The Ultimate Price is Right Strategy Guide: Pocket Change

Pocket Change

Rules

A car is shown as are 6 numbers. 5 of those numbers are in the price of the car and the 6th number is a fake. The first digit of the car is shown to the contestant and they are given a slip worth 25 cents. The car has a price tag in front of it that shows it costs 25 cents at that moment. The contestant guesses what they think the next number is based on the remaining digits. If they are wrong, the price of the car goes up by 25 cents; if they are right, they get to take a card off the board. That card will be an amount of money worth anywhere from nothing to $2. At the end of the game, if the amount the contestant has accumulated through envelopes is greater than or equal to the price of the car, the contestant wins the car.

Random fact

In early playings of this game, In the first playing of this game, the contestant was not given the first number for free. You can see an example here:

(Thanks to SteveGavazzi at golden-road.net for pointing out this rule was in effect for the first playing only!)

Win-loss record

• Actual (seasons 33-47): 83-97 (46.11%)
• What it would be by random chance: 239351/581400 (41.17%)

For each digit, how often was it in the car vs. being a fake? (seasons 40-47)

Note: the following table excludes the first digit of the car's price.

          # times       # times in      # times it

Digit     on board      car price       was the fake

  0          24         23 (95.85%)       1 (4.17%)

  1          43         42 (97.67%)       1 (2.33%)

  2          24         21 (87.50%)       3 (12.50%)

  3          60         44 (73.33%)      16 (26.67%)

  4          45         39 (86.67%)       6 (13.33%)

  5          47         20 (42.55%)      27 (57.45%)

  6          45         43 (95.56%)       2 (4.44%)

  7          58         45 (77.59%)      13 (22.41%)

  8          56         45 (80.36%)      11 (19.64%)

  9          53         42 (79.25%)      11 (20.75%)

Strategy

Part 1: Car pricing

Mostly know the price, but you can sniff out the fake. If you see a 5, there's a better than 50% chance it's a fake--avoid it unless you're certain it belongs. On the other hand, if, after the first digit is revealed, you see a 0, 1, 2, 4, and/or 6 remaining, there's a very good chance it or they will be in the car.

Part 2: Which cards to pick

Unfortunately, they don't reveal the cards that the contestant doesn't pick, so I don't have anything brilliant here. For example, the card that's been revealed to be the $2 card the most often is the top card of the second column...but that's been revealed to be the $2 card a whopping three times in 180 playings. No other spot has been shown to have the card more than twice. So you have nothing to lose by picking the top card of the second column, but don't bet your house on it. Otherwise, I would pick cards at the very top, very left, very bottom, or very right, as most contestants go for cards in the middle.

Part 2b: If you're daring

If you look closely, whenever the contestant picks an envelope, Drew quickly looks at the back of it. I believe there's a mark on the $2 envelope so that if the contestant picks it, Drew can put it last to maximize the drama. So if you're daring, you can try to look at the back of the envelope briefly as you pull the envelope out of its slot and put it back if you don't see a mark; IMHO, this wouldn't be cheating because you're not looking at the actual value. Of course, the staff might not agree, so do this at your own risk...