Deal or No Deal History

Versions of Deal or No Deal can be seen in Argentina, Australia, Belgian, Bulgaria, Chile, French, German, Hungarian, India, Israel, Italy, Mexico, Middle East, Netherlands, Philippines, Poland, Romania, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Tunisia, Great Britain and now in the United States.

In the United States the 60 minute version, hosted by actor-comedian Howie Mandel, premiered on December 19, 2005 on NBC and aired for 5 consecutive nights. The grand prize was $1 million. The cases are not held by the audience members, as in foreign versions of the show, but by 26 models who are identically dressed, similar to the Dutch version, but without the wigs. There are also no trivia questions or crazy stunts performed, unlike some other versions. Typically, one and a half games are played per episode.

Canadian broadcast network Global landed the Canadian rights to the show, and aired the original December run concurrently with NBC. Presently Global's sister network CH has the rights in Canada. Show host Howie Mandel was born and raised in Canada, it is one of the most popular TV shows to date.

In a second week-long event at the end of February 2006, the grand prize started at $1 million on Monday and increased by $500,000 for the first new game each night, up to $3 million on Friday. Other amounts were also increased as the week continued (e.g. $750,000 became $1 million; later, $500,000 became $750,000 and - for the final game - $.01 humorously became $.03).

The show landed a spot on the regular schedule on Monday and Friday nights in March, 2006 with the top prize back at $1 million. Wednesday night episodes were added effective mid March. The 2006 season will end with a two-hour finale on June 5, after which the show will take a break for the summer, and return for the fall season in September. The finale will feature $5,000,000 as the grand prize, and $2,500,000 and the regular million as the 2nd and 3rd highest amounts, respectively.

Reruns air on the CNBC (sister channel of NBC); these reruns were originally blacked out in Canada due to programming rights issues, but that blackout was mysteriously lifted in March, 2006. After the initial week-long event was replayed the week of Dec. 26, the show settled into a Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday night schedule on CNBC.

In May, 2006, special guest Regis Philbin of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire and Live with Regis and Kelly appeared for a short stint, arguing with Howie over the correct phrasing of the question. Deal or no Deal? Final answer? Deal or no deal? Final answwwwwwer!

The American version also offers a play at home game, "The Lucky Case Game", a contest where six cases are presented to the viewers, who may then text message a guess as to which case contains $10,000. Towards the end of the show, the case containing the $10,000 is revealed, and a winner is chosen at random from each of the people who picked the correct case. Originally, the viewers picked from the remaining cases in the show.

"Deal or No Deal" is currently the highest rated show on NBC, and a daily version for syndication is scheduled for production starting in the fall of 2007.