Lots of gameshows are known for their big-money prizes, but the prize pot on Ant and Dec’s new ITV series Limitless Win is the biggest ever – so big, in fact, it’s totally unlimited!

When we caught up with the presenting duo to find out if the sky really is the limit on this new Saturday night series, Declan Donnelly said they've had 'sleepless nights' over the thought of bankrupting ITV.

The contestants climb a cash ladder, with their correct answers pushing them – and the prize money – upwards. However, the wrong answer can lose them lives or see them knocked out of the game completely.

“The answers are all numbers, so if the answer is a large number, you can leap from £50,000 to over £250,000 in one answer. The stakes are high,” says Ant McPartlin.

“If you’ve got an answer that is ‘30’, then that’s 30 steps up the ladder, which can get you right up there. It can get very dramatic very quickly,” adds Dec.

Here, we chat to the pair to find out more…

A limitless cash prize? Aren’t you worried you’re going to bankrupt ITV if a contestant turns out to be a right clever-clogs?

Dec: There’s always a fear of that. We’ve had a few sleepless nights. I don’t know what would happen. We’d have to cancel Tipping Point and The Chase, take all their prize money and put it in the pot.

How did the show come about?

Dec: We had a bit of downtime last year because we had no Britain’s Got Talent , so we did have a gap. We got a call about this quiz show with a limitless jackpot. We played it in our office, as contestants, and we were absolutely hooked.

Ant: It tickled our fancy right from the start, but we just spent a bit of time working on it, making it more ‘us’.

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How would you describe your role as hosts?

Dec: We don’t know the questions beforehand or any of the answers. We get to stand alongside those contestants, and we play along in our heads. It’s almost like we’re going on the journey with them, guiding them up the ladder.

Ant: The hardest thing is not shouting out what we think. We’re there very much to remind the contestants what they’ve got in the bank, what they’d be risking, that they’ve got lifelines, all that kind of thing.

It sounds like it gets tense – do the questions get harder as the money gets bigger?

Dec: Not necessarily. It really depends on what your area of knowledge is. We have no idea what the contestants’ expertise is beforehand, so they might just get lucky. We had one question where everybody was stumped, but this couple were like, “We just know this because his sister was born in this year.”

Ant: But they still have to be brave to risk what they have in the bank to put it all on this question. We’re with the players for so long during filming, we’re really living it with them, so it’s really hard to watch. I tried to hide under the table at one point!

For people who pause us when we’re pulling a weird face and tweet it, this show sees us pull the ugliest faces you’ve ever seen.

The contestants are all in pairs. Was that fun?

Ant: We’ve got some great duos. We’ve got fathers and daughters, sisters and brothers. The relationship between the contestants is key as you find out more about a person when they’ve got a sibling or a wife or a daughter next to them.

Dec: It’s nice to dream big and contestants could win £10 million. But when you drill down, a lot of the time they just want to buy a new car, have a holiday or get a deposit for a house. Something like that is quite achievable through this show.

Is there any bickering between the couples?

Dec: You really see the dynamics at work, especially between the husbands and wives. And there’s a bit of bickering between me and Ant, too!

Keep up with all of latest news on Ant and Dec by signing up to OK!’s daily newsletter. Ant & Dec's Limitless Win starts Saturday 8 January at 8.30pm on ITV

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