Well £20 isn't quite a Million but its a start (Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?)

Member Name: tommy7

Product:	Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?
Date:	09/01/01 (127 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Good fun

Disadvantages: Good way to lose money when drunk

It seems that everywhere you go at the moment there is a picture of Chris Tarrant offering you the chance to win a Million. There is the original program, the books, the board game, the computer game and now the Pub Trivia game.

The Pub Trivia machine has always been a bone of contention when people go out for a social drink. It is usually seen as anti-social behaviour to go and play one of the machines. The beauty of the Who Wants to be A Millionaire is that everyone loves the concept. They have seen it on the television and think "I could do that". The machine provides the opportunity to prove so. Imagine how much more confident the average person gets after a few drinks and you can easily see why this machine is cropping up everywhere.

The machine is faithful to the Television show in that you have to answer 15 questions correctly to get 1m points, which equates to £20 or £40 depending on the game mode. There is the opportunity to win 3 lifelines and the format of the questions is identical.

The opening question is the one where you have to win your lifelines. The question involves putting four answers in the relevant order against the clock. Even if you get the order correct you must do it quick enough to get all 3 lifelines. The lifelines disappear in the following order

Ask the audience - this is similar to the show where the machine displays the same graph using a simulated audience. This is usually the most useful lifeline hence the reason it goes first!

50:50 - needs little explaining, two of the wrong answers disappear and you are left with one correct answer and one wrong answer. This can be a useful lifeline where you have an idea of the correct answer, but often it just increases the percentages to 50:50 from 25:75

Phone a Friend - on the show this can be useful if you can phone a knowledgeable friend. However, in this game you are simply given more time to answer the question.
If like me you are already playing this game with your friends, there is normally little point to this lifeline as the normal time period is usually adequate.

If you get the order wrong you lose all lifelines.

The lifelines can be valuable but in my experiences you get easy games and difficult games and the easy games tend to be after you have lost the lifelines. At first we thought it was strange that we won higher amounts when we didn’t have the lifelines but now it would appear that the game is easier when you lose the lifelines. This may just be coincidence and I would be curious if others have had similar experiences.

The game begins with the 100 point question which is normally a very simple question. There is a safety net built into the first question where if you answer it incorrectly you get a try again. This only happens with the 100 point question though!

How the game progresses depends on how the pub chose to set it up.

If it is £1 a game then there is usually a free game at 4,000 or 8,000 points depending on how much the machine has taken in. It is worth pointing out that in this mode there is nothing to be gained by gambling from the lowest prize of a free game to the next prize of £1 as it is £1 a game. I have always found it better to collect the free game and hope to get the lifelines. When you get the lifelines and the target is only 4000 points then there should not be a huge amount of difficulty in getting to that level. The top prize in this mode is £40.

In the 50p a game mode it is a bit different. The lowest prize of £1 can be as high as 32,000 points and at times I have played games where there be no guaranteed wins. I will come onto guaranteed wins in a second. At least in this mode if you achieve a prize it is a win as the lowest prize is doubling your money and there are no free game and return of stake prizes.

There is normally a guaranteed win at 32,000 p
oints. This can come in very useful as it can encourage you to gamble towards the larger prizes where the jumps for successive questions get larger, i.e. from £6 to £10 to £20 safe in the knowledge that you are guaranteed a win (normally £3).

The Who Want to be a Millionaire machine is the best selling trivia machine in history. It is not surprising when you consider the above. If you have not tried it give it a go. It is unlikely to make you a fortune but it is good fun and can start a heated debate or two!

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