is short for Maria.
If it helps i paid £260 extra to top up my holiday to a week for me and my husband (including my daughter )and to be able to fly from my local airport instead of a london one.

After the game the day before, this was looking like a great game and then from to take the 4 biggest amounts from 7 box to 3-box was horrible luck (1 in 35 chance).
Couldn't blame her for taking the £1k as going away with £5 would have been horrible.

Not the best filming day with 3 banker wins.

Roll on January 2011.

Given that this was a) the 1500th show and b) New Years Eve it might have been nice to see the contestants ditch the Santa outfits and don their party frocks for today's show but i suppose that wouldn't have fitted in with the Santa/Scrooge twist. Having said that I was really hoping it would be Maz's game today. Given her contribution from the wings I can't think of anyone more deserving of playing the final Scrooge/Santa game.

In the end though it was painfully reminiscent of CSI Karen's game (Karen who rather ironically stood in the same spot on the West Wing just a few months ago), a board that was too strong to walk away from, but which once it started to crumble proved impossible to save. That's the danger of keeping the Power five intact until late in the game, the stronger that block is the stronger the temptation to go on, but eventually there's nowhere else to go and once you hit it, you often hit it hard.

Dont blame her for dealing that final offer and so pleased to see her on the recieving end of one of the Banker's RAOKs

Is this really the 1500th show? By my count I get 1499.

You might be missing Amanda's "lost" episode, left unaired after (if I recall correctly) a death in the family between taping and airing. (A repeat of Kirsty's game aired in its place.)

I'm pretty sure I counted that as it comes in as #312. I double checked and there are definately only 1499 on my list with none missing (Excel gives 1499, with one line for each episode). Could they have just done the 1500th so it was the last show of the year so they could start the new year fresh?