The hour-long show typically aired at least twice a week during its run, and included special extended or theme episodes.

It has led to the creation of tie-in board, card, arcade, and video games, as well as a syndicated series played for smaller dollar amounts.

The show went on hiatus in early 2009, and its Friday night time slot was replaced with Mandel's other series Howie Do It.

On December 3, 2018, the show returned to NBC as a holiday special with original host Howie Mandel.

After the sixth pick, a cordless telephone on the podium rings and the host answers it to speak with "The Banker", visible only as a silhouette, who sits in a skybox overlooking the studio.

Once per game, the contestant could counter the Banker's offer after any round by naming a higher price to stop playing.

As of March 6, 2006, the show settled into regular time slots at 8:00 p.m. Mondays and Fridays, with the top prize returning to its original $1 million.

In something of a ratings coup, the April 3, 2006 episode of the show, a two-hour special, outperformed the NCAA basketball tournament final in a head-to-head competition.

The June 5, 2006 two-hour season finale, which featured Celine Dion via satellite, marked a series-high rating for the program, bringing in over 18 million viewers and a strong 5.5 share in the 18–49 demographic.

[9][10] (However, CSI and nearly all other fall TV series had completed their seasons two weeks earlier and were either in reruns or pre-empted by this point.)

Deal's Thursday time slot had initially been intended for Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip when NBC announced its fall schedule.

The drama Crossing Jordan, which had been planned for a mid-season run, was to be brought into the Friday lineup in what would have been Deal's second weekly time slot.

The Tuesday and Thursday episodes suffered from tough competition: Dancing with the Stars, Grey's Anatomy, and CSI.

Meanwhile, NBC announced the Thursday episodes would end with the November 8, 2006, to be replaced by sitcoms Scrubs and 30 Rock.

Through all these changes, the Monday night edition of Deal continued to win its time slot by a large margin.

On Monday, October 30, 2006, for instance, Deal won its time slot with a 10.3 household rating and 16 percent share, easily outdistancing second-place Prison Break at 5.6/8.

NBC announced on February 16, 2007 that the second airing would move from Wednesdays to Sundays at 9:00 p.m. (Eastern/Pacific) starting March 4, 2007.

In another surprising move, NBC replaced the Wednesday airings for five weeks with a short-run reality series, Phenomenon, starting in late October.

[citation needed] Due to the 2007 Writers Guild of America strike, Deal's Friday edition moved back to Monday in January 2008, at least temporarily replacing Chuck.

The week before Rodriguez's victory, the October 22, 2008 episode featured the most infamous contestant when Richie Bell of Karns City, Pennsylvania kept his briefcase (case number 15) all the way to the end and turning down multiple banker offers of over $600,000 and it came down to either the $1,000,000 prize or $1.

[16] A 2018 update showed Bell now living with his family in Henderson, Nevada and having lost considerable weight after having successful gastric sleeve surgery.

Returning models from the original series include Patricia Kara, Megan Abrigo, and Amanza Smith.

The reruns are not necessarily repeats of the most recent episodes—many of these episodes are selected at random, and may have been previously seen several months after its initial broadcast.

The syndicated version offered a top prize of $500,000, hidden in one of the 22 cases available for choosing by contestants rather than the 26 in play in the show's standard format.

Prior to each game, 22 individual dollar amounts ranging from $0.01 to $500,000 were distributed by a third-party among 22 briefcases,[33] and the values were unknown to the host, the Banker or any other entity.

After completing the selection of cases for that round, the Banker called the host using a phone on the podium, who then verbally revealed to the contestant of the Banker's "offer", a cash value based upon the remaining values in play, for the contestant to accept and end the game immediately.

As Deal or No Deal became an exclusively syndicated show for the 2009–10 season, production moved from the Culver Studios in Culver City, California to the Sonalyst Studios in Waterford, Connecticut, as part of a corporate decision in which four NBC Universal Television Distribution shows moved to Connecticut.

The original pilot was produced for ABC in early 2004 with Irish TV personality Patrick Kielty as host[41] and a $2.5 million top prize.

Mandel stated that this was done "to make the contestant feel comfortable" (and was the case since early in Season Two);[citation needed] However, critics[who?]

Non-winning tickets may be used to enter a sweepstakes for a variety of prizes, including a chance to be on the game show.