The Ultimate Price is Right Strategy Guide: Bullseye

Bullseye

Rules

A prize is shown. Then 5 grocery items are shown. The contestant must pick one of those grocery items and state how many of that item it would take to get between $10 and $12. If they are correct, they win the prize. If they are wrong but the total is below $10, they get a mark on the board. If they are wrong and total is above $12, they do not get a mark. The contestant gets to choose 3 products to try to win. If they have failed to win after 3 products, there is still a chance, as there is a hidden bullseye behind one of the 5 products. If the contestant chose that product during the game and they have a mark on the board from their guess on that product (i.e. their total for that product was less than $10), they win.

Random fact

When the show first debuted, there was a game called Bullseye that was nothing like this one. Instead, a prize was shown and the contestant had to guess the price. Bob would say "higher" or "lower" depending on whether the actual price was higher or lower. The contestant would guess again. They had a total of 7 guesses to get the price right. That game has the distinction of being the only game ever played on the show that was never won (excluding one-offs, like crossover games from Let's Make a Deal.) Here's a playing:

Win-loss rate (seasons 29-46): 159-42 (79.10%)

The contestant won the game by...

• Getting between $10 and $12: 126 times (79.25% of all wins)
• Finding the hidden bullseye: 33 times (20.75% of all wins)

Hidden bullseye was behind product #...: 

As they don't show where the hidden bullseye is if you win by getting between $10 and $12, I don't have enough data on that to make it meaningful.

How many do you need to get between $10 and $12 of an item?

Item price   # needed

$1.00-$1.20     10

$1.12-$1.33      9

$1.25-$1.50      8

$1.43-$1.71      7

$1.67-$2.00      6

$2.00-$2.40      5

$2.50-$3.00      4

$3.34-$4.00      3

$5.00-$6.00      2

Strategy

It's mostly "know the prices." However, if you want a 60% chance of winning, just randomly pick 3 items and guess 2 of them. (There's never been an item over $6 in the history of the game, so you don't have to worry about going over if you choose 2.) In fact, there's often a greater than 60% chance of winning if you do that because there's usually an item that costs between $5 & $6. My other advice is if you're not sure whether to pick N of an item or N+1 of that item, pick N. (For example, if you're debating between 3 and 4, choose 3.) If you pick too few of an item, you have a chance to win with the hidden bullseye, but if you pick too many, you don't get that chance. That said, this is a game that the producers don't usually try to trap you with, so go with your gut and you should have no problem.

The Ultimate Price is Right Strategy Guide: Bonus Game

Bonus Game

Rules

A bonus prize is shown as is a board with 4 "windows". Then four small prizes are shown, one at a time, and an incorrect price is shown for each of the four small prizes. The contestant must correctly guess if the actual retail price of each small prize is higher or lower than the shown price. If they are correct, they get to "claim" that window. After the pricing for all four small prizes is complete, it is revealed which window the bonus is in. If the contestant claimed that window (i.e. if they correctly guessed higher/lower for that small prize), they win.

Random fact

This was the second game ever played on the show. You can see the full first episode here: 

(This is the same video I posted on the Any Number page.)

Win-loss record

• Actual (seasons 29-46): 103-43 (70.55%)
• What it would be by random chance: 1/2 (50%)

The bonus was associated with small prize...

• #1 (top window): 37 playings (25.34%)
• #2: 42 playings (28.77%)
• #3: 40 playings (27.40%)
• #4 (bottom window): 27 playings (18.49%)

Compared to the price shown, the actual price of the small prize was...

• Higher: 317 small prizes (54.28%)
• Lower: 267 small prizes (45.72%)

Strategy

Know the prices of the small prizes. You don't get to pick which window you think the bonus will appear in, so it doesn't matter that the bottom window is fairly infrequently the one with the bonus. And the fact that "higher" is right 54.28% of the time isn't far enough from 50/50 to suggest that you should pick that in general. Thus, this is a "know the prices" game.

The Ultimate Price is Right Strategy Guide: Bonkers

Bonkers

Rules

A prize is shown. A 4 digit price is shown; none of the digits in the price is correct. The contestant has 4 paddles they must place above or below each of the 4 digits to indicate whether they think the digit in the price of the prize is higher or lower than the digit shown. After they place the paddles, they press a button and a sound indicates whether they are right or wrong. If they are right, they win the prize; if they are wrong, they can make changes. The contestant has 30 seconds to make as many guesses as they can.

