Deal or No Deal

Just got done watching
Deal or No Deal
, a show that just premiered here in the United States. According to the promos, this show runs in over 30 other countries.

The show works like this:

A contestant picks one of 26 cases. The cases contain signs that show how much money that case is worth. The values are between one penny all the way up to one million dollars. After the case is picked, the contestant picks a number of cases to eliminate money values. Then a “banker” offers to buy your case for a certain amount of money. That amount depends on which dollar amounts are left. The contestant can then decide whether or not to take the deal. The game continues until the contestant either decides to take a deal, or waits until the end to see what their case holds.

Pretty simple game…. and kinda weird. This is probably the first game I can remember that requires absolutely no skill to play. I suppose you can say that calculating odds is a skill, but I seriously doubt there’s any serious odds calculation going on….. well, other than the “banker” who’s obviously doing some of that.

The lady the played tonight turned down over $130,000, only to later take $25,000 after a couple of more cases were opened. Not bad… Not what she wanted, but not bad.