'' is a game show which airs in
Australia on the
Seven Network . In
2006 ''Deal or No Deal'' several changes were made to entice viewers in response to Nine's new afternoon game show
Bert's Family Feud hosted by
Bert Newton . The maximum potential prize increased to 2 million dollars a week, with the new "Double or nothing" feature.
This section refers to the current Australian format of
The show begins in a studio with six groups of 25 people sitting in stands. One group is then
Random ly selected, plus one additional person from the remaining groups. The 26 contestants are then asked three
Multiple Choice questions. The quickest contestant to answer correctly is then selected to play out the remainder of the show. The contestant is shown twenty-six numbered briefcases held by identical models, each containing a hidden amount of money (see
Briefcase Values ). The contestant selects one of the briefcases to be placed at the front, and the other briefcases are distributed to the other 25 contestants from the quiz who move onto the 'podium'.
The contestant then chooses a numbered case to be opened. The podium player holding the case guesses the amount that they have in their briefcase, winning $500 if their guess is proved correct upon opening the briefcase. This process is repeated, and is only interrupted when, at increasingly regular intervals, a "Bank Offer" is made. The major contestant now has to decide between a "Deal", where the bank's offer is accepted, or "No Deal" where the offer is rejected and play continues. The Bank Offers are based on, but not equivalent to, the
Arithmetic Mean of the remaining briefcases. That is, if there are mainly large valued briefcases remaining, then there is a high chance that the contestant's briefcase is valuable, and so the Bank Offer will be generous. Conversely, if the player has been less fortunate and opened the more valuable briefcases, then the Bank Offer will be low.
If at any stage the player chooses to "Deal" the game is still played out to enable any correct guesses to be made (with the $500 being awarded to the respective contestant) and to find out if the player chose the right time to "Deal". If the player continues to the end without making a "Deal", the game ends with their own briefcase being opened and the amount in that briefcase being won.
The Australian version of ''Deal or No Deal'' has a number of special features to make the show entertaining:
- : Double or Nothing is offered to the contestant after taking their deal unless a Chance or a Supercase is offered at the end of the show. Contestants gamble all or part of their money, either winning or losing whatever they offer. Eg. The contestant takes a deal of $37,000. When they are offered Double or Nothing, they are allowed to game any amount up to, and including, their $37,000. The contestant wishes to gamble $7,000. In the situation that "Double" is revealed. they win $44,000. In the situation that "Nothing" is revealed. they win $30,000. The new element has added the chance of a contestant walking away empty handed, as they can gamble all their money and end up with "Nothing" appearing. In the previous seasons, the least the dealer could walk away with was $0.50 (the lowest amount on the board).
- : Occurring at random intervals in the game the Bank offers a Megaguess. If the next podium player correctly guesses the value in their briefcase they will win $2,000, $5,000 or $10,000 as opposed to the regular $500 value.
- : A Chance is an opportunity for the contestant to swap the deal they took during the game for whatever is in their briefcase. It happens rarely, and only when the two remaining unknown case values are an extremely small and extremely high amount. Eg. The contestant is offered to take a chance after taking a deal of $8,000. The remaining two unopened briefcases contain $500 and $50,000. If the contestant decides to take the chance, they win either $500 or $50,000, depending on which value is in their selected case. If they decide to ''not'' take the chance, they keep their $8,000 deal.
- : Occasionally at the end of the program a Supercase is brought out. Contestants have the opportunity to either keep the deal they made or take whatever value is hidden in the Supercase. The supercase contains one of the following values: 50c, $500, $1,000, $2,000, $10,000, $20,000, CAR, $50,000. In the event that the Supercase appears at the end of a program, the contestant is not presented with the Double or Nothing offer.
- : Home viewers are invited to ring a phone number charged at AU$0.55 and register their details. Every Friday, a home viewer was randomly selected to win the same prize as the studio contestant each Friday. The host of the show, Andrew O'Keefe, has mentioned that Double Deal Fridays receive over 100,000 calls each week.
- : One of the briefcases (except for the CAR, $100,000 or $200,000 cases) contain gold coloured dollar signs around the cash value inside the case. The person who was holding the case (be them podium player or contestant) receive the Daily Prize of $500. The daily prize was first featured in 2006 in a special Saint Patrick's Day themed episode.
So far, the top prize of $200,000 has only been given away once to Dean Cartecchini on
June 17 ,
2004 after saying "No Deal" to $102,500 with the chance of walking away with only $5 or the $200,000. Luckily, Dean had the big one in his briefcase (#12).
When the minimum prize was $0.50c, it was received twice in the show's history; to John DeLaine in 2004 (he later appeared on the ''Unluckiest Player's'' show, where he won $70,000 through a Supercase) , and to Travis Ross on
July 7 ,
2005 . When the "Double or Nothing" feature was introduced and made "Nothing" the lowest possible amount, it was won six episodes later, on
February 7 2006 , by Peter Popas. He said "no deal" all the way through to his $2 briefcase, then gambled the $2 and "NOTHING" was revealed in the double or nothing case - he was then handed a giant comedy cheque with the word "NOTHING" written on it. Incidentally, there were no podium winners either on that episode, and the daily prize was dropped for the 2006 season, meaning that the show did not have to pay any money at all. The nothing cheque was also brought out on
March 22 2006 when Andrew Vein said "no deal" all the way through to his $150 briefcase, then gambled the lot and "NOTHING" was revealed in the case.
