Plinko

Plinko is a pricing game on the American television game show "The Price Is Right". Debuting on January 3, 1983, it is played for a cash prize of up to $50,000 and also awards prizes valued under $100. It is frequently said to be the most popular of all the pricing games.

Plinko was created by former Executive Producer Frank Wayne. [http://www.golden-road.net/index.php?topic=6912.0 ] On the game's first playing, host Bob Barker explained that the name came from the "plink" sound the chips made as they came down the board.

Game Play

The contestant is given one round flat disc, called a Plinko chip, and can earn up to four more using small prizes, for a total of five chips. The small prizes are presented one at a time, each bearing a two-digit price with one of the digits incorrect. The contestant must decide which digit is correct to win another Plinko chip as well as the small prize.

The contestant then takes the chips they have earned up a set of stairs to the top of the Plinko board. The board is made up of a field of pegs, with each row offset from the previous row. At the bottom of the board are nine slots marked symmetrically with the values (from outside to the single center slot) $100, $500, $1,000, $0, $10,000.

One at a time, the contestant lays each Plinko chip flat against the top of the board and releases it. As the chip falls, it is deflected by pegs, making it virtually impossible to predict where the chips will land. In addition, the sides of the board are in a zig-zag pattern which also allows the chips to ricochet back toward the center. The contestant wins whatever money corresponds with the slot the chip lands in, with a running total displayed on a scoreboard next to the Plinko board.

If a chip becomes stuck on the board, it is knocked free; the drop does not count, and the chip is returned to the contestant to drop again. When a chip is stuck above arm's length, the host will usually use a long stick to dislodge the chip. Barker referred to the stick as his "Trusty Plinko Stick", while current host Drew Carey has referred to it as the "Plinko stick" or "Plinko wand".

History

At the time of its debut, Plinko's $25,000 top prize was the largest prize ever offered on "The Price Is Right", as Barker noted on the game's much-promoted debut, and the largest allowable under CBS regulations (CBS abolished the limit on game show winnings in 2006).

During Plinko's first playing, a spinning disco ball with "$25,000" labeled around it was lowered from the ceiling. On its second playing, the "Plinko" sign was introduced. The sign was originally placed in the back of the audience. Sometime in 1985, the sign was moved to the Turntable, where it remained until 2002, when it was replaced with a "$50,000" graphic ("$100,000" primetime) on screen.

When first introduced, the front of the Plinko board was open, meaning that the chips were occasionally able to bounce off of the board and out onto the stage, and had to be re-played. To remedy this problem, a Plexiglas cover was placed over the board; however, that became a problem when chips got stuck and had to be retrieved. The board's Plexiglas cover now features triangular grid shaped holes that prevents chips from flying out and still allows stuck chips to be knocked loose through the grid.

The only value on the board which has changed since the game was introduced is the center slot. It began at $5,000, with a top prize of $25,000. The slot was increased to $10,000 for the first time during the 25th-anniversary primetime special on August 23, 1996. The change was subsequently made on the regular daytime series on October 15, 1998.

Beginning with the Military Specials in 2002, the center slot has been worth $20,000 on primetime specials, with a top prize of $100,000. The top prize was also $100,000 when Plinko was included on the "Gameshow Marathon".

The most anyone has ever won in Plinko is $21,000 on November 30, 1990 with the $5,000 slot;Fact|date=June 2008 $30,100 on December 25, 2007 with the current $10,000 slot; and $41,000 on May 7, 2008 on primetime specials with the $20,000 slot. The $21,000 win in 1990, with four Plinko chips landing in the center slot and one landing in $1,000, is the most successfully that the game can be played without being won (it would be $41,000 — or $81,000 on a prime time show — with the current values). [ [http://www.golden-road.net/faq/index.php/Pricing_Game_Notes#Plinko Pricing Game Notes - Golden-Road.net FAQ ] ]

1994's syndicated "The New Price Is Right" did not use the board layout described above. Most episodes featured a layout (from outside to centre): $2,500, $500, $1,000, $0, $5,000. On the first episode that featured Plinko, the game had a layout of $2,500, $1,000, $0, $5,000, $0. The top prize was still $25,000, as in the daytime show. The 1994 syndicated version also used the "higher/lower" format for the small prizes instead of the regular CBS format, since it used three-digit prizes. For the "The Price Is Right Live!" stage show, the layout on either side is $50, $100, $200, $0, $500, making for a top prize of $2,500.

On March 7, 2008's "Million Dollar Spectacular" (and again on the episode aired May 7), a $1,000,000 bonus was offered if a contestant could get a bonus golden chip in the $20,000 slot. The golden chip was won if a contestant could first get at least three regular chips in the $20,000 slot during the normal gameplay.

