Split or Steal? (Golden Balls (TV Series))

Member Name: dthpsb

Product:	Golden Balls (TV Series)
Date:	07/09/09 (44 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Just a really great gameshow

Disadvantages: None

I am not a big fan of game shows and will avoid watching them most of the time but Goldenballs is one that I really enjoy watching, and if I happen to catch just five minutes of it then thats it I'm hooked and I end up watching the whole show.

Goldenballs is on ITV at 5pm and is hosted by Jasper Carrot. It isn't on all of the year and is replaced by other shows from time to time but it must be a popular show because it keeps returning for new series.

The show has four contestants who are given four goldenballs. The goldenballs either contain cash amounts or killers. In the first round 12 balls are cash balls leaving 4 killer balls to find. Each contestant has two balls on their front row which are opened and shown to everyone and two balls on the back row which only the contestant knows what they are. The aim of the game is to 'keep the cash and kick out the killers' as Jasper would say.

The four contestants then have to discuss with each other who has the most cash and the least killers, more often than not they will lie about the balls only they have seen. If they have killers on the front this happens even more. The discussions often get heated and it is a case of who can shout the loudest.

The contestants will then vote for who then want to leave and the person with the most votes has to leave the show. Everyone then has to reveal their balls and we get to see who was lying. They then bin their balls and those balls are not used again.

In the second round two more cash balls are added to the pot and one more killer. With now 15 balls, each contestant gets five balls. Again two are shown and this time three are hidden. Again the aim is to get rid of the person with the most killers and a vote is also done at the end of this round, taking two players into the final.

The final round is very different from the first, the two remaining players now have to work together. Bin or win is what this is called and with the ten remaining balls, the players have to take it in turns to bin one ball and win the other. So in the end five balls are binned and five won.

If the five winning balls are all cash then the amounts of these balls is added up to give you the winning prize. However, if a killer is picked this knocks the last number off the winning total ie. after four balls the total is at £7500 and you pick up a killer the prize money will now be £750. It is possible to get more than one killer as well that is why in the first two rounds you try and get rid of the people with the killers.

Once a cash amount has been decided the players then have a final two balls to choose between. One is split ball and the other a steal ball. If both players split they share the money, if both players steal then nobody gets the money and if one splits and one steals, the person who has stole wins all of the money. Every episode there is a different outcome, I find it surprising how many people steal, I like it when they both split.

It is a great show and whoever came up with the idea was on to a winner because most of the time they give no money away because either the killers have lowered the prize money to next to nothing or both players steal and again win nothing. Great show!

Summary: Can you bluff you're way into the final and steal the money?