Deal Or No Deal

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denisco_uk

At the Start
Joined
Apr 28, 2004
Messages
75
Location
Liverpool, UK
Having watched Deal or no deal today (and every other day - god i'm sad), and after discussing the matter with a mate of mine, we were trying to work out the ultimate formula to play against the 'banker'.

I've heard it mentioned (here IIRC) that the banker uses a set formula for deriving quotes given to contestants, based upon the weighted average of the available sums, with the ultimate probability of picking the sums prior to the next quote interval, with a certain element of risk/reward strategy factored in.

Having analysed the game, i have noticed that it is often played terribly inefficiently by players who are not full cognizant of the true probabilities of the said sums occurring (or not occurring), and this made me think.

I am too lazy to perform a real statistical analysis of the show, but i'm assuming that a fellow stathead somewhere has already done this. Does anyone have a link, or any thoughts?

We, as (largely) 'Value' punters already have a good grasp of the probabilstic nature of the show, and i tend to get irate seeing people accept (or reject) offers that could have led to higher sums when even a basic analysis of potential outcomes would have helped.

My findings thus far, show that

a) The earlier offers from the banker are inherently lower (as a total probability of available sums) than later on in the game

B) Large or small outliers can effect the fee massively (1p or £250,000)

c) There is a reason why the banker offers money at the said intervals rather than out of the blue - not only for some sort of regularity and normality of the game, but also as they are position at key intervals, especially later on in the game.

Other than these findings however, my conclusions are nil.

What really is the best way to play the game?
 
Ideally, the best way to play is to keep going until such time as the banker offers you more money than the odds dictate he should - i.e. he offers you value.

The money offered is effectively your stake in a bet where the odds are calculated as:

number of remaining values lower than sum offered / number of remaining values higher than sum offered

Multiply the amount offered by those odds, and if it's greater than the next highest amount on the boards, you're getting value and should take the money. If it's not, you should keep going because the odds say that you have a better chance of making more money by taking your chances.

(At least I think that's right, I'm happy to be corrected because I suspect I'm missing something there!)

Anyway, the big problem with this is that we all have a maximum stake that we're willing to bet. If you're left with 1p and £100,000 on the board and the banker only offers £40,000 you should theoretically gamble - but how many of us would gamble £40,000 on an evens shot even if it was paying 6/4? (LordH and Honest Tom don't count!)
 
I watch only the last 15 mins because the first few offers are always pitched so that the player never deals but Edmonds still pontificates on how exciting it all is plus the now customary pregnant pauses before disclosing the bankers offer.
 
Talking about strategies, I was working at the Young Scientist Exhibition a couple of weeks ago (kids from schools around the country make up presentations then displayed in the RDS, about 600, along with exhibits from Intel and IBM among others).

One of the stands was called Beat the Bookies. Their plan was simply keep backing until they get their winner. So bet 10 to win 10 and if next race is evens fav bet 20 to win back 10 and also make 10 profit.

They actually thought this would work !!!

Have the youth any chance...
 
The best (only) way to play is to play until the banker offers an amount of money that you cannot refuse.

10p in my case.
 
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