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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 film Huevos de oro. Golden Balls Limited licensed their name to Endemol UK for the game show.

Golden Balls
File:GoldenBallsITV.jpgGolden Balls titles
Presented by	Jasper Carrott
Country of origin	United Kingdom
No. of series	3
No. of episodes	149
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.

Gameplay

Round 1

At the back of the studio is the "Golden Bank", a giant contraption like a Bingo 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 players, 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 players, with the golden balls on the back row being secret to their owner.

The players in turn announce the contents of the golden balls on their back row. After each player 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 players then secretly vote for which of them they would like to leave the game. In the case of a tie, the players 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 player involved in the tie another golden ball, one being a Killer ball and the others completely empty. The player who had the Killer ball is eliminated. At the end of the round, each player reveals the contents of the golden balls on their back row and the eliminated player's golden balls are "binned", namely they are out of the game for good.

Round 2

The three remaining players' 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 players randomly and equally, with two golden balls on their front row and three on their back row.

As with Round 1, the players reveal the contents of the golden balls on their front row and must announce what is in the golden balls on their back row. The players 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 players' 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 players sit at a desk with the 11 golden balls between them. In turn, starting with the player who brought the most money into the final, the players 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. Further amounts of cash added are not affected, unless another Killer ball is "won". This process is repeated five times and the last remaining golden ball is binned.

Split or Steal

After five golden balls have been won, the players have 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 players choose the Split ball, the jackpot is split equally between them.
• If one player chooses the Split ball and the other chooses the Steal ball, the Stealer gets all the money.
• If both players choose the Steal ball, they both leave empty-handed.

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

This is similar to the prisoner's dilemma, a well-studied problem in game theory. The "Split or Steal" element of Golden Balls is subtly different. The prisoner's dilemma has rules such that regardless of the opponent's choice, the agent is "always" better off defecting (stealing). In the "Split or Steal" game, choosing to steal will only improve the player's personal winnings if the other player has chosen to split and has no effect if the other player has chosen to steal. This difference causes the game to only be a weak Nash equilibrium. The "Split or Steal" game element was also used on Shafted, a previous Endemol production, and in the US game show network game Friend or Foe?.

List of Golden Ball values

At the beginning of each game, we are told that there are 100 golden balls in the Golden Bank. Below are the 95 cash values seen at least once during the first run of 40 shows, the second run of 58 shows and the first few shows in the third series:

£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, £40,000, £42,000, £45,000, £48,000, £50,000, £55,000, £57,000, £60,000, £65,000, £67,000, £70,000, £75,000

The following 42 amounts were observed in two golden balls on a particular programme: £100, £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, £10,000, £11,000, £12,000, £14,000, £15,000, £18,000, £20,000, £25,000

The following amount was observed in three golden balls on a particular programme (giving a total of 138 known golden balls): £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

*Only 58 episodes were shown during series 2. The two missing episodes were shown as part of series 3's run on 22 April 2008 and 29 April 2008.

**49 episodes of series 3, plus the two holdovers from series 2, were shown up to 4 July 2008. Since then, repeats of previous episodes have been shown and continued showing until 29 August 2008.

Filming of the remaining episodes of the third series and the fourth series takes place between 27 August 2008 and 31 October 2008 and again from 17 November 2008. The remaining editions from the third series are scheduled to air from November 2008 with the fourth series (no. of editions TBC) continuing the run from January 2009.

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.

Records

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

• The highest potential jackpot so far was £168,100 when the top two golden balls (£70,000 and £75,000) made it through to the final round on 11 February 2008. The actual jackpot, £93,250, was stolen by contestant Klara.

• The largest jackpot so far was featured in the second series on 14 March 2008 (the day Jasper Carrott turned 63). The accumulated jackpot was £100,150 and the entire jackpot was stolen by Sarah, making her the biggest winner on the show to date. All four players in the game were returning players from previous games who all split where their opponent stole.

• The largest split/split win was £43,950 (from a jackpot of £87,900) broadcast 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 £66,885 in an episode from the second series broadcast on 15 January 2008.

• The smallest non-zero win was £3 (stolen by Robbie on the episode broadcast on 12 July 2007).

• 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 form contestant Clare, making him the second highest winner of the first series.

References

1. ^ "Golden Balls - UKGameshows", UKGameshows.com
2. "ITV Strikes Teatime Gold". MediaGuardian.co.uk. 3 July, 2007. Retrieved 2007-07-28. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)

External links

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

• ITV television programmes
• British game shows
• 2000s British television series
• 2007 television series debuts