Remember on the old Wheel of Fortune when contestants would go shopping for prizes after they won a round? If they had money left over, Pat Sajak would ask “gift certificate or account” for the money. Everyone always took gift certificate. What did these two choices mean? Why is taking the gift certificate apparently so much better?
Gift certificate meant you got cash or some cash equivalent, perhaps even a gift certificate to one of the businesses providing promotional considerations, as listed at the end of every game show.
On account meant that the unspent winnings were in an account, and if you won another round later in the show, that leftover amount was added to your new winnings, so you could shop for bigger prizes.
Gift certificate was better because you didn’t risk losing if you didn’t win any more rounds.
Has Wheel of Fortune evolved more than any other game show? It’s amazing how different it is now.
If a contestant chose “account”, it meant whatever money left over would be saved for the next win. If the contestant didn’t win again, he lost the money. So that’s why people always selected the gift certificate.
If a contestant chose to keep the money “on account”, was that money lost if the contestant spun the wheel to a “Bankrupt” space in a later round? I thought I remembered Pat saying that prizes and gift certificates were safe from bankrupts, but nothing was said about accounts.
–sublight.
I remembered my other question just as I hit ‘submit’. Did the contestants have to choose prizes? Were they allowed just take all the prize money as a gift certificate? I remember always wondering this because a lot of the prizes seemed, well, kinda crappy (a ceramic dalmatian for $300?).
–sublight.
They had to go shopping. I always thought the same thing, especially since the prices for those items were so incredibly overpriced. I remember specifically the Pinseeker golf clubs for $1000, which always cracked me up.
My wife and I were just talking about this two days ago! I actually miss the days when they played to shop for all the cheesy crap at the end! It was rarely anything good. Even as a kid I always thought the money would have been better than the stuff they sold, especially the ceramic dogs that were ALWAYS there!