Dating game shows are television game shows, some say reality game shows, that incorporate a dating system in the form of a game with clear rules. Human matchmaking is involved only in selecting the game's contestants - usually for amusement value as opposed to any concern for their happiness or compatibility. The audience sees only the game - an important feature of all dating game shows is that the contestants have little or no previous knowledge of each other, and are exposed to each other only through the game, which may include viewing a photograph or at least knowing the basic criteria for participation (typically participants are not already married).

Like other games, the outcomes of this activities are open to rigging (analogous to match-fixing in football), leading to missed matches and possibly unhappiness in the participants. These programmes have also been criticised for complicating courtship with needless public expectation (see Heisenberg effect). In spite of this, some programmes have produced episodes that portray follow-ups of unions forged therein, possibly with off-springs.

Popular dating game shows were an innovation of TV producer Chuck Barris in the 1970s. The Dating Game, his first, put one unmarried man behind a screen to ask questions of three women who are potential mates, or one woman versus three men - thus hearing their answers and voices but not seeing them. The audience could, of course, see them all. The various suitors were able to describe their rivals in uncomplimentary ways, which made the show work well as a general devolution of dignity. Questions were often obviously rigged to get ridiculous responses, or be obvious allusions to features of the participants' privates.