British mystery solved as voice behind Deal or No Deal banker revealed

The Banker has always been a mysterious figure in the beloved British game show Deal or No Deal.

Never hearing him or seeing his face, the only people who made contact with the voice on the other end of the telephone line was former host Noel Edmonds and the contestants.

Being credited only as “Himself” at the end of the show, the true identity has been a mystery for 20 years.

But it can now be revealed that the voice behind the deal-broking Banker was actually Coronation Street star Glenn Hugill.

Hugill was the first ever Banker in the Channel 4 series, which aired between 2005 and 2016.

A different unknown Banker has since overtaken Stephen Mulhern’s 2023 revival of the show.

Hugill is best known for playing detective Alan McKenna on Coronation Street from 1996 to 1997, starring in 86 episodes in total.

While he only had a short stint on the soap, he went on to appear in other shows, including Dalziel and Pascoe, The Upper Hand, and Chandler and Co. In 2001, he also presented the British version of the reality TV series The Mole.

Behind the camera, Hugill had his own production company named Possessed. In 2023, he sold it to ITV and joined Wheelhouse, the media giant established by Jimmy Kimmel.

Most significantly, he was also an executive producer on Deal or No Deal which is probably how he bagged the Banker role. A fact that left some fans disappointed by the reveal.

It remains unknown who took over from Hugill as the Banker, but it’s believed he stayed in the role for a year.

Even Stephen Mulhern, who hosts the rebooted version, doesn’t know the current Banker’s identity. He said: “I don’t know who the Banker is, so I wouldn’t be able to recognise who it was.”

Mulhern added that the voice on the phone is “male” but that’s all he knows. “Supposedly, he goes into the hotel and listens to the contestants and what they're up to. So when he comes on the phone to me, I’ve got to repeat what he says.”

In 2006, Edmonds denied the rumours that Hugill was the Banker. While fans are only now realising who the Banker is, former Pointless host Richard Osman let slip his identity to the Metro back in 2015.

Discussing his BBC game show Two Tribes, which ran from 2014 to 2015, Osman said: “It was an idea that Glenn Hugill - the Banker on Deal or No Deal - and I had been thinking about for a long time.”

Hugill never addressed the rumours, but it was previously implied that Edmonds, the show’s former host, was friends with whoever the Banker was.