Deal or No Deal Lawsuit Tossed

The Georgia Supreme Court has tossed out a lawsuit that we've mentioned here before, challenging NBC's "Lucky Case" promotion on its "Deal or No Deal" program. See story here.

We never thought the lawsuit had much merit, despite the fact that we've always viewed the misnomered "Lucky Case" (lucky for NBC, maybe) game as a complete rip-off of gullible viewers.

In the Lucky Case promotion, at-home viewers can send a $.99 premium text message to NBC for a shot at winning $10,000 (sometimes more, as above) in a lottery with other viewers. Small text on the screen also advises that you can play for free on NBC's website. The network has made hundreds of millions of dollars on the game, which explains why it was fully willing to devote several minutes of presumably valuable commercial time to the promotion on each segment of the show.

Some of our readers have commented that the folks playing the game presumably know they are paying $.99 per text message to play the silly promotion, and we agree, at least after they get one bill from the phone company.

Still, the game is a lottery. If NBC wants to run a lottery on the air, it ought to post the odds of winning as part of its promotion. Clearly, those odds are low--they certainly aren't worth spending nearly $1 per entry. At some point, the show becomes an excuse for the promotion, rather than the promotion being for the show.

Perhaps NBC should let the pot reflect the number of entrants. Then at least the clearly lucky winning schmo would get a nice big pile of cash.

Update on NBC's "Lucky Case" Rip-off

A couple times awhile back we wrote about a scam NBC was perpetrating on its popular "Deal or No Deal" game show. We thought we'd bring you an update.

We at the Curmudgeon actually like "Deal," notwithstanding that there's no skill whatsoever involved in the "game." Chalk it up to host Howie Mandel's endearing personality, an engaging cast of contestants and, of course, those 26 beautiful models holding briefcases.

But one thing we didn't like about the show was it's "Lucky Case" promotion during commercial breaks. In the "Lucky Case" game, a home viewer could win $10,000 (or sometimes more on a special night, as above) by picking the right case, out of six, and then winning a drawing of the viewers who picked that case. You were encouraged to text message your choice, and you could enter multiple times--meaning you could assure yourself of having picked the right case by texting in six different choices.

That would all be a lot of fun, but for one thing: in very small print at the bottom of the screen, NBC disclosed a 99 cents "premium" text message charge for every one of those texted choices.

In other words, for a buck a shot, you got to participate in a lottery with hundreds of thousands of other people for a shot at a measly $10,000. Where did the rest of the money go? Of course, it went to NBC and a couple of companies that came up with the scam--as of a year ago, NBC had raked in about $57 million on the game, but paid out only $1 million. (See "NBC's 'Lucky Case' Rip-off Scheme Spreads Like A Cancer Through Television.")

When we last visited the issue, some lawsuits were popping up from disgruntled contestants who, having gotten their phone bills, realized that NBC's promotion was "lucky" only for NBC.

Since then, NBC has quietly discontinued the promotion. Why? Because the courts have made clear that the issue is serious enough that it could go to trial and expose the network to significant damages.

Nothing has been decided on the merits yet, but as this news article indicates, the Georgia Supreme Court recently heard argument on whether Georgia law allows a participant in an illegal lottery to collect damages, and if so are the damages due from the lottery's organizer.

Now Georgia is a conservative state with a pro-business Supreme Court, but they still don't like Yankee carpetbaggers down there, so there's a good chance NBC could end up on the wrong end of that ruling.

Our favorite part of NBC's argument to the Georgia supremes: NBC is not the "winner" of the game, and thus should not be held liable if damages can be pursued. Hmm. Let's see: you set up a game in which you rake in $57 million and give out $1 million; we think that makes you the winner.

NBC's "Lucky Case" Rip-off Scheme Spreads Like A Cancer Through Television

Suppose Howie Mandel, on NBC's popular "Deal or No Deal" game show, took time out from each broadcast to urge viewers to send in $1 apiece for the chance to "win" a $10,000 prize. And suppose far more than 10,000 viewers sent in their $1 in the hope of winning, leaving NBC with a tidy little profit?

That would be an illegal lottery, and pretty soon some folks--maybe even Howie--would be in jail.

About a year ago, we wrote about NBC's shameful "Lucky Case" promotion on "Deal", characterizing it as not much different than an illegal lottery because it requires entrants to pay a $.99 "premium text messaging charge" to enter.

Unfortunately, this scam is now spreading to other NBC shows, and even to mighty American Idol on Fox. NBC has a similar promotion on its "1 Vs. 100" game show and on Donald Trump's "The Apprentice". These "contests" are heavily promoted during the shows, during just about every commercial break.

The similar promotion on American Idol is not quite so pervasive--we've only seen one quick promo for it during each show, probably because Idol commercial time is just too valuable to squander.

So why are these rip-offs spreading? Easy: its all about the money. Just take a look at this June 2006 press release from the company that manages the Lucky Case game for NBC. According to the press release, there have been 57 million entries to the game, with just $1 million paid out! That means someone--presumably the cellular carriers and NBC--is pocketing nearly $56 million. No wonder this phenomenon is spreading like a cancer throughout television.

(To be sure, you can also enter these games on the internet, for free--if you can parse through the extremely small print on your television screen to figure that out. Presumably, only a very small fraction of entries are over the internet or NBC wouldn't devote so much time to the promotion.)

Furthermore, there is some small print in NBC's rules that suggests entrants may end up paying more than $1 per entry. The rules contain this little notation:

"In addition, a premium text message charge of $.99 will apply to all text messages sent and received in connection with the Promotion. You will receive a "thank you" text message the following day including a DEAL OR NO DEAL Insider message."

In other words, it appears that you will get charged another $.99 for the "thank you" message--isn't that sweet, paying for a thank you! (If you don't want to get the thank you's, you can pay another $.99 to text a message asking not to receive them.)

So it may be that NBC and its cell-phone carrier cronies have earned not $56 million, but over $100 million on this scam, and that's just from Deal or No Deal.

These slimy promotions should be OUTLAWED, plain and simple. They're actually more devious than a lottery. At least if you enter a straight lottery, each ticket you purchase has an even chance of winning the prize. In these TV contests, roughly 80 percent of the entries don't even have a shot at the drawing--but if you buy multiple tickets, i.e., pay a lot more, then you have shot!

Back when Eliott Spitzer was Attorney General of New York, we could've counted on him to do something about such an egregious scam. We hope a few legislators will get up the gumption to put a stop to this nonsense.