Random fact

The button the contestant pushes to find out if they are right isn't connected to anything. There's someone backstage watching the locations of the paddles and they manually play the "wrong" or "right" sound when they see the contestant press the button.

Correction: That button used to be not connected to anything. Now it is. There's still a person that controls whether the sound played is the "right" or "wrong" sound, but since season 42, the button now automatically triggers the playing of whichever sound is selected. Thanks to Axl, jhc2010, and SteveGavazzi at golden-road.net for pointing this out!

Win-loss record

• Actual (seasons 29-46): 111-135 (45.12%)
• What it would be by random chance: N/16, where N is the number of unique guesses the contestant makes in the 30 seconds.

In order to win, the contestant had to place...

• All 4 paddles in the "higher" position: 0 playings (0%)
• Exactly 3 paddles in the "higher" position: 64 (26.02%)
• Exactly 2 paddles in the "higher" position: 98 (39.84%)
• Exactly 1 paddle in the "higher" position: 81 (32.93%)
• All 4 paddles in the "lower" position: 2 (0.81%)
• The paddles in unknown positions because the prize's price wasn't revealed: 1 (0.41%)

Strategy

There is one way many people play this game that drives me, well, bonkers. So everyone, repeat after me: do not look at the audience. I repeat: do NOT look at the audience. One more time:

DO NOT LOOK AT THE AUDIENCE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Got it? You only have 30 seconds and you simply don't have time to decode whatever it is your friend is trying to say. Besides, do you really think your friend knows that the trip to Germany has a price that ends in a 2 rather than a 7? Instead, you need to try as many combinations as possible. The record for most combinations ever tried is 9, which has happened once and was a win; the record for most combinations tried in a loss is 8, which has happened 8 times. Guess what? You can guarantee a win if you know the first digit of the price of the prize and you make 8 attempts! Here are all 8 possible combinations for the last 3 digits:

LLL

LLH

LHL

LHH

HLL

HLH

HHL

HHH

L is "lower" and H is "higher." Those are all the possible combinations for the last 3 digits, so if you know the first digit of the prize, or at least know the first digit in the price of the prize is higher or lower than the number shown in the incorrect price, you should win this game every single time. Thus, the idea is to figure out the first digit while George is describing the prize, put the paddle for that in its correct position when the game starts and leave it there, and then try the 8 combinations above for the last three digits.

(Side note: if you're a math geek, you can think of the above combinations as going through the numbers 0-7 in binary. Think of 0 as "L" and 1 as "H.")

Addendum: "Go with the odds" recent trend. After I wrote this Bonkers guide but before I posted it, someone posted on golden-road.net about a new pattern emerging in this game. It's simply this: go with the odds. If the wrong digit is 0-4, go higher. If the wrong digit is 6-9, go lower. If it's 5, then it could be either. For example, if the wrong price is 4753, it should take at most two attempts: HLHH and HLLH. This is a recent trend:

Season 47: This was always true for every digit (up to June 16 at least).
Season 46: This was always true for every digit except the first. There were times the wrong first digit was 6 or 7 and the actual first digit was 8 or 9. But the pattern held for digits 2-4 in every playing.
Season 45: This was false plenty of times.

So this may be a new unwritten rule or it may be a coincidence in the last season or two. I personally would go for the "try every combination" tactic myself, but it's worth continuing to look over the next year or two to see if this continues to be the case. 

The Ultimate Price is Right Strategy Guide: Bargain Game

Bargain Game

Rules 

Two prizes are shown. Each prize has a bargain price shown. The contestant must pick the bargain price that is more below the actual retail price to win both prizes.

Random fact

This game was out of the rotation for 2 years (seasons 38 & 39) while they changed it from Barker's Bargain Bar to just Bargain Game.

Win-loss record

• Actual (seasons 29-46): 263-159 (62.32%)
• What it would be by random chance: 1/2 (50%)

In order to win, the contestant had to select...

