On Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, a guarantee point or safety net is a prize awarded at certain levels of the game so that contestants do not leave empty-handed after answering a certain number of questions correctly when an incorrect answer is given above a certain level.
The safety nets on the money tree of the original UK version (1998-2007) .
Most versions of the show offer two guarantee points, the original British version of the show had these set at £1,000 and £32,000, and three lifelines to reach one of these points. From 2007 until 2014 they were set at £1,000 and £50,000.
In some versions of the show that use the High-risk format, only the first safety net is set at the fifth question, where the contestant being allowed to set the second anywhere above that. Versions differ as to when the contestant can set the safety net: in the UK the contestant can set it whenever they please, whilst in the Spanish version, for example, the second safety net is a blind guess after the fifth question.
In other versions using the extra-high risk format, which disables the first safety net but allowing the contestant to set the second where they please, the possibility of leaving with nothing is increased.
Very rarely have contestants walked away with the money before reaching the first guarantee point to avoid leaving empty-handed after using all their lifelines.
On Millionaire Hot Seat, only the first safety net appears because if a contestant gets the question wrong, the top prize will decrease one level, and as more contestants fail, the lower the money value of the top prize will be. If five contestants got it wrong, the money will be reduced all the way to whatever the value of the ninth question is.