The Ultimate Price is Right Strategy Guide: Check-Out

Check-Out

Rules

A prize is shown as are 5 grocery products. The contestant guesses the price of each grocery item. If the total of the contestant's guesses is within $2 of the actual total price of the grocery items, they win the prize. It doesn't matter if the contestant's total is above or below the actual total; they win if they are within $2 either way.

Random fact

This game used to have the coolest calculator ever. You can see a playing with it here:

Win-Loss record (seasons 29-46): 75-114 (39.68%)

Correlation between the grocery total and the value of the main prize (seasons 40-46)

• Overall: 0.11
• When played for a prize over $15,000 (such as a car or a lot of cash): 0.07
• When played for a prize less than $15,000: 0.04

Correlation is sometimes known as the R-squared value. The above simply means this: the total of the grocery items has nothing to do with the prize's value. In other words, a higher valued prize doesn't mean the total of the grocery items is any higher or lower than usual.

Bar graph of the grocery totals (seasons 40-46)

Totals that would have won the game the most often (seasons 40-46)

Note: All ranges below are inclusive.

• $19.75-$19.80: 36 playings (48.65%)
• $18.25-$18.34, $19.36-$19.45, $19.65-$19.74, and $19.81-$19.85: 35 playings each (47.30%)
• $18.35, $18.41-$18.44, $18.96-$19.15, $19.31-$19.35, and $19.46-$19.64: 34 playings each (45.95%)

Strategy

Nothing beats knowing the prices of the grocery items, but there are some key points that can help you here:

• You can ignore the price of the main prize as the grocery total has nothing to do with the prize value.
• Only the total counts. So if you think you were way under on one item, feel free to go way over on another item to make up for it.
• If you're not sure about each individual item but have an idea what the total should be, aim for that total. For example, if you think the total of the items is about $20, guess $4 for each item.
• If you're completely clueless, aim for a total of $19.75, as that total has been a winning total more often than contestants have actually won the game over the years. In fact, if you want to totally troll the audience and the staff but still quite possibly win, go ahead and price the first item at $19.71 and the other items at 1 penny each. If you thought Philadelphia booed loudly, they got nothing on what the audience will do to you when you price candy at $19.71. You have my full permission to then stick your tongue out at them when you win with this strategy. (I should note I spent the first 23 years of my life in the Philadelphia area before anyone complains I'm stereotyping a region I know nothing about.)