Deal or No Deal

Deal or No Deal is the name of several closely related television game shows, the first of which (launching the format) was produced by Dutch producer Endemol.

Gameplay

The general gameplay of Deal or No Deal involves a contestant, a host/presenter, a banker, and a set of numbered briefcases (or boxes), each containing a different value. The values themselves are known at the start of the game, but which case contains what value is unknown. At the start of the game, the contestant picks a case for themselves that they hope is one of the most valuable. The contestant then begins choosing the other cases one at a time for rejection and removal from play. The amount inside each selection is immediately revealed; by process of elimination, the amount revealed cannot be inside the player's chosen case. Throughout the game, after a preset number of cases have been opened, the banker offers the contestant an amount of money and/or prizes to quit the game, the offer based roughly on the amounts remaining in play and the contestant's demeanor. The player then answers the titular question:

• "Deal", accepting the offer presented and ending the game, or
• "No Deal", rejecting the offer and continuing to open cases

The process of removing cases (or boxes) and receiving offers continues until the player accepts an offer to quit, or until all offers have been rejected and all unselected cases revealed, the player then winning the value inside the case initially selected. If a player takes a deal, the game is typically continued to see how much the player could have won if they had remained in the game.

The values of each of the cases is indicated by a label or card located inside it. Various versions of the show have between 20 and 26 values; some versions have only cash values, others include prizes such as a car or booby prizes. For instance, there are 26 cases in the U.S. version, containing cash values from 1 cent to $1,000,000. Alternately, the Australian version has 26 values from 50 cents to $200,000, but includes a car as one of its more valuable prizes.

Since the range of possible values is known at the start of each game, how much the banker offers at any given point changes based on what values have been eliminated. To promote suspense and lengthen games, the banker's offer is usually less than the expected value dictated by probability theory, particularly early in the game.^[1] Generally, the offers early in the game are very low relative to the values still in play, and approach (or even exceed) the average of the remaining values near the end of the game.

Only a few people have ever won the top prize on any version of the show (see table below). For a contestant to win the top prize, they would have to select the case containing the top prize, and reject every offer the banker makes during the game. While the chances of a player selecting the top prize are reasonable (4-5% depending on how many amounts are in the game), the chances that a player will be able to turn down a number of inevitably large offers to win that top prize are much smaller.

Worldwide, the largest active-play offer made (after adjusting for exchange rates) is €1,495,000 on Dutch version Miljoenenjacht, offered on November 13, 2005. The offer was accepted, and stands as the biggest win in the history of the format, despite many versions (either occasionally or permanently) having higher top prizes.

Deal or No Deal and scientific research

Deal or No Deal has attracted attention from mathematicians, statisticians, and economists as a natural decision-making experiment. A team of economists has analyzed the decisions of people appearing in European and US episodes of Deal or No Deal and found, among other things, that contestants are less risk-averse or even risk-seeking when they have seen their expected winnings tumble.^[2] In their follow-up article they find that contestants behave similarly in ten different versions of the show, despite large differences in the amounts at stake; amounts appear to be evaluated in relative terms, for example in proportion to the initial average, and not in terms of their absolute monetary value.^[3] The research project received a great deal of media attention, appearing on the front page of The Wall Street Journal on January 12, 2006 as well as being featured on National Public Radio in the United States on March 3, 2006.^[4]

International versions

The show has many versions that air around the world:

