The problem is that it’s been stuck at $500 for so long. If you win the prize + a game + the showdown you’re going to get around 30-50K. That means there’s almost no incentive to get the price exactly right.
Along with this, I think the fact that they don’t have Drew flash the cash every show lets people forget about it. They haven’t had the cash thing since covid. I can’t remember if they used to flash the $1000 cash for hitting the dollar on the Big Wheel. They would probably have to up the $1000 Big Wheel money. I would guess a lot more people hit the $1 on the wheel than get the correct price on the One Bid.
I once saw someone in the Barker era did opening bid $1, the next person bid $2, the person after that bid $3, and last person bid $4. Bob was on stage completely flummoxed and reacted to the $4 guy winning the bid pretending it was sheer lucky he won.
I don’t know who’s dumber though, Bidder 2 or Bidder 3.
Don’t hate the player. If anything players don’t do this enough. The last person should NEVER be doing anything else, as Flik notes; any other bid is stupid.
Early in the episode it doesn’t matter much because contestants in subsequent rounds bid in order of how recently they were picked; if you are screwed over by a +1 bid, you then bid later and later as you keep failing, so you’ll get your chance. If you’re a later pick, you might never have a shot, but that’s luck of the draw.
You cannot blame someone for playing the victory-maximizing approach if they have a chance to win a significant amount of dough/prizes. As a few people have noted before, a fairer approach would be to have the contestants simply write their bids down Jeopardy-style and reveal them all simultaneously. In the unlikely-but-will-happen-sooner-or-later possibility you have a tie, you can either just make those two people the next two contestants or, if they’re vying for the sixth and final spot, have them bid on another prize as a playoff.
No, they don’t. You could be the most senior player on Contestant’s Row, and if the player to your right wins the One Bid, the next new contestant takes that spot and you will bid second.
I can see a case where the first two players might bid $1 and $2. If the prize is something that people routinely over-estimate the value of, you might want to stake out that low range. I don’t know if that strategy has ever won, but I could see a way that it might.
In this specific scenario, Bidder 3 is an idiot. If he bids $3, it’s a no-brainer for Bidder 4 to bid $4 and win automatically.
You might also insist all bids end in the digit zero, or five and zero, or ask for a buffer (difference of X from previous guesses). If on the show, I might be tempted to increase a previous bid by three dollars to annoy the smug.
Being called to “Come One Down!” isn’t random. They screen players as they’re signing up and coming in, and deliberately choose people who seem like they’d be “exciting” or “fun” on camera, because ultimately it’s entertainment, and they want a good show.
At least, that was what I’d heard.
I believe that’s correct. The producers screen people in line to determine their personality and who they want on the show. I’m not sure if that’s different now that COVID has made the audience smaller.
An interesting documentary about the show is “Perfect Bid”:
It’s not exactly about the show. It’s about a guy who was obsessed with the show and watched it all the time. He watched it so much that he started to realize they used the same prizes all the time, and he remembered what all their prices were. He could pretty much guess the price exactly. It goes into a lot of his story, but it also goes into a lot about the show, how it’s produced, how the audience is selected, etc. It’s pretty interesting and worth watching if you want to know more about that stuff.
I mean, if they didn’t want this to be part of the game mechanic, they could have eliminated the “without going over” part of the bidding and just awarded the win to whoever comes closer, and, in the case of a tie, award it to the underbid. I see no reason to be annoyed by $1 bids.
Even as a little kid, watching Bill Cullen in black and white (and static-y grey), I knew it made total sense, and I’d get annoyed at the people who’d bet something like $100 over the highest bidder. “What if it’s $99 over? You’ll loooose…!”
That’s the problem with $1, too. It’s been $1 since that was worth more like $10 or $20 today. So there used to be a “buffer” of sorts.
I found the clip of the imbecile’s two million (not one million) dollar bid. There were a few other details that I misremembered, including that it was near the start of Drew’s time as host rather than near the end of Bob’s. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tmDWMyT5MpU
Did the next player bid $2,000,001?
i remember that happening on press your luck …the guy memorized the game board and cleaned them out
I remember as a kid seeing the last guy bidding only bid a dollar because everyone had wildly overbid and win
although seeing grocery prices these days I wonder if that overpriced at 2.39 box of rice a roni is 5 bucks now
I remember the games where the objective was to guess the price of a car; it would be 4-digits and started with a ‘3’.
Me and my wife have watched 20 episodes since I last posted. In exactly zero episodes did any first round contestant go to anything but the first podium, followed in order by the rest.
If it is a rule that you can choose your podium, contestants are either unaware of the rule or are uniformly stupid about strategy.
The official rules I can find say nothing either way about podiums.
Seems to me, having them write down the bid in secret could fix this.
Yep. And The Range game is always just about the middle, The Secret X is never on the bottom. About that game… let’s say you were a smart-ass and were sure you knew the prices of the little shit to get the 2 extra X’s. Could you just line them up all on the side for a vertical 3-in-a-row? I’d LOVE to do that!
I heard (no idea if its true) that they run your credit and you ain’t winning shit if you can’t pay taxes on it.
Yes, I watch this shit nearly every day. My life sucks.
My childhood life was the same. I watched game shows all morning. I could name game show hosts like other kids could name baseball pitchers.
Now we watch old game shows on Buzzr. Sigh.
Has any contestant, not understanding how reality works, bid a dollar under another bid?
I’m certain I’ve seen it happen.