The CAR has been won three times. First on
March 4 ,
2005 , a
Peugeot 307 , after it being offered to the contestant. Because the car was won on "Double Deal Friday" (see above), the home viewer received $30,000 in cash instead. Because the car has only been won twice, it was added to the Supercase for a better chance of winning it (see above). After that the CAR was a
Renault Mégane , which was won on
December 23 ,
2005 (this date is from the repeat series). The latest person to win the car was Russian born boxer
Kostya Tszyu on
February 23 2006 . He had 2 cases left, $5000 & the CAR ($33,000), at which point he was offered a deal of $12,000. He said "No deal", and opened up his suitcase, revealing the CAR, and winning the
Peugeot 307 , and $30,000 for his home viewer.
Contestants winning the car are given the keys, as well as a giant comedy cheque with the word "RENAULT" on it. From the 2006 season onwards, the cheque simply reads "CAR".
All values are in Australian Dollars.
- (''CAR valued at approx $30,000'')
- (''CAR valued at approx $30,000'')
The first incarnation of ''Deal or No Deal'' originally debuted in late 2003 as an hour-long program. Screening on Sunday night, it indirectly competed with the
Nine Network 's ''
Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? '' by offering a maximum prize of $2,000,000.
In order to fill the longer timeslot, the initial stages of the game were significantly longer than in the currect half hour format. This included an interview with the man who supposedly placed the values into each briefcase, assuring that selection were indeed random.
Instead of randomly selecting a block of 25 people, the members of the eight blocks collectively competed against each other in a short quiz to determine which group would get selected. Also, rather than choosing the sole fastest contestant in the individual question round, the ''two'' fastest contestants were chosen to compete head to head in answering one final question before the eventual victor proceeds to the main game.
Another difference to the current version is the amount of money awarded to podium players for a correct guess. In the original format the amount of money received depended on how many cases had already been opened. The reasoning behind this is that a correct guess when only a few cases are opened is rarer to achieve than when only a few cases remain.
Although somewhat successful, this incarnation of the show only lasted for one season. However, several hour-long special episodes of the show (such as "Unluckiest Players" - the return of the contestants who have won the least amount of money) have aired in
Prime Time .
In 2004 ''Deal or No Deal'' was shortened to a half-hour format and moved to weeknights at 5:30pm, directly competing against the Nine Network's ''
The Price Is Right ''. Due to the increased number of episodes airing (5 per week over the course of the year rather than 1 per week) the maximum cash prize was lowered from $2,000,000 to $200,000 and the number of blocks reduced from eight to six (200 potential contestants to 150). ''Deal or No Deal'' received high ratings in its newly revised format. Shortly after the popularity of ''Deal or No Deal'' began to rise, ''The Price Is Right'' altered its showcase round to a similar format, where contestants were forced to choose between cash incentives or the showcase periodically as the prices were lit up. Despite this ''Deal or No Deal'' continued to grow in popularity, and is believed to be a factor involved in the ratings resurgance of ''
Seven News '' (which follows directly after ''
Deal Or No Deal '').
There were only a few minor tweaks in 2005 compared to the 2004 version. These included the colouring of on-screen graphics, with higher values being coloured blue, red and green, the $25,000 case value was replaced with a car valued at approximately $30,000. The Daily Prize, which was previously a normal prize, such as a home theatre system, a DVD set or a digital camera, was replaced with $500, although later in
2005 prizes such as
Mp3 Players and
Portable DVD Players were also given away and the audience cry of ''boo-yeah'' when Case #26 was selected was abandoned.
Changes made to the 2006 format:
- The interior of the cases all featured their "board" colour instead of only the green amounts
- A new "Double or Nothing" feature was introduced, where the contestant will be offered to gamble all or part of their money, either doubling or losing whatever they offer. Subsequently, it has been advertised that the show potentially offers winnings of $2,000,000 a week ($400,000 an episode), but this would only occur if the contestant has $200,000 in their case and chooses to gamble all their money.
- Briefcase values have been slightly altered (see Above ).
- Megaguesses are now offered $2,000, $5,000 and $10,000 amounts. The $10,000 is only offered once per game (the exception of this occurred on 23 March 2006 , and Good Friday ), the $2,000 is a very rare occasion, and the $5,000 is the most common Megaguess as it used to be.
- Correct guesses on the podium have been halved to $500.
- The daily prize has been featured only once on March 17 on a special Saint Patrick's Day themed episode.
- The cry of boo-yeah is back.
- The "oooohhh" sound is sometimes shouted out by the audience when a player selects briefcase 13 to be opened.
These changes made in 2006 are to entice viewers to watch the show against the Nine Network 's new game show, Bert's Family Feud .
''Dancing with the Deals'' was Deal or No Deal's first attempt at a celebrity special series (and was highly successful). Celebrities that were featured came from the entertainment show
''Dancing With The Stars'' . The series was broadcast from
February 13 -
February 24 ,
2006 . These are the celebrities that were featured:
