Additional Coverage:
- ‘Price Is Right’ contestants just can’t win big at Plinko — and fans point out a big flaw in the game (marketrealist.com)
Plinko, a beloved game on “The Price Is Right,” has captivated audiences since 1983. The game offers contestants the chance to win up to $50,000 by dropping chips down a peg-filled board, hoping they land in high-value slots. However, winning big on Plinko is notoriously difficult, leading some fans to believe the game is flawed.
A recent online discussion highlighted an experiment by physicist Dr. Robert B.
Hayes, demonstrating a potential “flaw” in the game’s design. Using a miniature Plinko board, Dr.
Hayes showed how chips, or in his case, beads, tend to land in the center slots due to the arrangement of pegs. This central tendency, he argues, makes it statistically less likely for chips to reach the coveted $10,000 slots at the edges of the board.
One Reddit user, citing Dr. Hayes’ experiment, suggested that contestants often sabotage their chances by aiming their chips too far to the left or right, falling prey to the centralizing effect of the pegs. Other users chimed in, noting that most Plinko winnings fall within the $500 to $3,000 range, significantly less than the potential top prize.
While winning big on Plinko remains a challenge, there has been at least one instance where the odds were decidedly not against the contestant. In a now-infamous 2008 episode, a production error resulted in a rigged Plinko board that consistently landed chips in the $10,000 slot.
This costly mistake, recorded as the most expensive game show error by Guinness World Records, allowed one lucky contestant to walk away with $30,000. The error was swiftly corrected, returning the game to its usual, challenging format.