Pre-refurbishment era (seasons 29-37):

• The price on the left: 119 playings (48.37%)
• The price on the right: 127 (51.63%)
• The smaller bargain price: 186 (75.92%)
• The larger bargain price: 59 (24.08%)

Post-refurbishment era (seasons 40-46):

• The price on the left: 88 playings (49.72%)
• The price on the right: 89 (50.28%)
• The smaller bargain price: 82 (46.33%)
• The larger bargain price: 95 (53.67%)

Strategy

Know the prices. You can see why I split the stats up into the pre-refurbishment and post-refurbishment eras. Pre-refurbishment, it was true more than 3 out of 4 times that you had to pick the smaller shown price; however, the producers removed that trend post-refurbishment. In fact, in season 44, the higher bargain price was right 21 out of 27 times; take that season out, and it's basically been 50/50. So it's now become a "know the prices" game. But don't forget the trip rule! If you're playing for two trips that have bargain prices that are about the same, then the location that's farther away from LA is the correct one as it'll be more expensive.

The Ultimate Price is Right Strategy Guide: Balance Game

Balance Game

Rules

A prize is shown. Next to the contestant is a table with 4 bags. One of the bags has a 3 digit price on it; those are the last three digits of the price of the prize. The other three bags have values that are multiples of $1,000. The contestant must choose which two of those bags, when added together with the 3 digits from the 4th bag, correctly match the price of the prize.

Random fact

This is the second iteration of Balance Game; the first iteration ran from 1984-1985 and was nothing like this one except the fact that scales are involved in the prop. However, that game involved Barker dollars to balance a scale, and thus the Barker dollars (and now Drew dollars) that are supposedly in the bags of the current version are an homage to the 1984 version of the game. Here's a video of the old version:

Win-Loss record (seasons 34-46)

(Note the current iteration of Balance Game was introduced in season 34.)

• Actual: 80-109 (42.33%)
• What it would be by random chance: 1/3 (33.33%)

Number of times when, in order to win, the contestant had to pick...

• The two largest valued bags: 63 (33.33% of playings)
• The largest valued bag and the smallest valued bag: 69 (36.51%)
• The two smallest valued bags: 57 (30.16%) 

Strategy

Know the price. Those numbers above aren't statistically far enough away from pure randomness to suggest a strategy.

The Ultimate Price is Right Strategy Guide: Any Number

Any Number

Rules

Two prizes are shown: a car and a prize with three digits in its price. A board is shown with three rows: one for the car, one for the 3 digit prize, and one for the piggy bank. The first number of the car is revealed. In the remaining 10 squares, each number 0-9 inclusive appears exactly once. The contestant picks digits one by one; after each selection, the location of that digit is revealed. The contestant wins the prize whose digits they fill in first.

Random fact

In addition to being the first game in alphabetical order, this is the first game that was ever played on the current iteration of the show. You can see it, and the entire first episode of the show, here:

(Note the still picture is of Bonus Game, not Any Number.)

Key Stats

• Win-loss record (seasons 29-46): 166-285 (36.81%)
• Chance of winning if you pick numbers completely randomly: 9/35 (25.71%)
  (Note I calculated that by enumerating all orderings of choosing the numbers 0-9. Later, I found this mathematical analysis of the game. Thankfully, we both ended up with the same result.)
• Which digit appears where? (Seasons 40-46)
  
                   % in 3 digit  % in piggy
  Digit  % in car      prize         bank  
    0      16.07       47.62        36.31
    1      45.24        8.93        45.83
    2      44.64       16.67        38.69
    3      58.92       12.50        28.57
    4      39.88       23.81        36.31
    5      29.76       46.43        23.81
    6      50.00       33.33        16.67
    7      35.71       32.14        32.14
    8      40.48       35.71        23.81
    9      39.29       42.86        17.86
  
  Let me explain how to read that table with an example. The first entry, 16.07, means that the number 0 was in the car 16.07% of the time, which is less than 1/6. By random chance, you would expect it to be in the car 40% of the time. (Actually, you could argue that the first digit of the 3 digit prize and the first digit of the piggy bank are never 0, so it should be in the price of the car 50% of the time based on random chance. But I digress.)
• The ordering of the piggy bank digits (seasons 40-46):
  
  Order    %  
  $3.21  38.69
  $3.12  48.81
  $2.31   4.76
  $2.13   7.14
  $1.32   0.00
  $1.23   0.60
  
  This table is referring to the ordering of the digits in the piggy bank. "$3.21" means the largest digit that appears in the piggy bank is first, the middle digit is second, and the smallest digit is last; a piggy bank price of $9.42 would fit that example. Similarly, $2.31 means the largest digit is in the middle of the piggy bank, the second largest digit is in the first spot, and the smallest digit is in the last spot; a piggy bank price of $4.92 would fit that example.
  