Country	Name	Host	Station	Language	First Year Aired	Website
Albania	Kutia	Enkel Demi	TV Klan	Albanian	2004	Link
Argentina	Trato Hecho	Julian Weich	Telefé	Spanish	2004	Link
Armenia	Դիլ կամ Նո Դիլ Dil kam No Dil	Unknown	Armenia TV	Armenian	Unknown	Link at the Internet Archive
Australia	Deal or No Deal	Andrew O'Keefe	Channel Seven	English	2003	Link
Austria	Deal or No Deal (Austria)	Rainhard Fendrich	ORF1	German	2005
Belgium	Miljoenenjacht	Walter Grootaers	VTM	Dutch	2004	Link
	Te Nemen of Te Laten	Felice	VijfTV	Dutch	2007	Link
Bosnia and Herzegovina	Deal or No Deal- Uzmi ili Ostavi	Jusuf Višnji	OBN	Bosnian	2008
Brazil	Topa ou Não Topa	Silvio Santos	SBT	Portuguese	2006	Link
Bulgaria	Сделка или не	Rumen Lukanov	Nova Television	Bulgarian	2005	Link
Cambodia	Deal or No Deal	Ith Sitha	CTN	Khmer	2008
Canada	Deal or No Deal Canada	Howie Mandel	Global	English	2007	Link
	Le Banquier	Julie Snyder	TVA	French	2007	Link
	E! Canada (formerly CH) regularly airs first-run episodes of the U.S. English-language version, though episodes have also aired on Global. Episodes are repeated on TVtropolis.
Chile	Trato Hecho	Don Francisco	TVN	Spanish	2004
	¡Allá Tú!	Julián Elfenbein	Chilevision	Spanish	2007	Link
China	(seen in this country; info unknown)
Colombia	¡Hay Trato!	Carlos Calero	Canal Caracol	Spanish	2005
Croatia	Uzmi ili ostavi	Željko Pervan Mirko Fodor Mario Petreković	Croatian Radiotelevision	Croatian	2006	Link
Cyprus	(seen in this country; info unknown)
Czech Republic	Ber nebo neber	Pavel Zuna	TV Prima	Czech	2007	Link
Denmark	Deal No Deal	Casper Christensen	TV 2	Danish	2006	Link
Dominican Republic	Trato Hecho con Nestle	Frank Perozo	Antena Latina	Spanish	2008
Ecuador	Trato Hecho (Ecuador)	Roberto Angelelli	Teleamazonas	Spanish	2006
Estonia	Võta või jäta	Alari Kivisaar	TV3	Estonian	2007	Link
Finland	Ota tai jätä	Pauli Aalto-Setälä	Nelonen	Finnish	2007	Link
France	À prendre ou à laisser	Arthur	TF1	French	2004	Link
Georgia	Unknown	Unknown	Unknown	Unknown	Unknown	Unknown
Germany	Der Millionen-Deal (first season)	Linda de Mol	Tele 5	German	2004
	Deal or No Deal - Die Show der Glücksspirale (from season two onward)	Guido Cantz	Sat.1	German	2005	Link
Greece	Deal (weekdays)	Christos Ferendinos	ANT1	Greek	2006	Deal
	Super Deal (weekends)					Super Deal
Hong Kong	Deal or No Deal/一擲千金	Michael Hui (Season 1)	TVB Jade and TVB Pearl	Cantonese(Jade) English(Pearl)	2006	Link
		Alfred Cheung (Season 2)			2007
Hungary	Áll az alku	Gábor Gundel Takács	TV2	Hungarian	2004	Link
India	Deal Ya No Deal	Rajeev Khandelwal	SET	Hindi and English	2005	Link at the Internet Archive
Indonesia	Deal Or No Deal Indonesia	Tantowi Yahya	RCTI	Indonesian	2007	RCTI
Israel	דיל או לא דיל	Moran Atias	10	Hebrew	Unknown	Link
Italy	Affari Tuoi	Max Giusti	Rai Uno	Italian	2003	Link
Japan	Za diiru/The Deal	Shinsuke Shimada	Fuji Television	Japanese	2006	Link
Latvia	(seen in this country; info unknown)
Lebanon	Deal or No Deal	Michel Sanan	LBC	Arabic	2005	Link
Lithuania	Taip arba Ne	Marijonas Mikutavičius	TV3 Lithuania	Lithuanian	2007	Link
Malaysia	Deal or No Deal Malaysia	Aanont Wathanasin	NTV7	English	3 November 2007	Link at the Internet Archive
