A QUIZ contestant from Bolton kissed goodbye to £217,000 after deciding to "shaft" her rival on a TV game show.

Elaine Thorpe, who lives above a sandwich shop on Blackburn Road, could have agreed to share the cash with her fellow contestant, Ralph Short.

But from the outset she was adamant she would stitch him up -- and when he did the same to her, they both ended up penniless.

Millions of viewers watched aghast as the pair chose to con each other out of the cash on ITV1's Shafted last night.

The pair are the biggest losers so far on the psychological quiz show hosted by Robert Kilroy Silk.

A spokeswoman said: "If Elaine and Ralph had shared, they could have walked away with £108,000 each. They've only got themselves to blame."

In the programme, the two finalists can choose to pool their cash or "shaft" the opposition in the hope of grabbing all the cash for themselves.

Both Mrs Thorpe, a 27-year-old information technology technician from Astley Bridge, and Mr Short, a 58-year-old tax consultant, from Leighton Buzzard, Bedfordshire, secretly decided to shaft each other which meant they both missed out on the prize.

If they had chosen to share, the cash would have been split between them or, if only one of them had decided to shaft, that person would have taken the lot.

At one point, Ralph had decided to share while Elaine had chosen to shaft. Kilroy revealed the decision to the viewers before giving the pair the chance to talk it over.

They then pleaded with each other before making their decisions -- although Mrs Thorpe later revealed to the BEN that it was always her intention to shaft.

On the programme Mrs Thorpe said: "It's an awful lot of money at stake. What I don't want is for us to be greedy and hit shaft and go away with nothing.

"A hundred and odd thousand pounds is a hell of a lot of money and I know I can't afford to lose that, I really can't. It means so much to me."

She told Ralph she was not a materialistic person and that her most prized possession was her dog, Barney. Ralph spoke of how he had once handed in a wallet containing £110 which he had found.

He added: "This is more money than I've ever seen in my life, ever likely to see. I don't want to shaft you and I hope you don't want to shaft me. We could both walk away from here with something in our pockets. If we don't, we'll both be heartbroken -- it's as simple as that."

But the pair then opted separately to try to grab the entire cash pot for themselves. Previously, the highest prize fund which contestants had missed out on was £66,000. Mrs Thorpe's dream of emigrating to Canada was over with the press of a button.

Kilroy reacted by saying: "You have shafted each other, how could you do that? How could you do it, you've blown it!"

Afterwards Elaine said: "I knew at the time that I would walk away with no money. There was about 10 seconds when I felt I was going to share.

"Only when I made my plea did I realize that he was going to shaft me because he didn't look me in the eye. I could see it in his face."

Ralph said: "I discussed it with my family and we thought it was the only chance."