The Ultimate Price is Right Strategy Guide: More or Less

More or Less

Rules

3 prizes are shown as is a car. For each prize, a wrong price is shown, and the contestant must guess whether the actual price of the prize is more or less than the wrong price. If they are right, they advance to the next prize; if they are wrong, the game ends but they win any prizes they guessed correctly.

Random fact

This was the last pricing game to premiere while Bob Barker was still hosting. You can see the first playing here:

Win-loss record

• Actual (seasons 35-46): 25-110 (18.52%)
• What it would be by random chance: 1/16 (6.25%)

For each prize, the correct choice was...(seasons 40-47)

First prize:

• More: 55 playings (58.51%)
• Less: 39 playings (41.49%)

Second prize:

• More: 42 playings (48.28%)
• Less: 45 playings (51.72%)

Third prize:

• More: 22 playings (31.88%)
• Less: 47 playings (68.12%)

The car:

• More: 11 playings (23.40%)
• Less: 36 playings (76.60%)

Of course, for the second prize and later, only playings where the contestant got to that prize are counted.

How often was more or less correct based on the fake price? (seasons 40-47)

(The data below is courtesy of AvsFan on golden-road.net. It only applies to the first three prizes.)

Fake price        More         Less
$0-$999         55 (100%)     0 (0%)
$1,000-$1,499   15 (33%)     30 (67%)
$1,500-$1,999   14 (45%)     17 (55%)
$2,000-$2,499   17 (41%)     24 (59%)
$2,500-$2,999   13 (36%)     23 (64%)
$3,000-$3,499    7 (32%)     15 (68%)
$3,500 and up    0 (0%)      23 (100%)

How often was each combination of more and less correct? (seasons 40-47)

Note: the following statistics only count playings where the contestant reached the car.

• 4 More: 0 playings (0%)
• 3 More, 1 Less: 8 playings (18.18%)
• 2 More, 2 Less: 17 playings (38.64%)
• 1 More, 3 Less: 19 playings (43.18%)
• 4 Less: 0 playings (0%)

Strategy

Mostly know the prices, but with a couple of tips:

• For the first three prizes, you should guess "more" for any fake price of $999 or lower and "less" for any fake price of $3,500 or higher.
• Note the escalating probabilities of each prize being "less" as the game goes along, so that should be what you lean toward later in the game. 
• That said, it's never been correct that all four prizes had the same correct choice; in fact, from seasons 40-47, it was only true once that the first three prizes had the same correct choice (again, only counting playings the contestant reached the third prize.)