Golden Balls

This article is about the British game show. Golden Balls is also an informal nickname for English footballer David Beckham and an alternative name for the movie Huevos de oro.

Golden Balls
File:GoldenBallsITV.jpg Golden Balls titles
Directed by	Julian Smith
Presented by	Jasper Carrott
Country of origin	United Kingdom
No. of series	4
No. of episodes	221 (as of 5 May 2009)
Production
Producer	Endemol
Production location	BBC Television Centre
Running time	60 mins (including adverts)
Original release
Network	ITV
Release	18 June 2007 – present

Golden Balls is a British daytime game show on the ITV Network, presented by Jasper Carrott. It is filmed at the BBC Television Centre. From 25 February 2008 to 13 February 2009, the show was sponsored by ITV Bingo (powered by Party Gaming).

Gameplay

Round 1

At the back of the studio is the "Golden Bank", a giant contraption like a lottery machine. Inside it are 100 golden balls, containing cash values, ranging from £10 to £75,000. 12 of these golden balls are randomly drawn from the machine and four "Killer" balls are added by Amanda Grant, the "Balls Assistant". These 16 golden balls are split equally and randomly among four contestants, who place two golden balls on their front row and two on their back row. The golden balls on the front row are visible to all contestants, with the golden balls on the back row being secret to their owner.

The contestants in turn announce the contents of the golden balls on their back row. They can either tell the truth or lie about their amounts. After each contestant has done this, they discuss who they think is lying and try to establish who has the worst set of golden balls, either in terms of having the lowest amount of money or the most Killer balls.

The contestants then secretly vote for which of them they would like to leave the game. In the case of a tie, the contestants must try to reach a consensus in open discussion. If this does not occur, who is eliminated is decided at random. This is decided by giving each contestant involved in the tie another golden ball, one being a Killer ball and the other empty. The contestant who had the Killer ball is eliminated. At the end of the round, each contestant reveals the contents of the golden balls on their back row and the eliminated contestant's golden balls are "binned", namely they are out of the game for good.

Round 2

The three remaining contestants' golden balls are put back into the ball machine, along with two more cash balls chosen at random from the Golden Bank, as well as one more Killer ball, leaving 15 golden balls in play. These 15 golden balls are split among the remaining three contestants randomly and equally, with two golden balls on their front row and three on their back row.

As with Round 1, the contestants reveal the contents of the golden balls on their front row and must announce what is in the golden balls on their back row, again, able to lie. The contestants then discuss the veracity of the others' claims and vote another player off in the same fashion as in Round 1.

Bin or Win

The two remaining contestants' golden balls are again put back into the ball machine and one more Killer ball is added, leaving 11 golden balls in play. The two contestants sit at a desk with the 11 golden balls between them. In turn, starting with the contestant who brought the most money into the final, the contestants pick a golden ball to "bin" (eliminate from the game) and pick a golden ball to "win" (add to the jackpot). If a Killer ball is picked to be won, then the accumulative value of the jackpot is divided by 10. For example, if the jackpot stands at £10,000 and a Killer ball is chosen to go into the Golden Five, the jackpot is reduced to £1,000. This process is repeated five times.

Split or Steal

After five golden balls have been won, the contestants have to choose one last decision to make over the final jackpot total. They are each presented with two golden balls. One has "split" printed inside it and the other has "steal" printed inside it.

• If both contestants choose the split ball, the jackpot is split equally between them.
• If one contestant chooses the split ball and the other chooses the steal ball, the stealer gets all the money.
• If both contestants choose the steal ball, they both leave empty-handed.

The table below shows how much of the jackpot is gained by each contestant with the different combinations of choices:

	split	steal
split	50%, 50%	0%, 100%
steal	100%, 0%	0%, 0%

This is similar to the prisoner's dilemma, a well-studied problem in game theory. The dilemma is that the Nash equilibrium for the contestants is actually a worse outcome than if both of the contestants were to cooperate.

The "Split or Steal" game element was also used on Shafted, a previous Endemol production, and U.S. game show network game Friend or Foe?.

List of Golden Ball values

File:GOLDENBALLS 007.gif

Jasper Carrott with one of the "Golden Balls"

At the beginning of each game, we are told that there are 100 golden balls in the Golden Bank. Below are the 101 cash values seen at least once up to 28 April 2009:

£10, £20, £25, £30, £40, £50, £60, £70, £75, £80, £90, £100, £125, £150, £175, £200, £250, £300, £350, £400, £450, £500, £550, £600, £650, £700, £750, £800, £850, £900, £950, £1,000, £1,100, £1,200, £1,250, £1,300, £1,400, £1,500, £1,600, £1,700, £1,750, £1,800, £1,900, £2,000, £2,500, £3,000, £4,000, £5,000, £5,500, £6,000, £6,500, £7,000, £7,500, £8,000, £8,500, £9,000, £9,500, £10,000, £11,000, £12,000, £13,000, £14,000, £15,000, £16,000, £17,000, £18,000, £19,000, £20,000, £21,000, £22,000, £23,000, £24,000, £25,000, £26,000, £27,000, £28,000, £29,000, £30,000, £31,000, £32,000, £33,000, £34,000, £35,000, £37,000, £38,000, £40,000, £42,000, £44,000, £45,000, £48,000, £49,000, £50,000, £51,000, £55,000, £57,000, £60,000, £61,000, £65,000, £67,000, £70,000, £75,000

The following 45 amounts were observed in duplicate on a particular programme: £60, £100, £125, £150, £175, £200, £250, £300, £400, £450, £500, £550, £600, £700, £750, £900, £950, £1,000, £1,100, £1,200, £1,250, £1,500, £1,600, £1,800, £1,900, £2,000, £2,500, £3,000, £4,000, £5,000, £5,500, £6,000, £6,500, £7,000, £7,500, £8,000, £9,000, £9,500, £10,000, £11,000, £12,000, £14,000, £15,000, £18,000, £20,000, £25,000

The following two amounts were observed in triplicate on a particular programme (giving a total of 148 known golden balls): £6,000, £10,000

In the unaired pilot, the highest valued golden ball was £200,000 and £100,000 was also present.