Strategy

The strategy comes out of those tables above, along with the paint and fabric protection rule. Cars in Any Number almost always have paint and fabric protection in order that the last number won't be 0. In fact, in those 168 playings of Any Number, the last digit of the car was a 0 eight times. That's less than 1 in every 20 playings. The 5 was the last digit only 11 times. So here is the strategy to this game:

1. Start by trying to find the second digit of the car, as you should be able to get that in just a couple of tries. If the first digit is a 2, go for a 1, 2, or 3 as the second digit if you're not sure. And this is where you can try a 0 if the first digit is a 2. Of the 27 times a 0 was in the price in the car from seasons 40-46, 18 times it was the second digit. 
2. Once you've found that, pick the 3 and the 6 if you haven't already. You have at least a coin flip chance of those being in the car.
3. At this point, you've probably found at least one number in the 3 digit prize and/or the piggy bank. Note the largest digit in the piggy bank is the first digit 87.5% of the time, so if you see _ 6 _ in the piggy bank, pick numbers less than 6. But if you have 6_ _ in the piggy bank, guess numbers greater than 6. Update: jhc2010 pointed out at golden-road.net that the first digit of the piggy bank has been its largest digit in every playing since October 29, 2015. So you should really follow this piece of advice.
4. If at any point the above tips don't help, and you can't figure out which numbers would appear in the 3 digit prize, then pick the remaining numbers in the order they appear most frequently in the car. That order is 3,6,1,2,8,4,9,7,5,0. But don't just pick them haphazardly in that order--after each digit, look to see if you can apply the piggy bank concept in rule 3 or if you got any clues to what the 3 digit price prize might be.
5. Speaking of the 3 digit prize, thanks to pannoni1 at golden-road.net, I realized there hasn't been a prize under $500 offered since season 42. So feel free to try the lower numbers a bit if you only have the first number to go in the second prize.
6. If you can't remember that order, just remember this: don't pick the 5 or the 0. Those are by far the least frequent numbers in the car, which is not surprising, since those are the numbers contestants pick the most frequently thinking they're the last number in the car. But they almost never are.

The Ultimate Price is Right Strategy Guide: The Showcases

The showcases

Rules

Two contestants participate. A showcase with multiple prizes is shown to both contestants. The contestant who has won more up to that point in the show decides if they want to bid on that showcase or pass it to the other contestant. The second showcase is then presented and whoever didn't bid on the first showcase bids on the second one. Whichever contestant is closer to the actual retail price of the showcase they bid on without going over wins their showcase. If the winner was less than or equal to $250 away from the price of their showcase, they win both showcases.

Random facts

• Do NOT call this the showcase showdown!! The showcase showdown refers to the wheel, not the showcase round at the end of the show. There's probably no easier way to make a normally casual, easy-going Price is Right fan suddenly go ballistic than by calling this segment the showcase showdown.
• The closest difference between the two contestants was $1:
  
• In 2008, Terry Kneiss bid perfectly on his showcase. There's a whole documentary about how that happened which I highly recommend.

Who won? (Seasons 29-46)

• The top winner won their showcase 43.09% of the time.
• The runner up won their showcase 49.98% of the time.
• A double overbid happened 6.93% of the time.

Pricing patterns

• Showcases are never below $20,000. (The last time a showcase cost less than $20,000 was in season 42, 5 years ago).
• The last three digits of the price of each showcase are always between -251 and -999, inclusive. (I believe the last time the last three digits of a showcase's value were between -000 and -250, inclusive, was season 40, 7 years ago. I haven't been able to check this exhaustively, so I welcome correction. But I do know it's been a long time.)

Strategy

While nothing beats knowing the prices of the prizes, you should use that last bullet point above to your advantage. The reason they don't use prices ending between -000 and -250 is believed to be that the producers don't want a contestant to win both showcases by bidding a value that's divisible by $1,000. For example, they don't want bids like $23,000 to win both showcases, so they'll add an excursion to a trip or an option to a car to raise the price of a showcase from $23,123 to $23,452. Thus, the bid of $23,000 doesn't win both showcases. As a result, the last three digits of your bid should never be between -000 and -250, inclusive. So instead of bidding $23,000, bid $23,251. And thus your minimum showcase bid should be $20,251 when you combine the two bullet points in the pricing patterns section above. So to sum up:

• Your bid should be at least $20,251.
• The last three digits of your bid should be between 251 and 999 inclusive.