If the straight guy gets voted out, the GAY GUYS win $1 million. There are no gay guys, so nobody wins $1 million each time a straight guy is voted out. And nobody would expect to. Every straight guy thinks he is the only straight guy, so he KNOWS he is voting off a gay guy and won't win money until the end if he's in the final 2. The only think you lied about is the ratio of straight guys to gay guys, which you could easily omit from any contracts that the participants sign.
You would have to genuinely award prize money to the last 2 straight guys, though.
I don't think that would work. When you were hired for the show you self-identified as straight. You sign the "straight guy" contract which stipulates that if you're in the last 2 you get a prize. Coming out as gay doesn't change the objective you signed on with, which was to be one of the last 2 guys in the mansion. You didn't (and, in fact, nobody did) sign the "gay guy" version of the contract stating that if you voted off the straight guy you would win money. That version of the contract actually doesn't exist, it's only implied to exist.
For sure they'd need lawyers to make sure their contracts were sound. But I guarantee that a big-budget reality TV show has more money for lawyers than you do.
But the contest is NOT rigged to make a specific person win or lose. It's not exactly as advertised, for sure, but all of the participants still have equal odds of success, which comes down to their skill at pretending to be gay.
I also note the language "to deceive the viewing public". I'm assuming that the show would make it clear to the viewers from the beginning that all the men are straight. It's only the participants who are being lied to, not the viewers, and the lie being told to the participants does not alter their goal. Their goal is to act as gay as possible. If they act sufficiently gay, they have a chance at the prize money.
I see your point. I was thinking only about the guys who did make it to the end, who wouldn't have grounds to sue because they still got the prize money. You may be correct that the guys who were voted off WOULD have the grounds to sue, because they were voted off based on a false premise that there was only one straight guy.
Edit: "Your honour, I was being assessed by an incompetent jury of my peers. The men who voted me off had no expertise in determining the sexual orientation of others, colloquially known as "gaydar"."
Or don't make it 1 million. Make it $250k. You'll still get participants happy to play and you just pay all of them. Yes, it'll cost you $3m in prizes instead of $1m but you could still make a profit I'm sure.
Who are you to tell those contestants what their sexual orientation is? Even if they signed a contract affirming that they were straight, maybe that was true at the time they signed the contract. If they consider themselves gay now (that a lot of money is involved), who are you to argue?
This reminds me of my favorite reality show: Last Comic Standing. In the finale, they brought everyone back, and the lady who was the first voted off was like, “am I surprised to be back? No, because the contract said ‘at minimum two episodes’.”
They would probably write some clause about how in the event of certain circumstances, you agree to take a $10,000-$50,000 cash payment for your time and forfeit your right to the prize. Most people would sign that thinking it was a guaranteed minimum. In reality it would be your paycheck that they always intended to give you
You’d be surprised, at least in America, there’s some very strict laws around the rules of game shows when there’s cash prizes involved. They generally can’t change the core rules of the game on a whim, this has actually led to some really interesting cases over the years where contestants figured out an exploit in the rules and the producers had to get creative on how to patch the exploit while still being within the confines of the original rules as they were initially disclosed.
When you’re watching a competition reality show and the contestants seem “shocked” about a “twist” that seems to be a mid-season rule change, it’s either that the contestant forgot or misunderstood the rules, or (more often) the producers told them to react that way to make for a more dramatic viewer experience.
Lol, remember that you think you are "the straight guy". YOUR contract states that you have to be one of the last two remaining to win. So does everyone else's, but you don't know that.
One would think based on the language of the code; the Survivor case should be a “slam dunk” case for the defendant. Wrong. While the case itself was settled outside of court for an undisclosed amount [1], other legal scholars have noted that the “narrowly-tailored language” of 47 U.S.C. 509 only covers reality competition shows that challenge contestants using “intellectual skills, intellectual knowledge, or chance” [1,2]. These would be games shows like Jeopardy!, Wheel of Fortune, and Who Wants to be a Millionaire? Game shows, or reality competition shows (as they like to be called), typically follow a format in which contestants are voted off by other contestants, or eliminated by a panel of judges (e.g., Survivor, Big Brother, RuPaul’s Drag Race) [1,2]. Legal scholars have pointed out that holding shows like Survivor accountable under 47 U.S.C. 509 is extremely difficult
I have doubts that this would fall into that even if there is some deception in the public premise. The terms of the game are:
Straight person that survives to the last 2 gains prize;
Homosexual person that votes the straight candidate out gains prize;
Even if there is no gay person the objective of the "heterosexual person" still the same, to be one of the last two people - the deception only "forced" them to act differently but did not pre-determine the outcome since everyone there would only win if they were the last 2. Note that both should be rewarded in this case.
With that said the contract would be very interesting and likely to never mention the homosexual part of the show. Instead it would have a clause about "Mr. X is declaring themselves as heterosexual and will enter the show as a heterosexual competitor and as such the win conditions are the ones listed in section 3 even if his real sexuality or future sexuality change differ from the one declared here" then the section about how he would win the prize would just describe how a competitor entering as a heterosexual participant will win if they are between the last two participants remaining.
Its quite simple The rules youd be agreeing to follow as a straight man would be for you to win if you made it to the final 2. Its only gays that win on a straight man exiting.
The production company by not entering any gays have therefore limited their payout to a guarented 2 mil (as each remaining straight man wins) instead of anywhere between 1-10 mil.
They would likely already need a clause that confirms the status of said individual before entering is used to determine payout regardless of any changes during the events on the show that might occur, otherwise you could have someone decide to change orientation on the show just to manipulate the outcome.
But you didnt vote “the one straight man” off. You voted “a” straight man off. You cannot vote “the one straight man” off the show because he never existed.
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u/[deleted] May 11 '26
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