Press Your Luck

Press Your Luck was an American television game show where contestants collected "spins" by answering trivia questions, and then used the "spins" on a board with dollar amounts. The person who amassed the most in cash and prizes at the end of the game won.

How it works

Three contestants compete on each episode of Press Your Luck. The game consists of two rounds. A round started with a question session, each with four questions. Contestants could buzz in, and if they got the answer right on the buzz in, they earned three spins (none if wrong). The other two contestants could answer using multiple choice (the first contestant's answer plus two others being offered) and, if right, earn one spin. Up to 20 spins could be earned per question session among all three players, the maximum an individual player could earn being 12.

Related Topics:
Buzz - Multiple choice

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The second part of a round was the spinning portion. Contestants now used spins earned in the question session on the "Big Board" which consisted of 18 monitors arranged in a 6x5 rectangle. The contestants took their spins in inverse order of the number of spins they had earned answering questions; if two contestants earned the same number of spins, the player seated further on the left from Peter Tomarken's desk would spin first. Contestants used their buzzers to stop the board.

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The contents of the spaces on the "Big Board" changed every few seconds (alternating among three possibilities per square), as well as the highlighted square (which bounced around as well). A game space contains either money, a prize (the dollar amount of which would accrue to the contestant's score), or a Whammy. Some special spaces had a money amount '+ 1 Spin' (meaning the spin being used wasn't lost), and others worked as 'go back/advance two spaces', 'move one space' (to either side, which the contestant would then choose) or 'pick a corner'. One special space, added about midway through the show's run, was known as "Add-A-One." This space—which appeared in the first spinning round only—would place a "1" in front of the contestant's pre-existing total (that is, $0 became $10, but $1,000 became $11,000). The second round had a space marked "Double Your Money," and hitting it did just that; to solve the obvious problem created by contestants landing on this space when they had no money at all due to a recent Whammy, this was changed to "Double Your Money + 1 Spin." In addition, both rounds featured a space bearing the legend "Big Bucks." When hit, it awarded the contestant the dollar amount found directly opposite it on the board; in the first round this would be either $750, $1,000, $1,250 or $1,500, and in the second round it would be either $3,000 + 1 Spin, $4,000 + 1 Spin, or $5,000 + 1 Spin (the existence of this space resulted in most contestants chanting "Big Bucks" or some variant thereof before stopping the board on each spin).

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Contestants were able to pass their spins to another contestant in the hope that the other contestant would hit a Whammy and lose their money. When passed, the spins went to the opponent of the two with the higher dollar score; if both opponents had the same score the passer could choose which opponent to which the spins would be passed. However, spins passed to one player by another could not be passed again unless a Whammy had been hit, in which case any passed spins would become be added to any spins earned and then eligible to be passed again. If a player with passed spins lands on a square giving an extra spin, that spin is added to the earned spins, not the passed spins; so a player that continuously hit extra spin squares could convert all their passed spins to earned spins, and pass all of them.

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The first round's spinning portion had far fewer spaces which provided money plus an additional spin, and money amounts ranged from $100 + 1 Spin up to $1250 ($1500 after the first few months). Indeed, the principal purpose of the first round was to determine the sequence in which the contestants would take their spins in the second round, which was in the reverse order of the money they had won in the first round (in other words, the player who emerged from the first round with the highest money score was the last to spin in the second round). The second spinning round in the show was the one watched most closely, where dollar amounts ranged from $500 to $5000 + 1 Spin—and sometimes prizes such as cars were worth even more. The winner of the game was the contestant with the most money after the last spin of the second round was taken.

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Four Whammys sustained by the same player eliminated that player from the game (and often, special animation skits were pressed into service in situations where the Whammy in question was the contestant's fourth) And Depleting The Spins They Have Left. In some shows, a player was determined the winner by default if both opponents suffered four Whammys; when this scenario arose and the surviving player had any spins remaining, the winner was permitted to spin "against the house" and stop spinning at any time, at which point the game ended as there would be no other players left in the game to pass the spins to.

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The winner of each game returned on the next episode, but for the show's first year, returning champions who won over $25,000 would retire undefeated. In the fall of 1984, that limit was raised to $50,000. There were a few contestants that reached this limit at that time. There was one occasion in 1986 where one contestant won $62,708, and one occasion on a Christmas 1984 episode where a contestant won $61,316.

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