To prevent people from choosing the arbitration to get some easy money, the show’s producers deduct the amount of the judgment against the losing party’s payment for being on the show.

Which explains a lot really. Why else would you go on national television and embarrass yourself in front of millions of viewers when you know you’ve got a losing case, unless you were getting some serious financial kickback for doing it?

Apparently though, the “binding” arbitration isn’t quite so binding afterall:

B.M. v. D.L., the Family Court of Kings County, New York, overturned part of a Judge Judy decision. The parties had appeared in front of Judge Judy over a dispute involving personal property. However, Judge Judy made a decision involving child custody and visitation. The court overturned the custody and visitation part of her decision on two grounds. First, it was a matter that was not covered by the agreement to arbitrate. Second, as a matter of public policy, an arbitrator could not decide child custody and visitation rights. Considering that Judy had been a judge in New York’s family court, it is particularly ironic that she decided to overstep her arbitral authority on this particular issue.

-From the wikipedia article.

are these really in courts with legal sanctions or do the participants merely engage in a contractual agreement to subject themselves to the show but there arent’ any real legal remedies or appeals?

what jurisdiction do most of these judges operate in anyway?