Squid Game: The Challenge crowns winner of £3.6m prize

Spoilers for Squid Game: The Challenge below!

The first season of Squid Game: The Challenge has wrapped up and we have our first ever real life winner.

It's been quite the ride for the 456 contestants who went in hoping to win the prize pot of $4.56 million (£3.6 million) and in the end only one person could take it home.

We've had pretty much all of the expected twists and turns you'd expect from Squid Game, plus some others thrown in to wrong-foot the contestants.

There were tears, jeers and plenty faced their fears but the whole point of the games is to whittle 456 people down to one lucky winner, albeit without the actual bloodshed and death of the original Netflix drama.

Squid Game: The Challenge has already been renewed for a second season, with casting open for those who want to give it a go themselves.

Netflix

The example you'll want to follow if you make it onto the show is that of the gameshow's eventual winner, which we're about to announce so look away now if you haven't caught up yet.

It's Mai Whelan, player 287, who ended up winning the show and the $4.56 million prize pot in the end.

Mai did better than her numerical counterpart from the Squid Game drama, where player 287 was a man who survived Red Light, Green Light but failed to cut a shape in honeycomb and was eliminated.

Born in Vietnam, Mai survived a near-death experience where she had a gun put against her head before her mother saved her and she fled to the US as a refugee.

She ended up enlisting in the US Navy before working as an immigration adjudicator, and aged 55 when she competed in the games she was one of Squid Game: The Challenge's older players.

Netflix

"People will think it couldn’t possibly be me," Mai told Netflix about her victory.

"I am so glad that I’m a woman, I’m a minority, and able to overcome everything at my age.

"So I’m putting it out there, 'Don’t be afraid. Be who you are and just plow through'.

"I want to let all of the players know that without their support, I wouldn’t be here today."

She made special mention of players 182 and 286, TJ and Chad, saying she was 'very grateful' to them both for looking out for her.

As for what she's going to do with the money, Mai plans to renovate her Virginia home and build a dock for a boat.

Beyond that she has some other plans, saying: "My heart is with people, animals, and climate change. If we continue what we’re doing, there won’t be a future for all the little kids growing up right now."