‘I can’t afford to lose £3,000’: the ‘gameshow’ that made contestants gamble their own money

A Derren Brown-style experiment? A Ghostwatch stunt? Wild rumours have swirled around Bradley Walsh’s Million Pound Shot all week. The hoax has finally been revealed – and its message is terrifying

In late October, some canny viewers began to wonder whether there was something strange about Channel 4’s latest gameshow. Bradley Walsh’s Million Pound Shot had been billed as a new big-money contest with a twist, but information about its pilot episode was strangely minimal. Television and radio producer Chuck Thomas wondered on X whether it could be a Derren Brown-style psychological experiment; a Ghostwatch-esque stunt; or even a dark TV comedy in the vein of the genre-bending series Inside No 9. Indeed, the timing – one day after Halloween – also seemed to point viewers towards some kind of parody or one-off drama.

As more information was revealed about the show – including that its players would stake their own money, in a UK television first – Thomas considered whether this was in fact “an elaborate anti-gambling stunt”. It was an opinion shared by journalist Alistair Ryder, who posted that it was “more likely to be a stealth anti-gambling drama disguised as a gameshow than a modern Ghostwatch”, adding that the programme “could make for uncomfortable viewing in a completely different way”.