The Plinko board is often used by RTL Group-licensed lottery promotions or by CBS affiliates to promote the show. For the promotions, wires are used to direct the dropped chip to land in the $10,000 slot. After such a promotion was taped, the wires were mistakenly left in place for the July 22, 2008 1:00 PM taping of The Price is Right. As a contestant was playing the game, three consecutive chips she dropped landed in the $10,000 slot. As the fourth chip was being dropped, a co-producer of the show realized that the wires were still in place, stopped the chip as it bounced down the board and told host Drew Carey of the situation. The wires were removed and the entire segment was re-shot for the show, from the point where the contestant began dropping chips. CBS Standards and Practices allowed the contestant to keep the $30,000 won prior to the removal of the wires as well as the money won with the five chips after the mistake had been corrected. However, the segment that airs will not reference the mistake or the amount of money won prior to the removal of the wires.cite web
url=http://www.tmz.com/2008/07/29/the-price-is-wrong/
publisher=TMZ.com
work="The Price is Wrong! - TMZ.com"
title="The Price Is Wrong! - TMZ.com"
accessdate=2008-07-29]

On March 14, 1995, a contestant for the first time put every chip in the zero slots. This has happened at least three other times, on March 26, 1996, on December 10, 2003, and on March 18, 2008.

Foreign versions of Plinko

On the UK's "Bruce's Price is Right" and its current "The Price Is Right", Portugal's "O Preço Certo", and the Netherlands' "Cash en Carlo", Plinko is played differently. Instead of playing for cash, they play for a bonus prize (usually a car in the UK, while the Netherlands and Portugal may offer cheaper prizes like trips). On those shows, once all the chips are used, a model replaces the cash amounts with "Win/Lose/Win/Lose/Win/Lose", although contestants on the UK show had the choice of keeping the money and not going for this gamble. If "Win" is hit, the player keeps the cash and wins the prize. If "Lose" is hit, the player doesn't get the prize and loses the money. On the UK show's final season in 2001, there were also two spaces with pound (£) signs. If either one of those were hit, the player didn't win the prize, but they won double the money they had already earned.

In the UK, to earn discs, the player had to determine which of two prices was correct for one particular item, similar to "Double Prices". He or she could add up to three more in addition to the one disc given at the start. In the early days of "Bruce's Price Is Right", the American method of pricing was used. In Portugal, the player has to determine if the price of the given product is true or false, and he or she can earn up to four discs.

The money slots on the UK version were £250 and £500 (meaning the max is £2,000, £4,000 in 2001), though in earlier series five discs instead of four could be earned, meaning the max was £2,500. Portugal's version has amounts of €100 and €200 (meaning the max is €1000). It's unknown what Holland's version uses at the moment. Only one UK contestant, Emon, managed to win the max of £2000 in 1999. He quit with the money instead of playing for a motorcycle; Bruce had him drop the chip anyway, and it turned out that he would have lost.

The most recent UK version of The Price Is Right has amounts of £50, £100, and £150, for a max of £600. Aside from this difference, its rules are the same as those from the first six series of Bruce's Price Is Right. There has also been one case where a chip got stuck -- and it still counted after being dislodged. (On this version, there was no Plinko Stick; Joe simply shakes the board.) The game had an Asian theme, although no rationale has been determined for this design choice.

Germany's version of Plinko was also played differently. The game offered no cash and was instead played for three prizes. The contestant was given one chip and could earn up to three more by winning small prizes. The board had seven slots, numbered 3-2-0-1-0-2-3. Hitting a 3 with a chip meant the contestant won the least expensive prize, 2 meant he won the middle-priced prize, and 1 meant he won the most expensive prize. Landing in 0, of course, won nothing with that chip.

Still other countries' versions of the show, including Mexico's "Atínale al Precio", Italy's "OK, il Prezzo è Giusto!", France's "Le Juste Prix", and Vietnam's "Hãy chọn giá đúng", have done their best to emulate the American format of Plinko, with differences in the cash prizes offered being the only significant changes (MX$25,000 is the max in Mexico, ₤10,000,000 (€5164) was the max in Italy, 100,000₣ (€15,244) was the max in France, and 10,000 diem (10,000,000₫) is the max in Vietnam); perhaps most notably, the lowest value on Vietnam's Plinko board is 200 diem (200,000₫, only about US$12), making it impossible to walk away from the game empty-handed.

ee also

* Bean machine
* Pachinko

External links

* [http://www.priceisright.com/Page.aspx?pageId=779381&itemId=823294 Clip of "The Price Is Right Live!" with a playing of Plinko from Fremantle's official "Price" site]

References