With all the talk of the November mission for a million, I thought it would be interesting to talk about the frequency of big wins on the show.

*During the original ABC run with Regis between 1999-2002, there were 9 million-dollar winnners

*During the first syndicated season with Merideth in 2002-03, there were 2

*During the Super Millionaire specials in 2004, there was 1 (although that wasn't the top prize on that version)

*During the 2003-09 syndicated seasons, 0.

I've lost track of how many people have won $500,000 on the syndie version, but I'm guessing around 6 (I'm sure there's a website somewhere that I haven't bookmarked that has all of this info).

When I was telling a friend of mine (who's not really a game show fan) that there hasn't been a top-prize winner in 6 years he seemed kind of surprised. He thought every season should have one million-dollar winner.

Do you agree with this? Does it bother you that it's been so long or are you OK with it? Would you like to see at least one person win the big one each year (I don't know how you'd guarantee it, but would you like to see it)?

To me, it doesn't bother me a great deal that nobody's won in so long since we had so many big winners when the show first went on the air. I understand that the syndie version doesn't have the budget of the network version, but since the average payout is a lot lower than the ABC version, maybe it's time for a big win again. I just don't like the way they're tyring to do it though...

Any opinions?

The syndie show has had 4 $500k winners: Armand Kachigian in 2003, Jeff Gross in 2004, Ogi Ogas in 2006 and Lyn Payne in 2007. So far, we've been seeing one MDQ a year. I like it that way, but I think 6 years is a bit much to go without a win. I think a MDW every year is too much.

Nope, I sure don't. Australia went five years without a winner, and England at least two.

There was an episode from Millionaire's "Mega" series, and two contestants each won $250,000 back-to-back. When you have everyone and their dog winning $64,000 and more, it stops becoming special. The game was no longer about "will I reach $32,000?" but "how many lifelines can I bring into the top tier?" The same thing happened with Deal or No Deal: the structure of the game board made it so that everyone but the most unlucky of contestants could have stopped with $100,000 at some point. And Even before THAT, Wheel of Fortune is guilty. A bonus round doesn't feel the same when the host can say "Aw shucks, don't worry about not solving the bonus puzzle because you won more during the main game."

In one-third the number of episodes the primetime version had nineteen $500,000 winners, and fifty-seven people won $250,000.* Even if you take into account the fact that the primetime show was an hour, that's still a whole bunch of people winning heaps of money. It was special when Doug won the $250,000. It was incredible when Michael won $500,000. But after you have consecutive big winners, it ceases to become special.

* Yes, I looked it up, no I can't recall all their names. Source-age: wwtbam.biz.

I don't agree with his particular frequency (I'd rather see at least 1 every two years), but I can tell you for sure that the lack of big wins has kept me from watching syndie Millionaire regularly for years now. Seeing a bunch of people winning $500K may not be "special" anymore, but it never stops being exciting. Tier 3 is where the REAL fun and drama of this game is, for me. Until that point, it's just Multi-Choice Quiz Show #342. Watching people scratch and crawl just to get to the second milestone has gotten old for me.

How did you arrive at this particular figure? Why not one every three years? Two every five? One every 314 episodes?

If you want to see quiz shows that have overvalue for underwork, I have a bunch of names for you.

Disagree. A bonus round should be just that--a 'bonus'. It shouldn't overshadow everything else that was acquired in the main game. If it did, then that would be the 'main game'.

To which I cite:

Pyramid
Match Game
Password Plus / Super Password

(stop me if you've heard of any of these...)

The Price is Right
Family Feud
The Joker's Wild
Go
Chain Reaction
...and about six billion other shows.

How many of them actually used the word 'bonus'?

I have no problem with the prize being contained in the end game...but if you're using the word 'bonus', that implies that whatever is won there is supposed to supplement to whatever's already hauled in.

I was mostly pointing out that Wheel wasn't the best example of 'big wins become boring' because Wheel's never been about one big win so much as a series of smaller wins.

I'm speechless. You're really differentiating between endgames because of what they call themselves?

That ship sailed as soon as they started offering twenty-five large as a "bonus" round prize.

Twenty years ago.

I was looking at the site you mentioned and saw that we've seen only 6 Million Dollar Questions in 7 years. I thought to myself, "Sheesh. I wish we'd see twice as many." So I just multiplied everything by two. 12 MDQ's. 4 Millionaires in 7 years. That's one every 1.75 years. Rounded to the nearest full year. 1 every 2 years. That's all.


Yes, but you forget that not everyone has the same idea of "overvalue" or "underwork" when it comes to game shows.

Sadly, this is the truth.

Well, my point was that Wheel placed less of an emphasis on its endgame than other shows, and one of the examples of this was referring to it as a 'bonus round'. I wasn't trying to qualify for the Words Have Meanings endgame or anything.


Touche. 'Never' was probably the wrong word to use there. I was thinking of the shopping days where the 'bonus' prize was something that was available to be won earlier in the show, but you're right, there's that huge gap in the middle where the $25,000 was generally bigger than the main-game payolas.

/I really should learn to never post my original thoughts.
//They always turn out half-baked.
///Just Like Michael Phelps?

Which we play for an ice cream pony.

I don't watch on anything remotely approaching a regular basis, but it would be interesting to know what the average front-game payout for a WOF champion is these days.

My suspicion is that it is at least somewhat less than $25K, which is the *minimum* they play for now. For one single puzzle.

I would argue that there's no "gap," it's been like this for 22 years now.

Typically somewhere between $13,000 and $18,000. That total usually includes a Prize Puzzle bonus though.

Even if it does, that number is a good bit less than the $25K minimum in the "bonus" round, which is exactly as I suspected.

The reason that the average payout is so high can be linked to a few things: one is that the cash spaces have gone up in value. If you get money, it is a minimum of $300. (I don't know what the average is.) Second is the prize puzzle every show that has to go to someone. Third is the longer puzzles that add consonants to what would be a shorter round (Proper Name GAME SHOW HOST ALEX TREBEK instead of Person: ALEX TREBEK, for example). Next comes the $6,000 in toss-up money that has to go somewhere.

Perhaps the biggest is the speed-up round. In the beginning, the speed-up round was played as a fast way to end the last round of the game. These days, not only is there always a speed-up round, but consonants have a minimum value of $1,300. That's money that will find a happy home too.

All of that adds up in a hurry.