For quite a while ’The Buffalo’ has been bemused by ITV’s new programme “Golden Balls”. If you have ever seen this programme then like myself you probably loathe not only the chagrin way in which the audience are so obviously prompted to ‘ooh’ and ‘ahh’ whenever the most tedious of events occurs. This ranges from a ‘Golden ball’ being opened to Jasper Carrot scratching his behind, but the element I cannot fathom is the end game, “Split or Steal”.
Now one would assume that the shows makers and producers have a reasonable standard of education to command such important posts. This is why I find the huge oversight by the producers to be appalling as the game is fundamentally flawed.
For those that do not understand or have not seen the show a quick explanation is needed.
After the total amount winnable is resolved the two remaining contestants have to decide how much money they get each. They pick either a ‘Split’ or ‘Steal’ ball without the other person seeing and are then prompted to reveal their choices.
If both parties pick ‘Split’ then the money is divided 50/50. If one chooses ‘Steal’ and the other ‘Split’ then the contestant who chose ‘Steal’ takes all of the prize-money. Both contestants choosing ‘Steal’ results in neither getting any money.
I may not be the smartest of God’s creations but even I can see that there is a problem presented here. A contestant cannot lose if he chooses to steal. At this point you’ll no doubt point out that if they both steal then they get nothing and therefore lose, making the Buffalo wrong.
However, In his wise old ways the Buffalo points out that if contestant 1 steals and contestant 2 splits, 1 gets all of the money. Contestant 1 choosing steal and then seeing contestant 2 steal may mean that 1 gets no money BUT… if 1 had chosen to split then they would have lost all the money to contestant 2 anyway because no matter what, contestant 2 was always going to steal. In this way the game can be exploited and once every contestant realises this fault the game is void, because both will steal.
I don’t know how much money the creators and think-tanks that produce these shows get, but I bet the Buffalo could buy himself a nice winter coat with that kind of green.
Maybe this programme really is a load of golden-balls!
