Golden Balls

Synopsis

What stud poker would be a bit like if there was a giant lottery machine involved, and the Prisoner's Dilemma.

Four players are dealt out balls worth varying amounts of money (from a tenner to £75,000) and some "killer balls". Two of each player's balls are on show, the rest are known only to each player. The aim is to eliminate the players with the Killer Balls whilst keeping the big money in play, with a The Weakest Link style vote. Obviously players dealt weak balls have to fast talk their way into the next round. The final two players aim to build as big a pot as possible, and then inevitably go home with nothing because they're both very selfish.

In round one, 12 balls come from the big machine and 4 killers, and each player has four each, two on the front row, and two on the back. They then open the front ones and leave them open for all to see. They then each get to peek at their back two balls, and afterwards they take it in turns to announce what they have on their back row, simultaneously trying to convince the others they're telling the truth whilst trying to convince the other two that someone else is a stinking liar (invariably by 'shouting very loudly'). At this stage, balls on the back can only be seen by the player who owns them.

Then we have the vote, with some stylish cards that are put on stands that can be turned round for Jasper's "The first/second/next/final vote is for..." (In case of a tie, the other players discuss which one to save and, if they still can't agree, the Golden Bank decides for them via a random draw - one player gets a solid gold ball, the other gets a killer.)

The as-yet unrevealed balls are then opened and, rather predictably, there are a lot of killers and missing zeroes knocking about, which often leads to how-dare-you hilarity of epic proportions when it turns out they've kept in someone with a shocking hand. The player who is voted off then has to "bin" their balls (a.k.a. drop them down a chute) and do the Walk.

All the other player's balls go in to the massive roulette wheel thing, with two more balls from the ball machine and one more Killer, so we have 15 balls, 5 to each player, 2 on the front, 3 on the back. Repeat the last round.

The remaining two players bring their balls through to the money making round, along with another Killer ball, making 11 in play for "Bin or Win". Each person picks a ball to get rid of (Bin) and other to add to the jackpot (Win). If you pick up a killer to win, then your total is divided by 10, so if you have £10,000, your total drops to £1,000.

After they make up their row of five winners, they are given two more balls each: Spilt and Shaft Steal. If both choose Spilt, they share the remaining cash. If one says Spilt and the other says Steal, the stealer gets all the cash. If they both say Steal, they both go home with nothing.

Trivia

In the unaired pilot, the top ball was worth £200,000, and there were £100,000 balls also.

Somehow, Golden Balls became ITV's surprise summer hit of 2007 (and they needed one after Tycoon!). Achieving audiences of up to around 2.1 million, it was ITV's first show since The Paul O' Grady Show to win the ratings battle at 5pm and the first show (other than World Cup football) to beat The Weakest Link.

The smallest win was £3, stolen by Robbie (whon won £5,500 on Deal or No Deal) on the 12th July 2007 episode.

The episode on 11th February 2008 had the largest possible potential jackpot to date - £168,100 - after the top two balls (£70,000 and £75,000) made it through to the final round.

A special episode on 14th March 2008 (the day [[Jasper Carrott turned 63) brought together four former victims of the Steal ball from the first series and gave them a second chance to play the game: Chloe (22nd June 2007), Stephen (16th July 2007), Sarah (2nd July 2007) and Darren (12th July 2007). At the show's climax, Sarah stole £100,150 from Stephen and became (somewhat ironically) the show's biggest winner to date. Sarah had previously appeared in a team of Accountants on series 2 of Codex - in the very same top, incidentally.

Sponsored by ITV Bingo (powered by Party Gaming) - except in Northern and Central Scotland, where it's sponsored by STV Bingo (powered by 888.com, if you must know).

Merchandise

Golden Balls board game

Music

Marc Sylvan

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