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The Game Theory of “The Price is Right”

“The Price is Right” is a game show that, for years, has entertained generations of Americans young and old. The goal of the game is simply, guess the price of a potential prize and the contestant whose guess is the closest to the actual price, wins. At first glance the game appears to be one of chance where no real strategy, except for actually knowing the prices beforehand, appears to exists, though according to Slate’s Ben Blatt, one does. In his article, Blatt argues that if contestant apply a few basic principles of Game Theory, then their odds at winning greatly increase.

In opening his article, Blatt reminisces on an episode he watched where a player named Margie was the last one asked to guess the price of an oven set. In that particular game the highest bid was $1200, and Margie had bid that the oven set was worth $1150. According to Blatt, this was a bad move. Blatt says that Margie should have bet one dollar above the highest price. Blatt justifies this assertion by stating that “Game theory says that when you are last to bid, you should bid one dollar more than the highest bidder”.  Blatt then tests this strategy using the last 1500 contestant row games in “The Price Is Right”. Blatt finds that had players used this strategy, they would have won 54 percent of the time, as opposed to only winning 35 percent of the time. Blatt then goes on to consider how Game Theory can help increase the chances of contestants, in other games “The Price is Right” employs. One game Blatt examines, “Now or Then”, he argues can be won 100 percent of the time, using game theory and even creates an algorithm on how to do so. Blatt, goes even further, creating a cheat sheet on all the ways a little game theory can help increase your odds on “The Price is Right”.

Source: http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/culturebox/2013/11/winning_the_price_is_right_strategies_for_contestants_row_plinko_and_the.html

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