After doing two years of Fear Factor Bingo, I decided this year to try "Deal or No Deal" Bingo. It went over extremely well. (To find out what we did for Fear Factor Bingo do a search on Fear Factor Bingo, or the specifics are under "Top Message Board Requests.)

We charged parents and kids 2$ admission, just so the event paid for itself. (I do not want any parent saying they sold all the wrapping paper just to pay for Bingo prizes.) We played about 20 games of Bingo from 6:30 - 8:00. That seemed to be the right amount, so we gave out $5 gift certificates as prizes, so $100 on Bingo. We had teachers be the Bingo callers.

Then we cleared the stage and played Skyview's version of "Deal or No Deal." It was our school's 10 year birthday, so we only used ten suitcases.

The suitcase were the plain only file folders you use in your filing drawers. On the front we had a clipart of a suitcase, with the numbers 1 - 10 inside the clipart. Then inside we had large numbers with the dollar amount. We used ten middle school girls, they would parade out on stage holding their file folder with the numbers on it. They did not know what money amount was inside their folder. When it was time to open the folder, they released two paper clips holding it shut, and let the top of the file folder fall down revealing the money. We made up ten whole sets of these file folders, so each time the girls would grab one of the next set.

As for dollar amounts, we struggled some with that, but I think what we ended up with went over fantastic. First we thought candy bars etc, but we figured nothing works better than money. So we used the following $ amounts.
.01, .25, .50, $1, $2, $5, $10, $25, $50.

Assuming you know how the game works, you must pick your suitcase first. So the odds of picking any suitcase is one out of ten. So the odds of them picking the 50 dollar is the same as them picking the penny.

We then had an excel spreadsheet with all these dollar amounts listed, which we displayed on a screen using a projector. First they picked their suitcase, which we set aside on a music stand. Then they had to pick three more to open. These dollar amounts we erased off the excel spreadsheet. Then we used a simple average of the seven dollar amounts left, which we used as the bankers offer. If you try it, if you take out some high numbers and low numbers you end up with an offer between 10 - 15 dollars. So the Howie Mandell person asked Deal or No Deal, and almost always they said No Deal. So then we had them pick three more, leaving 4 numbers left. We took the average of them, and that was their offer. I would say 90% of the time the kids said No Deal. Then we had them pick one more, get aqn offer. Then they picked one more, get an offer. Finally at this point we were down to only two suitcases, which the mc gave them a chance to switch. They never switched. Finally they opened up their suitcase to see what they won.

We played nine games, and had a $50 winner, a $25 dollar winer, the rest were 10, 5 or 15, and we had a .25 cent winner and two that won a penny. It was unbelievabl how many time it came down to a penny showing and a larger number showing. The boy who won 50 had a 50 showing and a dollar, so the offer was 25.50. His mom was telling him to take the offer, but he risked it and won the fifty. But there were others with a penny showing and 15, and they rejected the 7.50 offer and got stuck with a penny. (We had no sympathy, you win a penny you get a penny, no consolation prize. Next time take the banker's offer.)

So all told we played nine games in an hour, and we spent at most $125 on money paid out. As I said, the odds are thatsomeone might win the fifty, but someone also is going to win the penny. I say if you pan on 12 - 15 dollars per game average you would be ok.

Anyway, it was a great time, even the suitcase girls were saying how much fun it was.