Deal Or No Deal is a highly manipulative gameshow from Endemol, the company that has brought the "pleasure" of Big Brother and Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? to television screens all over the world. As is always the case with the Dutch company, considerable creative game theory underpins the competitive structure of the programme and, in this post, we intend to assess the various manipulations that enable Endemol to maximise their profits at the expense of the members of the public who are naive enough to get involved in the show at any level.
To explain the show to the uninitiated, Deal Or No Deal features twenty two contestants each of whom is in possession of a box which contains an indicator of a sum of money ranging from 1 pence to a quarter of a million pounds sterling. A computer randomly selects one of the contestants and this individual attempts to eliminate, by personal selection, the smallest amounts of cash while leaving the life changing amounts untouched. As the number of boxes decreases from 22 to 17 to 14 to 11 to 8 to 5 to 2, a banker phones through to the show's presenter to offer an amount for the box that the contestant possesses and the contestant then has to decide whether to accept the deal or to continue on with the process. Geddit?
The whole process is rigged from the moment that you pick up the phone to register your desire both to give Endemol the inflated cost of that initial call and to be on the show. Endemol plug the show at key times ie when there has been a big winner or when a contestant has pulled back from the brink of disaster to earn a life changing (to them) amount of money. "Clear all your debts, buy a new car, have that holiday that your family deserves, pay for your child's university education, look how easy it is, you can win all this just by one simple phonecall" screams smiley Noel Edmonds in the sweater knitted by his grandmother "you KNOW that you can trust me".
Deal Or No Deal depends entirely on addiction - addiction to gambling which forms the basis of the game's format and addiction to the consumerist items that might be purchased with any potential winnings. It is the monitoring of people's addictive tendencies under stress that makes the show interesting from a game theoretic perspective.
So, let's imagine that you have phoned through several hundred times and you are now one of the chosen twenty two. How do Endemol go about maximising their returns and minimising yours?
1) Prior to the selection of individuals to appear on the show, Endemol undertakes extensive background checks as there are certain types of individual that are significantly more preferable from their perspective. The poor and people with debts and people who think mathematically but with conventional wisdom and gambling addicts and the befuddled are the contestants of choice - market analysts, the rich, game theorists and creative lateral thinkers are, however, conspicuous by their absence. The reasons for this filtration is critical not only for the amounts of money that the latter grouping might achieve during their appearance but also for the publicity that their game mentality would have on Endemol's future earnings. One can increase one's chances of selection by being as invisible as possible within society and coming across as one of life's victims - claim to believe in astrology and an aversion to the number 13, for example.
2) Despite taking these precautions, there are further advantages to Endemol in the structure of the show. The average contestant appears for twenty one shows prior to selection for their game and Endemol undertake extensive psychological profiling of all participants including the monitoring of reactions under stress, socialisation choices, magical thinking, learned helplessness and degrees of confidence. By the time you take your meaningful (and informational) personal belongings with the red box up to the contestant's table, these people have got you sussed.
3) A prime target of Endemol both via background research and focusing on interpersonal interactions is the current financial needs of a contestant. What short and medium term financial goals and obstacles exist in a contestant's current life? This is very key as it allows the presenter and the banker to structure the offers in a manner that optimises the outcome from the perspective of Endemol.
4) The banker is the queen bee in this operation. This invisible and nameless individual is in total control of the process. He plays psychological games that are based on previous contestant's patterns of behaviour particularly those with similar personality styles and disorders - it should be noted here that we all believe that we are unique and individualistic but we are actually all merely an accumulation of different subsets of psychological factors. Prior to any game, the banker has a clear strategy about what to offer as a prize and when to offer it, when to be generous and when to be provocative. The most entertaining aspect regarding the banker is the creation of a personality for this invisible man by Edmonds. Contestants are placed in the territory of mind games with a character that is, effectively, a blank piece of paper. For all we know, there could be more than one banker or perhaps the banker undertakes entirely different attitudes as a game plan or whatever.
5) One of the main manipulative practices in Deal Or No Deal is the illusion that both the contestant and their accompanying box are chosen randomly by computer. Not so. Endemol choose the required contestant once they feel that the playing field is suitably tilted in their favour. And, as for the quantity of money in the box, there should be an approximately 5% chance of the biggest prize being in the contestant’s box whereas the real figure has actually been around 1%. Endemol are only truly exposed when the quarter of a million pounds is on the table as, even in the best case scenario (from their perspective) of a fully played out game ie 1p being the other box, the banker is going to have to be offering a significant amount.
6) The presenter Noel Edmonds is vital to the success of the scam in a similar manner that Chris Tarrant is with respect to Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? Edmonds develops a trust link with all competitors who see a friendly face in a hostile and alien environment. Edmonds carefully judges when to target contestant’s psychological flaws with a wide range of manipulative passages that thoroughly undermine any gameplan that the competitor has developed. These presenters are financially rewarded for helping to limit the winnings on the shows – for instance, Tarrant received payment for the first series of Millionaire that was three times the total prize money given out in the entire series!
7) To find the show interesting, one has to either be addicted to gambling or interested in monitoring human behaviour in situations of choice. It is, consequently, not surprising that many bookmakers are offering versions of the game on their internet websites. Once Endemol have determined the degree to which a contestant is likely to gamble, they have ultimate control of the process. With this in mind, it is interesting to assess what type of contestant is likely to be able to maximise their potential returns. Firstly, the rich… The independently wealthy are conspicuous by their absence as such individuals couldn’t be bought off with hints about what they could achieve with the money at any given point in the game. It is not surprising that the first winner of Millionaire was already a millionaire. Secondly, professional poker players, market analysts, statisticians and creative lateral thinking types are also a no-no for Endemol. As mentioned above, the operation does not wish for individuals that are coldly able to determine the real probabilities while seeing through the disinformational bluff. For example, there is never any hint that one might be able to determine the game strategy of the banker by monitoring his offers against the average likely return if the game were repeatedly played out – they do not wish you to consider the normal distribution of outcomes.
8) The final and most entertaining bit of psyche bashing occurs when there are just two boxes left. The banker, at this point, frequently offers the chance to swap the boxes over which is a very tilted arrangement. The banker knows what is in the contestant’s box and, by working with Edmond’s slippery trust, the poor competitor is entirely bamboozled by this offer.
By taking into account the above points and by sticking to a gameplan despite all external provocations, it is possible to optimize your opportunity in this game and, yet, this is still an awkward strategy as being live on television and having your personal psychology mashed up by a slick corporate machine is a severe test of anybody’s cool.
© Football Is Fixed/Dietrological