	一擲千金 Deal or No Deal	Goh Wee Ping (Season 1), Owen Yap, (Season 2)	NTV7	Chinese	2007
Malta	Deal or No Deal (Maltese Game Show)	Pablo Micallef	TVM	Maltese	2007	Link
Mauritius	To Pran to pas Pran?	Hassen Rojoa	MBC D6	French	2007	Link
Mexico	Vas o No Vas	Héctor Sandarti	Once TV	Spanish	2005	Link
Monaco	Raffle le fric et braque la banque	Pierre Van Klaveren	M1	French	2006	Link
Morocco	Tu prendres ou tu ne prendres pas?	Mohammed El Jabber	2M TV	French and Arabic.	2007
Netherlands	Miljoenenjacht (original version) and season	Linda de Mol	TROS, Tien, RTL4	Dutch	2000	Link at the Internet Archive
	Deal or No Deal (direct version) small program	Beau van Erven Dorens	Tien, RTL5	Dutch	2006	Link
New Zealand	Deal or No Deal	Jeremy Corbett	TV3	English	2007	Link at the Internet Archive
	The Australian version of Deal or No Deal also airs in New Zealand on Prime TV.
Nigeria	Deal or No Deal Nigeria	John Fashanu	M-Net Africa	English	2007	Link
Norway	Deal or No Deal	Sturla Berg-Johansen	TV2	Norwegian	2006	Link
Panama	El Familion Nestle	Nelson Bustamante	Telemetro Panamá	Spanish	unknown	Link
Peru	Trato Hecho	Adolfo Aguilar	ATV	Spanish	2005
Philippines	Kapamilya, Deal or No Deal	Kris Aquino	ABS-CBN	Filipino and English	2006-2008 2008-present	Link
Poland	Grasz czy nie grasz	Zygmunt Chajzer	Polsat	Polish	2005	Link
Portugal	Pegar ou Largar	Rui Unas	SIC Network	Portuguese	2006	Link at the Internet Archive
Romania	Da sau nu	Mihai Dobrovolschi	Prima TV	Romanian	2005	Unknown
	Accepţi sau nu	Gabriel Coveşanu	Kanal D	Romanian	2008	Link
Russia	Пан или пропал	Nikolay Fomenko	Channel One	Russian	2004	Link
	Сделка (or Transaction)	Alexei Veselkin	REN TV	Russian	2006	Link
Serbia	Uzmi ili ostavi	Milorad Mandić Manda	B92	Serbian	2007	Link
Singapore	Deal or No Deal	Adrian Pang	Channel 5	English	2007	Link.
Slovakia	Ruku na to	Unknown	Slovakian	2007
Slovenia	Vzemi ali pusti	Bojan Emeršič	POP TV	Slovenian	Unknown	Link at the Internet Archive
South Africa	Deal or No Deal	Ed Jordan	M-Net	English	2007	Link
South Korea	Yes or No	Shin Dong-Yeob	tvN	Korean	2006	Link
Spain	¡Allá tú!	Jesús Vázquez Silvia Jato	Telecinco	Spanish	2004	Link
Sweden	Deal or No Deal	Martin Timell	TV4	Swedish	2006	Link at the Internet Archive
Switzerland	Deal or No Deal - Das Risiko	Roman Kilchsperger	SF 1	German	2004	Link
Thailand	Deal or No Deal - เอาหรือไม่เอา	Dom Hetrakul	ThaiTV 3	Thai	2004	Link
Tunisia	Deal or No Deal - Dlilek Mlek	Sami El Fihri	Tunis 7	Arabic	2004
Turkey	Trilyon Avı	Zafer Ergin	aTV	Turkish	2003
	Büyük Teklif	Halit Ergenç	Kanal D	Turkish	2006
	Var mısın? Yok musun?	Acun Ilıcalı	Show TV	Turkish	2007	Link
United Kingdom	Deal or No Deal	Noel Edmonds	Channel 4 Ladbrokes	English	2005 and Premiered on Ladbrokes.com in 2006	Channel 4 Endemol
United States	Deal or No Deal (NBC Primetime)	Howie Mandel	NBC	English	2005	Link
	Deal or No Deal (NBC Universal Television Distribution daytime version)	Howie Mandel	Syndicated by NBC Universal Television Distribution	English	2008	Link
	Vas o No Vas	Héctor Sandarti	Telemundo (NBC Universal)	Spanish	2006	Link
Vietnam	Đi tìm ẩn số		HTV	Vietnamese	2005	Link
Zimbabwe	Saka Kana Aa Saka	Tande Newton and Isaac Smith	TVZim01, ZBC, TeleZim	Shona, Ndebele, English	2007	Link Link Link

