Moloth - The M-Forums

I propose this forum be expanded to include TV stuffs, since we never really had a good forum for TV before.

Anyways I have to admit I'm completely hooked on Deal or No Deal. At first, I assumed it was another stupid "millionaire" game show with lots of hokey faux dramatic music and needless drawn-out pauses to make it all serious-like. And in a sense, that's exactly what it is.

But it has Howie Mandel with a soul patch.

The other unique thing about the show is it's completely chance-based. There's no trivia or anything that would require skill or knowledge to play. You just pick at random. It's more like something you'd find in a casino than on TV.

Because of that, it's deceptively simple to play. You pick one suitcase at random out of a group of 22. Each suitcase holds a value from 0.01 to 1,000,000.  Then you open some more cases, and then you get offered a sum of money for your case from this freaky banker. At first, I thought the amount you had in your case was known to him, and that's what he was basing his offers on. But that's not actually the deal, he's playing the odds just like you are.

Naturally, at first your chances of knocking out the smaller numbers are pretty good.  And the first offer or two is easy to turn down, because there's a good chance bigger money is still at play. And if you can keep from knocking out the million dollar case, the offers go up from there.

Once things get thinned out and when most of the cases are opened, that's when it gets interesting. If there's large amounts still in play, then the chance is good that your case has one of them. And the more that are opened, the more that probability exists. When the offers really get substantial, and there's only a few cases left to open, is when it really gets down to just a question of how greedy you are. Would you turn down $300,000 for the <i>chance</i> to win more?

I realize this is a silly game show but if you're a statistics and probability nerd, it's really exciting. And I'm convinced they always pick the most flamingest retards as contestants. Watching these morons hoot and holler as they pick cases is pretty entertaining in itself.