The Ultimate Price is Right Strategy Guide: Gas Money

Gas Money

Rules

A car is shown, as are five possible prices for the car. The contestant must pick which prices are NOT the price of the car. Each time they are correct, they win an amount of money from $1,000-$4,000 as indicated on the back of the price tag. They may at any point leave with their accumulated money. If they successfully pick all 4 non-prices, they win the car and $10,000; if they pick the price of the car at any time, they leave with nothing.

Random fact

Gas Money was once played for one of the most valuable prizes in the show's history, an Audi R8. You can see how the contestant did here:

Win-loss record (seasons 37-46)

(Note Gas Money was introduced in season 37. Also note that it's only a win if the contestant wins the car. If they bail out early, it's considered a loss.)

• Actual: 12-118 (9.23%)
• What it would be by random chance: 1/5 (20%)

Yes, voice from offstage, I know the win-loss record is half of what it would be if they just picked randomly. No, it's not the fact that bailouts count as a loss; there have only been 19 bailouts. Remove those, and the win-loss record is still only a touch above 10%. 

The correct price was...(seasons 40-46)

• On the far left: 17 playings (17%)
• Second from the left: 22 playings (22%)
• Dead center: 19 playings (19%)
• Second from the right: 19 playings (19%)
• On the far right: 23 playings (23%)
  
• The most expensive displayed price: 17 playings (17%)
• The second most expensive displayed price: 18 playings (18%)
• The middle price: 5 playings (5%)
• The second cheapest displayed price: 28 playings (28%)
• The cheapest displayed price: 31 playings (31%)
• Unknown: 1 playing (1%)

Strategy

First off, when the curtain comes up and you see the car, do not look at the board.  Instead, as George is describing the car, think about how much you believe the car costs. You do not want the board to influence you yet! Then before you make your first pick, decide how much the car is worth to you. For example, if you would turn it down completely if you won, then it's worth $0 to you. Or you might try to sell it, in which case a $20,000 car may only be worth $15,000 when you take depreciation and taxes into account. Then start by picking the middle price (middle as in there are two cheaper prices and two more expensive prices, not necessarily the price that's physically in the center)--that's why contestants are so bad at this game. It's a variation of the "pick the endpoints" rule--most contestants think the price has to be somewhere in the middle of the displayed prices and it almost never is. Thus, my advice to decide on a price before looking at the board, and start the game by removing the middle price, price wise.

Once you've done that, now you're going to need that value of how much the car is worth to you. The following table tells you how much your personal value of the car should be to keep playing if you're just picking by random chance. The number on the left is how much cash you have; the number on top is how many picks you've made. A value of "0" for the car means you should always play on because the probabilities state you're likely to win more cash than you would lose by playing on, never mind the value of the car. A value of "N/A" means that combination can't happen--for example, you can't have $1,000 after two picks.

 Amt.   After 1  After 2  After 3

$1,000    $0       N/A      N/A

$2,000    $0       N/A      N/A

$3,000    $0       $0       N/A

$4,000    $0      $667      N/A

$5,000    N/A    $1,667     N/A

$6,000    N/A    $2,667   $2,000

$7,000    N/A    $3,667   $4,000

$8,000    N/A      N/A    $6,000

$9,000    N/A      N/A    $8,000

Note you should never bail out after the first pick--even if you get the $4,000 card with your first pick and the car is worth nothing to you, you're more likely to make money than lose money due to having 3 good prices to pick and only one bad one. Also note you should never bail out if the car is worth at least $8,000 to you.

Assuming you don't bail out, what do you do after picking the middle price? This is where having that price in mind before you looked at the prices on the board comes in to play. Now you can start picking the prices that are farthest away from the price you had in mind and zero in from there. That said, if you're completely clueless, or the price you had in mind was way off from anything you see on the board, pick the price that's the cheapest every time. That maximizes your chances of winning, but does not replace knowing the price of the car.

Good luck! This is one of the hardest games on the show to win for a reason.