In the USA, all "games of chance" (regardless of "knowledge" content) MUST clearly show the odds of winning EACH prize.

If the UK were to adopt these rules across the board (print, TV, telephone, internet), and restrict all contests to those 18 yrs or older, then most of this problem would disappear.

NO gambling or access to gambling should be allowed for those under 18 yrs old.

That includes "Blue Peter" "charity events" where kids are enticed to call on their parents' phone bills to WIN A PRIZE, even if all receipts go to charity.

IT IS STILL GAMBLING and NOT a good lesson for children, are you listening BBC?

I have to agree that the odds of being chosen must be shown, it should be part of the licencing agreement.

For example on Richard & Judie's show they must KNOW the average amount of calls they get and they choose only one caller. It should be simple enough for them to show the odds of being chosen. If people operating gaming machines have to show the odds of winning as a percentage payout then why not phone in competitions? No doubt the operators ill scream blue murder about commercially sensitive figures but they just don't want people knowing that really they have next to no hope of getting a prize.

If operators are forced to show the odds of winning a prize they should not however be allowed to muddy the water by giving away a lot of little prizes to skew the figures in their favour. The odds shown should be those for winning the main prize.

Even if the question posed requires genuine skill to answer, if the prize goes only to the *first* person who gets the answer right, that still classifies it as a "game of chance" by my reckoning.

The only way of sidestepping that would be to ensure that *everybody* who wants to enter can answer the question, everybody who gets the answer right must procede to the next round, all answering further questions until a winner is determined solely by merit.

Deliberately or unintentionally whittling down the numbers by a manner that doesn't involve skill -- including, for example, the possibility that one or more of the entrants might reach a busy number and be unable to take part in the competition -- would seem to convert it from a game of skill to a de-facto game of chance. To prevent that, organisers would presumably have to install an infinite amount of switchboard capacity, and telcos would have to be prevented from pre-failing a proportion of the calls as they do at present.

it has been obvious for years that these things were lotteries, if you tried to run something similar in a pub you'd be prosecuted, so why was it OK 'cos it was on telly?

AndyD 8-)#