Money Game

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Host Bob Barker and a contestant in front of the current "Money Game" board

Money Game is a pricing game on the American television game show The Price Is Right. Debuting on December 25, 1972, it is played for a car and a nominal cash prize.

[edit] Gameplay

The contestant is shown a board containing nine two-digit number cards. The contestant is spotted the third digit of the five-digit car's price; it is up to the contestant to find the first two and last two digits of the car's price.

The front half of the car is hidden behind one of the number cards, the rear behind another number card. The remaining seven cards conceal a dollar sign. If the contestant draws a dollar sign, he wins the cash value of the number card (e.g., a "28" card wins $28).

The game ends in one of two ways:

Uncovering both halves of the car before revealing four dollar signs: The contestant wins the car plus any cash found on the board.
Revealing four dollar signs before finding both halves of the car: The contestant wins the cash value of the number cards drawn as a consolation prize. The maximum possible is $390, although that would require choices of 96, 97, 98, and 99 to all be both present and wrong; the actual winnings seldom exceed $200.

[edit] Trivia

Originally, this game was played with just four-digit cars, with no free digits given.

Also, this game's top prize has not been limited to cars. On several occasions up through the early 1990s, a motorboat was the grand prize (with players trying to find both halves of the boat).

When the game first premiered, the board had no name. The name along with a lighter shade of blue was added by the end of 1977. The current game board debuted on September 10, 1991.

The game's current board has different graphics for cars, trucks, and boats, that can be switched out depending upon what the game is being played for; graphics also exist for things such as motorcycles and motorhomes that the game has never actually offered.

Often, the winning combination is located adjacently on the game board (i.e., front and back, back and front, or top and bottom). Another "trick" is "Old El Cheapo" (as coined by host Bob Barker) – hiding the back of the car behind the smallest number on the board.

"El Cheapo" generally refers to numbers lower than 10; indeed, numbers this low do not normally appear in Money Game unless they are concealing the back of the car. Many a contestant has announced "El Cheapo" to indicate that the number card they wanted revealed was the lowest possible amount.

On the 1985 syndicated TPiR hosted by Tom Kennedy, Money Game was sometimes played for cars worth at least $10,000. The game was dubbed "Big Money Game," and the last digit was revealed first. The contestant then had to find the first two digits and the third and fourth digits of the car.

During this game, the displays in Contestants' Row are used to keep track of the total amount of money that has been accumulated; this is generally not seen on-camera.

Money Game is one of the few pricing games in which it is impossible to walk away completely empty-handed; every contestant wins either the car, a small amount of cash, or both.

While most viewers are familiar with seeing Money Game on the Turntable, it was not always staged there; until 1981, it was played on the stage and was concealed by the Giant Price Tag. The game even had a unique camera angle for its car reveal – a straight-on shot of Door #3 opening with the Giant Price Tag bordering on the left.