Lucky $even
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Lucky $even is a pricing game on the American television game show The Price Is Right. Debuting on August 28, 1973, it is played for a car.
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[edit] Gameplay
The contestant is given seven $1 bills to start the game, and is shown the first digit in the car's price. It was up to him to figure out the other four digits.
For each digit that the contestant is off, he must pay host Bob Barker $1 (e.g., if the contestant's guess is "5" and the correct digit is "7," he loses $2).
If the contestant has at least $1 remaining after the last digit is revealed, he wins the car; he also receives any leftover money after the $1 surcharge. However, the game immediately ends if the contestant goes bankrupt at any point.
[edit] Trivia
- Originally, cars played for in this game had just four digits, and no free digits were given.
- On Lucky Seven's original board, the game's name was spelled with an "S". The spelling changed when the current board debuted on the primetime specials in the summer of 1986.
- The original Lucky $even board was blue with black numbers. Its current board, which first appeared in the fall of 1986, is purple with gold numbers. The current font for the numbers debuted in the fall of 2001.
- Lucky $even is one of the few pricing games where the car's actual retail price is not revealed if the contestant loses before play reaches the final digit. As a one-time change, the 35th season premiere did reveal the entire price.
- During the 1986 primetime specials, the contestant was given the last digit, and then had to guess the first four. When the five-digit format was introduced to the daytime show shortly thereafter, the rule was changed to give the first digit.
- The first time Lucky $even was played for a 5-digit car, when the contestant made his guess for the third number, the stagehands accidentally revealed the fourth number instead. This led to a fairly easy win.
- On the show's ceremonial 6,000th episode (actually the 6,145th episode), a woman named Amy Rempel won a Ford Thunderbird (worth $42,764) in Lucky $even and went on to win the Showcase, thereby breaking the daytime show's winnings record with $97,130 (which would stand until the 35th season premiere on September 18, 2006).
- The most expensive car ever given away in Lucky $even was a Cadillac XLR, worth $77,566, on the April 9, 2005 Million Dollar Spectacular (aired out of order on April 16, 2005). The contestant, Sheena Lindholm, went on to win her showcase (featuring a motorhome) and set a new primetime winnings record of $183,688.
- The car is not actually driven out on stage -- it is put in neutral and pushed out by stagehands.
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- However, there have been several instances through the years of models who were unable to control the car and crashed into the set.
- Since sometime in the early '80s, there has been an unspoken rule that zeros are not used in Lucky $even.
- Lucky Seven was supposedly played for two cars a single time in the early 1970s, with the price the contestant had to guess being the total value of the two cars.
- At least one Lucky $even contestant managed to lose all seven dollars on the first number.
- When a Lucky $even contestant wins with money to spare after "buying" the car, Bob often jokes that "you have x dollars for gasoline".
- Bob once salvaged a loss in Lucky $even by deciding that 0, the last digit in the car's price, was only three digits away from 7, the contestant's guess; this is not the way the game is intended to work.
[edit] Foreign versions of Lucky $even
Lucky $even is played on numerous version of The Price Is Right around the world, sometimes with minor differences. In the UK, specifically during the Bruce Forsyth and Joe Pasquale eras, instead having the game setup behind the set's doors, the car's windshield displays numbers that are attached to clingfilm. Zeros may be used in the game, and unlike most other versions, there is a rule stating that no digits in the price repeat. This version of the game is played with £1 coins, which replaced £1 notes in 1983. During the Leslie Crowther and Bob Warman runs, the game had only three digits in the price (hence no car), with panels covering the numbers on a table, and instead of seven £1 coins, they played with seven tokens.
In Australia, specifically during Larry Emdur's reign as host, the game was called "One Dollar Deal". The actual rules were identical to the US versions (although like the UK, zeros may be used, but like the US, the numbers may repeat); the game was even played with seven $1 notes, even though $1 notes have not been legal tender in Australia since 1984.
Germany's Der Preis ist heiß followed the same rules as the American version, including giving the first digit in the prices of 5-digit cars for free. The only notable difference was that the game was played with seven DM10 notes, as DM1 notes never existed.
Canada's French-language "Misez Juste" had the same rules for Lucky $even as the American version, but it was usually played for trips rather than cars. This incarnation of the game is somewhat notable for using a light-up board to display the price, something that is not normally done for Lucky $even. A sign displaying the price on it was flipped to ensure the operators of the light-up board weren't cheating.
Mexico's "Atinale al Precio" followed the same rules as the US for "Siete de la Suerte" and was always played for a car. The only difference was that the game was played behind the second door and the car came in from the right.
On Vietnam's "Hay Chon Gia Dung", the game follows the same rules as the US, but instead of seven dong (because of very severe inflation), the game is played with seven discs, and only four digits are used (as in the older US, UK Forsyth and Pasquale, and French-Canadian versions).
Perhaps the most significant difference was found in "Gioco Dell'8" on Italy's OK, il Prezzo è Giusto!, which contained an actual rule change: the contestant was given eight discs (not lira), meaning that he could miss the numbers in the price by a total of seven instead of six without losing. This was taken even further on "Les 10 Billets" on France's Le Juste Prix, where contestants were given ten tickets (not francs) and could thus miss the digits by a total of nine. Of these two, Italy's version usually wasn't played for a car, while France's was always played for a car.
As a side note, on most, if not all, overseas versions of The Price Is Right, all the numbers in the price of the prize for Lucky $even are revealed, win or loss.