Véronique Landry is the only model to appear on more than one version of the show, on both the French and English Canadian versions. Howie Mandel, Héctor Sandarti, and Linda de Mol each have hosted multiple versions of the show: Mandel, with the American English and English Canadian versions, Sandarti with both the American Spanish and Mexican Spanish versions, and de Mol with both the Netherlands Dutch and German (in 2004) versions of the show. In the UK version Deal or no Deal helped relaunch Noel Edmonds career.

Other countries that have their own versions of the show include Albania, Armenia, Austria, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, Peru, Portugal (SIC network), Puerto Rico, and Vietnam, according to the UK version's website.

Top prize winners on international versions

All amounts below the prizes are their equivalents in United States dollars, and those in USD at the time of their big win.

Country	Name(s)	Amount won	Previous offer	Other amount
Australia	Dean Cartechini (June 17, 2004)	A$200,000 ($178,659, back then $136,986)	A$102,500 ($91,563, back then $74,818)	A$5 ($4.47, back then $3.65)
	Anh Do (celebrity) (September 19, 2007)	A$200,000	A$125,000 ($111,662)	A$75,000 ($66,997)
Brazil	Paulo (April, 2007)	R$1,000,000 ($557,678, back then $492,611)	R$444,000 ($247,609, back then $218,719)	R$100 ($55.77 back then $49.26)
Bulgaria	Veneta Raykova (celebrity) (February, 2006)	75,000 BGN ($54,819)	unknown	unknown
Chile	Mauricio Hermosilla (May 4, 2007)	CL$10,000,000 ($19,938)	CL$6,500,000 ($12,960)	CL$5,000,000 ($9,969)
	Farándula (August 29, 2007)	CL$10,000,000	Change Box	CL$50,000 ($99.69)
France	Sabrina (November 29, 2005)	€500,000 ($714,750, back then $588,235)	€350,000 ($500,325, back then $411,764) (the banker also offered €200,000 and €300,000, which is rare for a contestant to have more than one offer after one single round)	€75,000 ($107,213, back then $88,235)
Greece	Gogo	€200,000 ($285,900)	€80,000 ($114,360)	€1,000 ($1,430)
Italy	Danilo (Umbria) (September 20, 2008)	€500,000 ($714,750, back then $714,286)	€170,000 ($267,477, back then $242,857)	€30,000 ($47,215, back then $42,857)
	Francesca (October 22, 2008)	€500,000	€185,000 ($230,408)	€30,000
	Clarissa Meneghini (December 19, 2007)	€500,000	€170,000	€30,000
Malta	Maria (Doris) Abela (October 17, 2008	€25,000 ($31,149)	€19,500 ($24,296)	€15,000 ($18,689)
Mexico	Paty (June 3, 2006)	$1,000,000 ($92,379) (weekday)	$550,000 ($51,500)	$100,000 ($9,238)
	Laura (March 2, 2006)	$1,000,000 (weekday)	$700,000 ($64,665)	$400,000 ($36,952)
	Luis (December 6, 2005)	$1,000,000 (weekday)	unknown	unknown
	Elena (June 11, 2005)	$5,000,000 ($461,894) (Saturday)	unknown	unknown
Malaysia	Timothy Shim (March 2, 2008)	RM100,000 ($31,250)	RM 50,800 ($15,875)	RM 250 ($71.83)
Netherlands	Arno Woesthoff (September 2, [[2001]; Reference needed])	Fl10,000,000 ($6,600,000)	unknown	unknown
Philippines	Terry Lim Cua (December 29, 2006)	P2,000,000 ($47,790, back then $40,800)	P1,400,000 ($33,453, back then $28,560)	P1,000,000 ($23,895, back then $20,400)
Serbia	Vidoje (October 19, 2007)	RSD1,500,000 ($24,475)	RSD615,000 ($10,035)	RSD500,000 ($8,158)
Spain	Gilbert de Tarragona (June, 2007)	€600,000 ($857,700, back then $800,000)	€240,000 ($343,080, back then $320,000)	€1,500 ($2,144, back then $2,000)
Tunisia	(Unknown) (October 22, 2007)	TND1,000,000 ($797,130)	unknown	TND500,000 ($398,565)
United Kingdom	Laura Pearce (January 7, 2007)	£250,000 ($512,826, back then $480,769)	£45,000 ($92,309, back then $86,538)	£3,000 ($6,154, back then $5,769)
United States	Jessica Robinson (September 1, 2008)	$1,000,000	$561,000	$200,000
	Tomorrow Rodriguez (October 29,2008)	$1,000,000	$677,000	$300 and 3x $1,000,000

Antecedents

• The Bong Game, created by Capital FM in the 1980s, also tested contestants by offering them increasing returns in tandem with increasing risk.
• Let's Make a Deal, a long-running game show involving contestants deciding whether or not take offers based on what may or may not be behind a curtain/door or inside a box.
• Treasure Hunt (US game show), a 1970s and 1980s Chuck Barris game show similar in concept to Deal or No Deal
• Take Your Pick offered contestants the choice of taking a money offer or risking opening a box.
• Win Ben Stein's Money pitted contestants against an in-house adversary.
• Trato Hecho an Argentine show featuring a similar format which predated Deal or no Deal by several years.
• Kabarkada, Break The Bank is a live game show of Studio 23, the UHF network of ABS-CBN which has almost the same format as Kapamilya, Deal or No Deal.

