The final of Love Island 2022 is airing tonight, bringing to an end a memorable series which critics have hailed as a welcome return to form.

We’ve had the familiar frenzy of Casa Amor, some truly extraordinary exchanges (“I licked her tit… or whatever”) and, finally, met the islanders’ parents.

All that’s left before the contestants can start their new lives as minor celebrities is for Laura Whitmore to enter the villa and reveal which couple has triumphed in the public vote.

Then there’s the tension(ish) of the moment when they decide what to do with the £50,000 prize money – here’s how the winner’s bounty works.

The Love Island prize money stands at £50,000 for the winning couple, but once Whitmore has revealed the champions they will be asked to pick an envelope each.

One of these contains £0, while the other holds the full £50,000.

Whoever has the envelope with the prize money in it is will then be asked whether they want to split it with their partner and receive £25,000 each, or if they want to keep the £50,000, revealing once and for all if they were in the show for love (hooray!) or money (boo!).

The four couples in the final, and with a shot of facing this life-changing choice, are:

Sanclimenti and Cülcüloğlu are the comfortable favourites to take the crown tonight and, given their tumultuous journey in the villa, there would be something deliciously on-brand if one of them did what no previous winner has done before…

After convincing the public of their affections to the extent of winning the viewer’s vote, it would take someone very brave (or perhaps stupid?) to take the brutal step of pocketing the money themselves, thus throwing away a plethora advertising opportunities and reality TV appearances.

So far, this has never happened – despite the fact that some of the winners’ romances didn’t last particularly long after the series ended.

During their time on the show, it has previously been reported that the islanders earn £250 a week, with a 2019 parliamentary inquiry into reality TV calculating it at around £2.80 an hour.

However, the exposure that the show brings can be highly lucrative in the longer term, which means it pays to keep the public onside.

As well as the staple of sponsored Instagram posts and nightclub guest appearances, we’ve seen contestants crop up on the likes of Dancing on Ice and The X Factor: Celebrity, and spawn their own reality spin-offs in the case of ITV2’s You Vs. Chris & Kem.

However, there is of course always the possibility that someone will commit a spectacular act of self-sabotage, with Sky Bet offering odds of 10/1 on a member of any winning couple stealing the full sum.

Here are all the winners of Love Island since it relaunched in 2015:

The final of the 2022 series of Love Island starts at 9pm on Monday 1 August on ITV2, with the special extended live episode lasting until 10.35pm.

You can watch live or on catch up online via the ITV Hub, which you can access on your phone, tablet, computer, Xbox and PlayStation consoles.

It means that the latest series will span 49 episodes – just like the previous three summer editions – along with eight episodes of Love Island: Aftersun on Saturday evenings.

All rights reserved. © 2021 Associated Newspapers Limited.