A load of balls

'They've been devious, I've been Jasper Carrot and this has been Golden Balls," declares our host, signing off from one of the most boring TV shows ever devised. The daily weekday game show is perking up ITV1's teatime ratings but does little to attract my attention beyond wondering why on earth comedian Carrot is presenting this hour-long-but-it-seems-much-longer series.

Here at last is a show you can quite legitimately call a load of balls. There are 100 balls in the golden bank. "Start the ball machine," orders Carrot, but watch out for those killer balls.

Four contestants are given an assortment of balls at random and have to guess which contain money and which contain the word KILLER and no cash. First - and honestly, I'm not joking - they show their front balls and then their back balls as Carrot orders: "Reveal your balls", a remark that, in other circumstances, would get him locked up.

From time to time, a contestant is eliminated and Carrot orders the remaining balls to be put back in the machine, so the whole dreary process can be started again.

Carrot has been equipped with the obligatory catchphrases, although Split or Steal and Bin or Win show a singular lack of imagination.

All to win a paltry £4,188. ITV is clearly on an economy drive as there are no million pound prizes on offer here, although at least we know the game isn't fixed as it's not on the BBC.

The idea is that contestants study each other's body language to figure out who's lying about having big money balls. Win My Wage uses the same psychological process when asking the player to surmise which of the eight strangers earns the most money.

It doesn't seem five minutes since I was watching a show on five in which presenter Colin Murray asked people to guess how much people earned. This time it's Nick Hancock, formerly of So You Think It's All Over. You'll certainly wish it was all over more quickly than it is.

Phil, a Church of England vicar from Burnley, was the contestant doing the guessing the other day. Clues included hearing the eight strangers respond to questions such as: "Does your house have a driveway?"

He reckoned things like eye contact and the age factor would help him select the highest earner. It didn't.

If you managed to stay awake until the end, you'd have seen Vicar Phil pick the wrong person. He thought Mark was the highest earner, but he turned out to be a £19,000 a year chef. Top earner, at £57,000 a year, was supermarket owner Elsie.

A good TV game or quiz show can become addictive. Jake Brindell was addicted to gambling and, on The Insider, offers a personal view of the Government's new gambling laws.

He makes some valid points with the zeal of someone who's overcome his personal demons, feeling that laws making gambling far more available to everyone will create more addicts.

Brindell's addiction began playing slot machines in seaside arcades on family holidays as a child. He points out that children are legally allowed to play these machines, which he describes as "the crack cocaine of the gambling industry".

He says the new laws will make it easier to open betting shops, often in the poorest areas where people can ill afford to lose money. Inside, you'll find electronic gaming machines, which now account for 30 per cent of bookies' profits.

The biggest threat, he reckons, comes from internet gambling. He tells of maxing out on all his five credit cards in one night, losing £10,000 at on-line poker. At present, internet gambling companies can't operate in this country. From September, they will be able to, subject to heavy regulations.

The reason, of course, is money. The Chancellor of the Exchequer collects several billion pounds in gambling taxes every year. And he doesn't even have to place a bet. Every time someone gambles, he wins.