Popularity

The first show opened with 1,600,000 viewers and continued to climb to a steady 2,000,000. In the same 5:00pm timeslot, eight of the first 11 episodes beat Channel 4's Richard & Judy and The Weakest Link on BBC Two also took a dent from the show's success.

Series guide

Series	Episodes	Filmed Between	Played Between	Details
1	40	March 2007 - April 2007	18 June 2007 - 10 August 2007
2	58	18 September 2007 - 16 November 2007	2 January 2008 - 21 March 2008	60 episodes were commissioned
3a	51	11 March 2008 - 2 May 2008	21 April 2008 - 4 July 2008	The 2 hold-over episodes from series 2 plus 49 from series 3 (80 were commissioned)
3b	31	27 August 2008 - 17 September 2008	27 October 2008 - 8 December 2008	Remaining 31 episodes from series 3
4a	34	27 October 2008 - 12 December 2008	5 January 2009 - 13 February 2009	The first 4 episodes from series 4 started on 9-12 December 2008, then it continued again on 5 January 2009. (84 were commissioned)
4b	50	16 February 2009 - 24 April 2009	27 April 2009 - June 2009

The two hold-over episodes shown in series 3 aired on 22 April 2008 and 29 April 2008.

40 repeats of previous episodes were shown from 7 July 2008 until 29 August 2008.

5 repeats of previous episodes were shown from 16 February 2009 to 20 February 2009.

A further 80 editions for Series 5 were scheduled to film in spring 2009 but this appears to be on hold.

Viewer's competition

For series 3, a viewer's game was introduced. Four golden balls appear on the screen at the first two commercial breaks. One contains £3,000, the other three are Killer balls. They are shuffled and you have to find the cash ball.

From series 3b onwards, there were multiple formats for the viewer's competition, including the one used in series 3a. In addition, the prize per day ranged from £2,000 to £4,000.

Records

As of 1 May 2009, the show has given away £2,178,007.28.

• The biggest amount won in the first series was £61,060 when contestant Helen stole all the cash from her opponent Sam, having taken through a £164,500 potential jackpot on 6 August 2007.

• The highest potential jackpot so far was £168,100 on 11 February 2008, as two of the eleven golden balls contained the top two amounts, £70,000 and £75,000. The actual jackpot, £93,250, was stolen by contestant Klara.

• The lowest potential jackpot so far was £5,000 on 29 May 2008, astonishingly low considering only two of the eleven golden balls were Killer balls. The eventual jackpot was £768, which was stolen by both contestants, hence not given away at all.

• The largest jackpot so far was featured in the second series on 14 March 2008. The accumulated jackpot was £100,150 and the entire jackpot was stolen by contestant Sarah, making her the biggest winner on the show to date. All four contestants in the game (Chloe, Stephen, Sarah and Darren) were returning contestants from previous games who all split where their opponent stole.

• The largest split/split win was £43,950 (from a jackpot of £87,900) on 21 March 2008, the last episode of the second series.

• The largest jackpot ever to be wasted due to a steal/steal outcome was £92,330 on 5 November 2008. This is also the third highest jackpot ever, but as both contestants, Mark and Martin, stole, they each left with nothing.

• The smallest non-zero win was £1.83, won by both contestants on 2 February 2009 as they both split the jackpot of £3.65.

• The lowest overall jackpot was £3 (stolen by contestant Robbie on 28 June 2007). All five Killer balls in the game were brought through to Bin or Win, and since another one is added, there were six Killer balls. Four of them got into the Golden Five slots, therefore the jackpot ended up being so low.

• Only on one occasion has the final jackpot equalled the potential jackpot at the start of Bin or Win. This was achieved on 9 July 2007 when the top five golden balls, which added up to make a £50,500 jackpot, were selected to Win. The chances of the maximum jackpot being achieved are 1 in 462. Contestant Michael stole the entire jackpot from his opponent Clare, making him the second highest winner of the first series.

• Only on one occasion, all the top five golden balls were selected to Bin at the start and to the end of Bin or Win. The jackpot turned out to be £31.50, won by both contestants, Maria and Michelle, who then went home with £15.75 each on 10 July 2007.

The Mobile Game

In 2007 Gameloft released Golden Balls, The Mobile Game. Available to download for many different Handsets. Extract from Gameloft Website:

• Relive the tension of the original game: 3 different rounds, dismissals, bin or win, split or steal, etc.

• Choose to be a barefaced liar or a truthful person and find out who is bluffing to stay in the game!

• Faithfully rendered set for a total immersion into the show’s specific atmosphere.

• Features the popular host of the TV show: Jasper Carrott as along with his famous, humorous quotes!

• An infinite lifespan, as every game is different and depends on you and your opponents’ attitudes.

External links

• Golden Balls at itv.com
• Golden Balls Official Endemol UK Site
• Golden Balls at crashthatch.com
• Golden Balls Mobile Game Official Gameloft UK Site