Plinko
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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 uses small prizes. It is frequently said to be the most popular of all the pricing games, and the host often suggests to a contestant that they will be excited when they see what game they are about to play.
Plinko was created by former Executive Producer Frank Wayne. [1] On the game's first playing, host Bob Barker explained that the name "Plinko" came from the "plink" sound the chips made as they came down the board. It is possible that the game's similarity to the Japanese game of pachinko also played some role in the name's origin.[original research?]
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 an incorrect two-digit price. The contestant must decide which digit is actually 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. The only way to win nothing in Plinko is to incorrectly guess the prices of all four small prizes and drop the Plinko chip into the $0 slot (as guessing the price of any of the items wins that item, as in most other small-prize games).
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.
Prior to Plinko's first playing, a disco ball with the "$25,000" graphic spinning around it was lowered from the ceiling, using the intro music from Grand Game (which, is the end of the Family Feud theme). When the curtain was raised to reveal the game, the final measure from "Starcrossed" was used. On its second playing, the famous "Plinko" sign and its first permanent intro music cue were introduced. The sign was originally placed in the back of the audience, and the intro music combined the harps used in Golden Road and Punch a Bunch with a music sting from "The Cats." 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. The intro music has also been changed; it currently includes just the harps, now playing a different tune from the previous one, and no other music cue follows the harps.
Also, the first playing did not use the normal "WIN!" cards for its small prizes. Instead, if the contestant guessed correctly, the panel was flipped over twice, first to reveal the card showing the word "WIN!" (but without the item's price) along with the chip, and then again to reveal the price. Currently, the panel is flipped over only once, to show either a "WIN!" card and chip (with the actual price) when the correct digit is guessed or the actual price on a red background if the guess is wrong.
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 replayed. To remedy this problem, a Plexiglas sheet was placed over the board; however, this was a problem when chips got stuck and had to be retrieved. The board now has a Plexiglas cover in a triangular grid 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. The top-prize was claimed ONLY once, but this was when the prize was $25,000.
On primetime specials beginning with the Military Specials in 2002, the center slot is worth $20,000, with a top prize of $100,000. The top prize was also $100,000 when this game was played on the Gameshow Marathon.
Despite the center slot having doubled (on the daytime show) or quadrupled (on the prime time series), the other Plinko slots have remained the same. This has led to several disappointing cash totals from players who played the game on the prime time series but were unable to land a chip in the center slot with 5 chips.
On the 30th Anniversary Special, Plinko's top prize was determined by the result of Triple Play earlier in the show (a factor which was not mentioned on the air); a win meant that it would be played for $50,000, while a loss meant that it would be played for $100,000. Triple Play was won, so Plinko was played for $50,000.
The most anyone has ever won in Plinko is $21,000 on November 30, 1990 with the $5,000 slot; $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 primetime show — under current layouts).[1]
1994's syndicated The New Price Is Right did not use the board layout described above. Some episodes featured a layout (from outside to centre): $2500, $500, $1,000, $0, $5,000. Other episodes had $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 stage show The Price Is Right Live!, 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.
On the first playing, the eggcrate scoreboard was broke, and was seen scored for the first time on the second playing.
On March 26, 1996, a contestant for the first time put every chip into the zero slots. This happened a second time on December 10, 2003, and a third time 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 (25,000 Mexican pesos is the max in Mexico, 10,000,000 Italian lira was the max in Italy, 100,000 French francs was the max in France, and 10,000 diem (10,000,000 dong) is the max in Vietnam); perhaps most notably, the lowest value on Vietnam's Plinko board is 200 diem (200,000 Vietnamese dong, only about US$13), making it impossible to walk away from the game empty-handed.
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