Overview
The $1,000,000 Chance of a Lifetime aired on the Seven Network from 1999 to 2000. Seven began production on the show when rival network Nine Network announced production of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? , which promised the largest cash prize on Australian quiz show history.
Chance of a Lifetime was produced in-house by Seven. It was a knowledge based quiz. The million dollar prize was never won; only smaller amounts of money were awarded to contestants.
Rules of the game
Main game
A solo player (chosen randomly from the audience) competed for a chance to win over $1,000,000 by answering a series of 10 open-ended questions. The first of these was a "Credit Card Question"; if the player answered correctly, their entire credit card bills were paid off. They kept this payoff regardless of the outcome of the game. An incorrect answer ended the game immediately and sent the player home with no winnings.
Each of the nine remaining questions was drawn from a different category. The second question awarded $10,000 if answered correctly or ended the game for a miss. After giving a correct answer on any question, the player was told the category for the next question and had to decide whether to continue the game, or end it and keep all winnings. If the player chose to continue, they had to risk a part of their total (exclusive of the credit card payoff). The third question required a wager of anything from $1 to $10,000, and each question's wager must always be larger than that of the previous question. If the player answered correctly, the amount of the wager was added to their bank; if they missed, it was deducted and the game ended, with the player keeping whatever was left of their bank.
Categories were chosen at random before each turn and were removed from play after being used once.
The player was given two chances to switch to a question of their favourite category after seeing that of their upcoming question, but before the question itself.
If the player answered all 10 questions correctly, they won all money accumulated during the game, including the credit card payoff.
Charity
If a contestant cleared the second question (for $10,000), they would also get to select a charity organisation, to which Seven would donate $1,000.
Home player
The show would induce home viewers to join studio games through two hotlines (later one). Each game would feature a home player, which was picked randomly from all hotline callers of the main contestant's city of choice in Australia.
On each question, the home caller would give an answer before the studio contestant. If the caller answered wrong, they would be eliminated; while a wrong answer from the studio player would eliminate both of them, provided the caller was still live.
Regardless of the outcome, the caller would keep their winnings up to their game's conclusion. The first question was worth $1,000 and each question would be worth $1,000 more than the last (i.e., $2,000 on the second, $3,000 on the third, etc.), for a maximum of $55,000.
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