TPIR spoiler-- You've been warned!

[sshuffield70]

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Contestant gets to play PLINKO with four chips and gets....
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<losing horns>

0.

[sshuffield70]

Well TPiR just lost a loyal friend and true then. This is complete bull crap. I couldn't bare to watch or DVR the rest of the episode.

EPIC FAIL to CBS for tampering with Plinko on today's show.

WTH?? What the hell does CBS have to do with tampering the show. If they DID, it could not and would not have aired. That's something known as Standards and Practices (S&P on this board). As for the worst possible luck I've ever seen in Plinko.....it's just that. Worst. Possible. Luck. EVAR! I can only imagine how Mark Thompson could have teased this.

[TheKid965]

EPIC FAIL to CBS for tampering with Plinko on today's show.

All I can say is, you'd better be prepared to back that statement up with solid evidence that CBS "tampered" with it. That's about as serious a charge as there can be in this genre.

Protip: The fact there was an 0-fer in Plinko is not, in and of itself, solid evidence.

[CardSharks8689]

This EPIC FAIL is nothing compared to the pre-2000 era where a contestant got 5 zeroes in Plinko. Bob Barker even jokingly wanted to offer the contestant a souvenir Plinko chip for the player's historical first in Plinko.

And there was no losing horns in Plinko. Never was, regardless if a player wins $0.

[ElectricPeterTork]

A 4 Win show? Line 'Em Up won on the first try?

Nope, doesn't matter, because obviously, TPIR fixed Plinko so it all four chips would go in a "0" spot.

You'd really think that instead of doing such a complicated fix, they would just make the games a little tougher so people won't win as much instead of just blatantly rigging a game of chance. But, no, it was obviously rigged to anyone with half a brain.

To those of us with a full brain, however, it was just rotten luck.

/Is this the new party line now? The number of wins per show is up a bit, with fewer 0 or 1 win shows, so now they have to be rigging the games that aren't won?

[TheKid965]

Is this the new party line now? The number of wins per show is up a bit, with fewer 0 or 1 win shows, so now they have to be rigging the games that aren't won?

As far as I can tell, it's always been the party line with some people... If things are going well, it's rigged to come out that way. If things aren't going so well, it's rigged that way too. [eyeroll]

Have all these armchair Oliver Stones ever even heard the phrase "Standards and Practices" before? Or have any inkling at all of what happened in 1958?

[DoubleDare89]

That was just my honest opinion and I knew it was wrong for me to say on here. Srry.

[racingchick1020]

Of course, this gets chalked up as a loss - even though this is purely luck. What fun, folks!

[CardSharks8689]

Yeah, this loss was not rigged. If it was rigged, there could be trouble brewing. The loss in Stinko was most likely just a fluke on the contestant's part. Very rare, but it can happen.

[CarShark]

I think any accusation of illegal rigging is ridiculous. What's not ridiculous is my accusation that the producers have cranked the dial from "special giveaway show" at the beginning of Drew's tenure...past "regular mid-November show"...past "Budget Mode"...past "Y'see, this is why we don't play 3 Strikes in April"...and didn't stop until they got to where we are now, where a 3 out of 6 show is a marvel. Here are the records for the most common car games.

Any Number: 4-10
Cover Up: 0-11
Lucky $even: 4-9
Money Game: 3-10
That's TOO Much: 3-13
Total: 14-53 (20.8%)

That's BAD. That's 2003 Detroit Tigers bad. I know we say that the average viewer doesn't notice many of the things that we do, because we follow the show closely. But I'm hard-pressed to believe that someone who watches occasionally doesn't think to themselves, "Gee, people don't seem to win too often on this show."

[ElectricPeterTork]

As far as I can tell, it's always been the party line with some people... If things are going well, it's rigged to come out that way. If things aren't going so well, it's rigged that way too. [eyeroll]

Have all these armchair Oliver Stones ever even heard the phrase "Standards and Practices" before? Or have any inkling at all of what happened in 1958?

To be fair, I did think I saw a Plinko chip go back, and to the left.

Back... and to the left.

Back... and to the left.

[JamesFF]

One thing I find strange is whenever someone has some advertisement of Plinko on them, they end up playing that game.

[TheNewNeko]

Okay, kids. Mr. Mathematics is here to set the record straight for you.

Statistically, assumping Plinko was an unweighed board, your odds of hitting zero is actually exponentially more than hitting the top prize.

1 chip: $0: 2/9 $10,000: 1/9
2 chips: $0: 4/81 $20,000: 1/81
3 chips: $0: 8/729 $30,000: 1/729
4 chips: $0: 16/6,561 $40,000: 1/6,561
5 chips: $0: 32/59,049 $50,000: 1/59,049

What difference does it make? Well, let's annualize this.

$0 wins (if played weekly) -- statistically speaking, assume 52 playings a year, ignoring the extra day and all leap days...
1 chip: more often than once a week
2 chips: once every 5 months
3 chips: once every 21 months
4 chips: once every 94 months
5 chips: once every 35.5 years

The game is rigged, but it's rigged to suck for the player. I don't want to mention the statistical time of hitting the top prize. It's far too depressing. Putting two zeroes on the board is a recipe for disaster for the player but a glorious game for the house.

Before you tell me "no, risk is great". My fat honky butt. Would Press your luck have been as exciting if every space except for space 4 was a whammy? No? Okay then.

[CardSharks8689]

Well, it is possible that games such as Cover Up, 3 Strikes, Pathfinder, etc. are rigged - just like a puzzle on Wheel of Fortune can be manipulated and set up in a way that the puzzle may not be solved properly, or the contestant may go through the entire alphabet until someone finally calls an X that appears in the puzzle. I even remember a Megaword puzzle where the only 3 consonants in the puzzle were D, X, and Z. D is the most common of the 3, and the others are scarcely seen (contestants went through the entire alphabet during that puzzle - except for J). Nowadays, on the Bonus Round, I see lots of occasions where there is a J in the puzzle. One occurrence in the last season had a Q and a J. Talk about a set-up, though I do admit I caught on to such set-up as a home viewer.

Pricing games are likely set up the same way. They possibly set up the prices on the board like a pricing puzzle that contestants have to solve. If people catch on to such set-up, they have a good chance of winning. This is why we rarely see cars with prices that end in 0 or 5 nowadays (exceptions being Temptation and 10 Chances and maybe one or two other games). Maybe the prices appear to be set up, but is it possible that the price displayed on the board includes taxes?

[racingchick1020]

Well, it is possible that games such as Cover Up, 3 Strikes, Pathfinder, etc. are rigged

NO. Nothing is rigged. This is 2012. Not the 1950s. Must we get into this conversation every time someone wants to say "game shows these days are rigged"?