'Price Is Right' contestants just can't win big at Plinko — and fans point out a big flaw in the game
While "The Price Is Right" is known and loved for its many quirky games, "Plinko" holds a special place in the hearts of the fans. The game has been a part of the show since 1983, and it remains one of the most sought-after by the contestants. While it gives players a chance to win up to $50,000, it isn't easy to crack as it tests the player's luck and pricing skills. Furthermore, one fan used an experiment by physicist Dr. Robert B. Hayes to argue that the game had a 'big flaw' that makes the contestants blow it every time.
In the popular game, the centerpiece is a large slanted pegboard with prize slots at the bottom. Each slot features a cash prize that goes up from $0 to $10,000. To win the money, contestants have to strategically place the Plinko chip at the top of the board and let it slide through and bounce around the obstacles on the board before landing in one of the prize slots.
Before the game, a pricing game is played through which the contestants can win up to five Plinko chips. If the contestant wins all five chips and lands all of them in the $10,000 slot, they win $50,000. While the game has remained pretty much the same, it has undergone a few cosmetic changes in the modern era, with occasional prize bumps to celebrate big events.
While many contestants have won big, more have suffered heartbreaking losses. And, according to Hayes, there is a scientific explanation behind it. In a video posted on Reddit, he explained how the game worked using a mini version of the Plinko board or a model of the "Random Distribution Generator." In his experiment, he showed how hundreds of beads, when dropped across a board with pins like in Plinko, tend to follow the same pattern.
He argued that because of the pins, it was less likely for the beads to steer hard right or hard left every time; thus, the bulk of the beads end up falling in the middle. He even showed an equation that could be used to predict the path of a random population of beads. Hearing his explanation, one fan of the show, @Fennemore_Branch, shared the mistake that most players make while playing the game. The Redditor argued that instead of taking advantage of the 'flaw,' most drop the chip too much to the right or too much to the left, and miss out on the big prize.
This may be true as the lower cash prizes are placed along the edges of the board, and most players do end up hitting them. Even others agreed that Plinko didn't allow the contestants to win big because of this. "Contestants usually win between $500 and $3,000, which is a LOT less than they'd receive if they won practically any other game," suggested @4Brtndr1 in the thread.
While the game may not often yield big wins, there was a time when the show accidentally rigged the Plinko board to land the chips in the $10,000 slot every time. According to Guinness World Records, it was the costliest game show production error when "The Price Is Right" producers forgot that the Plinko board was rigged during the taping of the 22 July 2008 episode. It was noticed only after a contestant managed to land three chips in $10,000 in a row. As per the website, the contestant was allowed to keep the $30,000, and the mistake was fixed.
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