Talking bans to deleting social posts, a look inside the Squid Game: The Challenge contract

With the biggest prize pot up for grabs of any reality game show in history, a place on Squid Game: The Challenge was highly coveted. You might think however that with so many participants, 456 players to be precise, that securing a spot on the spinoff of the Korean drama could be fairly easy but that doesn’t seem to be case.

Players from the show have taken to social media to reveal some of the intricacies and details from the application process and contract of Squid Game: The Challenge and honestly, it seems pretty gruelling. Even if you do manage to make it into the show, it’s not all just smooth sailing as the contract they all had to sign outlined rules that all players must abide by whilst competing on Squid Game: The Challenge, and even still once the game was over. From having your social media accounts intensively checked to having to wait almost an entire year to receive the prize money, here all the biggest rules from the Squid Game: The challenge contract:

There’s an intense background check of your social media

With nearly 500 players in the game, and hundreds, if not thousands more, who apply, it’s no wonder that they extensively check the social media of those who get selected. One of the players from the show described the social media check as “really intense and super crazy” outlining how producers asked applicants to submit every single social media account they had, even any inactive ones, to be checked. And if they see anything they “don’t like” they you were asked to either delete or remove it.

All your travel and accommodation is paid for

Players who were selected to partake in Squid Game: The Challenge, had all their travel and accommodation paid for as per the contract. A car was sent to the house of participants in their respective countries and cities to take them to the airport and once they had landed in London, a car was then waiting to take them to their hotel. Dominique DiGiacomo, who was player 178, said in a TikTok that there was nothing in the contract that said you couldn’t miss your flight home and revealed that some players, upon elimination, purposefully missed their flights in order to stay in London longer. However, they did have to pay for their new flights themselves.

You’re banned from speaking to anyone before the start of the game

Upon arrival in London, the contestants are banned from speaking to anyone else who is partaking in the show. Each contestant had to wait in the hotel lobby in silence where they received their player number.

No one else is paid apart from the winner

The contract explicitly states that no other players would be paid for their participation in the show apart from the winner who would win $4,560,000. But with such an international cast and many of them from outside the UK, having all your hotels and flights paid means it’s basically a free holiday so you can’t really complain.

The winner must wait almost an entire year to receive the prize money

Sam Kohn, who was player 188 on the show, tweeted that it was written into the Squid Game: The Challenge contract that they would have to wait to receive the prize money.

“Our contracts stated that the winner would receive the money ~30 days after the finale,” Sam said. With filming ending in February of 2023, that means that the winner, Mai Whelan, has had to wait nearly a year to receive her earnings. Whilst Netflix did not confirm whether the 30 day clause was legit, they did confirm that now the final episode has aired, Mai would receive the money, adding that this is typical of most reality competition programs.

The money could not be shared with any other players

In a final savage twist, it was apparently written into the Squid Game: The Challenge contract that the winner of the $4,560,000 was not allowed to share the prize money with any of the other players from the show. So much for the allegiances they made!

The Tab has contacted Netflix for comment. 

Squid Game: The Challenge is available on Netflix now. For all the latest Netflix news, drops, quizzes and memes like The Holy Church of Netflix on Facebook. 

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