Back-to-back millionaires

SANTOS. Her kiddie tilt has been relatively hedging its bets.

In the past, the record for most number of top prizes won was claimed by the contestants of the first (weekly) edition of “Bet On Your Baby” (hosted by Judy Ann Santos), which happily for its contenders had the penchant for coming up roses for them on a pretty regular basis.

Now that it’s become a weekday show, however, the program has been relatively hedging its bets, so its numbers of top winners has ebbed.

Million-peso jackpot

On the other hand, the new game-quiz portion on “It’s Showtime” has been ending up in the daily and nightly news of late, because its million-peso jackpot has been won, not once but twice—and, to make the feat even more amazing, the two wins were back-to-back sensations, coming one after another, on successive days!

Now, how can you figure out that “impossible” refutation of the Law of Probability? But, it really happened last month, so the program’s “Isang Tanong, Isang Milyon” portion has been attracting a lot of contestants and viewers, all hoping that lighting will strike thrice!

Viewers also like the fact that the quiz’s jackpot question can be unusually challenging to figure out and answer correctly: Each daily winner is given three words to choose from a “blind” verbal sequence or sentence—and, using just those three “revealed” words, the player is supposed to infer, divine or otherwise figure out what the rest of the jackpot question is—and what the answer could be!

Actually, the answer comes first, and the player proceeds “backwards” and uses it as a guide for how the full question will read. This is an unusually difficult and dodgy process, so the winning player really deserves the cool million he or she gets!

At times, the answer may look and “feel” correct, but when the full question is revealed, it turns out that the key words were in fact referring to something far removed from the player’s “brilliant” answer!

Recently, the player took his cue from the “revealed” word “stripe,” and inferred from it that the answer would be “zebra.”

Answer

Good inference, right? Wrong. When the full sentence was revealed, it turned out that the answer was related to a striped billiard ball!

After the “impossible” back-to-back victories on the show, many have tried but failed to also end up in the winners’ circle. But, that hasn’t discouraged other players from trying their luck to become instant millionaires, and thus turn their families’ lives around.

For our part, we’re confident that the show will have its third “instant” millionaire—this month! (Christmas, you know). So, will we be proven right? We’d better—or our middle name wouldn’t be—Santa!