Variations

South Korea

A variation of "Deal or No Deal" was embedded in a variety show called Idol World. Super Junior-T played the game and there were only 10 cases, the prize goes from ₩10 (about 1¢ US and ¥1, less than €0.01, 1p, and 1¢ AU) to ₩1,000,000 (about US$1,073, €723, £521, AU$965, and ¥116,000). See Yes or No.

Taiwan

Taiwan Television Enterprise (TTV) has a variation of "Deal or No Deal" embedded within its Saturday night weekly variety show hosted by popular TV host and one time recording artist Jacky Wu. The portion involved 16 boxes wherein celebrity contestants will play for NT$1.5 million top prize (about US$46,000, €32,000, £22,000, AU$49,000 and ¥5,280,000), in denominations starting from NT$1.00 (about 3¢ US, €0.02, 1p, 3¢ AU and ¥3). In this game though, Wu the TV host, also acted as a banker. He would randomly come up with an amount when the choice of boxes become fewer. Contestants however have to win a talent portion of the show before playing this game.

Even when they don't make $100,000,000, the lucky ones usually get a $200,000 grant for making a record on the show.

In popular culture

• Deal or No Deal is a regular sketch on the comedy show Bremner, Bird and Fortune
• On the series finale of The O.C., Seth and Summer were addicted to a show called "Briefcase or No Briefcase".
• Deal or No Deal was parodied twice on Madtv. Michael McDonald portrayed Howie Mandel and on both skits, the contestants walked away with what they had in their briefcase (each contestant had low amounts; one was $400 and one was $5).
• In March 2007, Innovative Concepts in Entertainment released a ticket-based arcade version of Deal or No Deal, where gamers can get a small taste of the pressure put on an actual contestant on the show^[5].
• In the film Meet the Spartans, one of the Spartans was given a choice by the enemy to either join their army or die. After the enemy says "Deal or no deal", all of the models urge the spartan to take the deal.
• Deal or No Deal was parodied on an episode of NBC's own 30 Rock as a game show called Gold Case, created by Kenneth Parcell.
• On the April 8, 2006 episode of Saturday Night Live, Deal or No Deal was parodied with Fred Armisen playing Howie Mandel, and Antonio Banderas as the contestant.
• On the Family Guy Star Wars Special, Lois Griffin playing Princess Leia portrayed Howie Mandel. One of the 26 cases she presented to Stewie Griffin as Darth Vader was supposed to hold the plans to the Death Star. The case Stewie had held $5.
• On short-lived NBC drama Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, Howie Mandel cameoed as host of the titular show-within-a-show. During Mandel's SNL-esque monologue, he is interrupted by Bradley Whitford's character and forced to choose a case to determine how the monologue would end.
• In the Philippines, Kapamilya, Deal or No Deal was spoofed in an ABS-CBN show called Gudtaym by Toni Gonzaga as Kris Aquino (Kapamilya Deal or No Deal host) and it was named Meal or No Meal.
• The U.K. version of Deal or No Deal was converted into a mobile game by Gameloft and featured the same rules and format as the tv show. The game was so well-received that versions of it were developed for other countries as well.^[6] It's international success landed it on the top-sellers list for some time.^[7]

See also

• List of television show franchises

Online versions

• Officially licensed game of Deal or No Deal (UK Version)
• NBC game
• Official United Kingdom Deal Or No Deal website
• Official Quebec Le Banquier (Deal or No Deal) website
• Official Italy Affari Tuoi (Deal Or No Deal) Website
• Online Flash Game Version of Deal or No Deal
• Official German Deal Or No Deal website
• PKR poker room includes an Officially licensed Deal Or No Deal version

References

1. ↑ Formula for offers in the NBC online version of Deal or No Deal from the personal website of a former physics and finance student
2. ↑ Post, Van den Assem, Baltussen, and Thaler (March 2008). "Deal or No Deal? Decision Making Under Risk in a Large-payoff Game Show".
3. ↑ Baltussen, Post, and Van den Assem (December 2007). "Risky Choice and the Relative Size of Stakes".
4. ↑ Economists Learn from Game Show 'Deal or No Deal' from the NPR website
5. ↑ Deal or No Deal Arcade Game
6. ↑ "Top 50 Mobile Game Downloads in the UK". 2007-1-27. Mobicritic.com. Retrieved 2008-11-06.
7. ↑ "Non-Stop International Success for Gameloft's 'Deal or No Deal'. 2008-4-07. FindLaw.com. Retrieved 2008-11-06.