"The Price is Right" Debuts "The Lion's Share" sponsored by BetMGM

"The Price is Right" (TPiR) is a US TV game show that features various "pricing games" where contestants can win money and prizes. On 22 September 2025, TPiR started its 54th season with the debut of its newest game: "The Lion's Share." Sponsored by a gambling company, the game can award a top prize of $500,000.



Rules and stuff:
In TPiR fashion, the game is overly complicated.

The player is initially awarded one ball grab with the possibility of winning up to four additional ball grabs. The ball grabs are won by determined if a randomly chosen permutation of two digits is the correct price of an item. Once the pricing portion is complete, the wind is turned on in the ball ball sphere (a money grabber machine with balls instead of money). The player picks the number of balls and then exist the dome of grabbing.
Each ball has a number that corresponds to a prize board with 40 numbered spaces. Prizes are revealed one at a time in the order the player chooses. 5 spaces have a value of $100,000 cash. 5 have a value of "lose everything", which causes the player to lose all accumulated prizes. "Lose everything" does not eliminate the player from the game. The other 30 have small prizes. If the player is satisfied with the accumulated prizes, they can choose to end the game and forfeit remaining balls.

some maths (mostly hypgeom.dist):

Assuming the player manages to properly identify all four prices, the chances of at least one $100,000 square are pretty good.

grand prize selections	P	1/P
0	0.49335570388202	2.02693511422164
1	0.397867503130661	2.51339954163484
2	0.0994668757826652	10.0535981665393
3	0.00904244325296957	110.589579831933
4	0.000265954213322635	3760.04571428571
5	1.51973836184362E-06	658008

The probability of winning $500,000 is 1/658,008. Not great at all. Unlikely to ever occur since the player will always have chance of losing if they continue. However, the chance of catching at least one $100,000 ball is very good. This has to be the easiest way to win big on the show.

Inversitively, the probability of catching at least one lose everything is also quite good as it is the same as above.

lose everything selections	P	1/P
0	0.49335570388202	2.02693511422164
1	0.397867503130661	2.51339954163484
2	0.0994668757826652	10.0535981665393
3	0.00904244325296957	110.589579831933
4	0.000265954213322635	3760.04571428571
5	1.51973836184362E-06	658008

Despite P being equal, the chances of seeing a 5x LE out are much higher because the player will always use the remaining balls after an LE and likely never use them after a $100,000.

The probability of losing everything on any pick depends on round number and the number of lose everything still in play:

	lose everything remaining
pick	1	2	3	4	5
1					0.128205128205128
2				0.105263157894737	0.131578947368421
3			0.0810810810810811	0.108108108108108	0.135135135135135
4		0.0555555555555556	0.0833333333333333	0.111111111111111	0.138888888888889
5	0.0285714285714286	0.0571428571428571	0.0857142857142857	0.114285714285714	0.142857142857143

How do you play it? Conservative? Risky? What do? Do you always go for that $100,000?

Aside from this stuff, I think it is very interesting that they are partnering with a gambling company. The audience for TPiR is mainly grandmas, grandpas, and unemployeds, but a large number of little childrens do watch the show when they are off school or sick or whatever.

screenshots from an actual performance of the game.
example: the first item is this lovely hand rake. if you need your hands raked, this is the tool for you.

example: hand rake balls are 1 and 7.

Price lands on "1 7." Player guess that is the correct price. And it is!

example: player grabs balls and places them in the ball slot

example: game board is lit up with player balls

example: ball selection is a trip to tokyo, japan with a value of $14,419

example: player opens final ball. no whammies? no whammies!

example: player winners over $33,000 in cash and prizes!

As for the TPIR game, it is best described as "Pass the Buck, but with 40 numbers instead of 6, and the game used to determine how many extra picks you get replaced with the one from the retired game Joker."

The only reason I don't say, "The strategy will always be, if the contestant doesn't have $100,000 yet, keep playing; if they do, then stop," is that there is a chance that one of the prizes will be a luxury car (the kind given out on 3 Strikes, if not Golden Road), and if someone wins that, then they will give serious consideration to stopping and keeping the car. The only reason I don't think that the game will include luxury cars is, because it takes so long to play, they don't go into details about the prizes that are won, which usually means that the show had to pay for the item in cash rather than getting a discount in exchange for a promotional plug. In fact, there is some thought that the trip that was won was also the one that was in one of the showcases, and I for one have a feeling that the car that Drew mentioned was a possible prize was a Mazda Miata, which also appeared in a showcase.
Then again, who knows how much of this is covered by BetMGM in exchange for its promotion.

Note that a contestant that does use the "play until you get $100,000, then stop) strategy will win $100,000 about 50% of the time if they got all four prices correct, about 35% if they got three, and about 21% if they got two.

Also, at the end of the episode, the closing credits had one of those "If you have a gambling problem, call..." disclaimers that appear on sportsbook commercials.

One question that a number of people are asking is, "Why is BetMGM bothering with this?" Here's my possible theory: there is a bill in Congress that would set federal regulations on sportsbooks, and the version that was introduced in 2024 included a restriction that sportsbooks could not advertise on TV between 8 AM and 10 PM (the 2025 version does not have this, although it could be added as an amendment to the bill, assuming it ever gets to the House floor, which the 2024 one did not), so BetMGM wants a backup plan to retain its TV presence.

Great post. This is what this site should be all about. It would go back to attracting high quality posts and posters.


ZCore13

Here are a couple link to the same game: part 1 and part2. There is some overlap between the two.

For your consideration, here are the prizes the player won:

Vacation to Tokyo ($14,419)
Hot tub ($11,421)
$1,000
Pair of guitars ($5,250)
$1,000

I'd like to see the contestant pick the numbers. Not just the order of reveal. Putting the contestant in the bubble is kind of dumb.

I also found it odd that the four prices were "true" -- need more wind power to scramble, I suppose.

Quote: Zcore13

This is what this site should be all about.
link to original post

I thought it was about Vegas. Says so in the name. Other than MDawg, who is even in Vegas regularly (or at all), and playing.

Hard to know about Vegas without living there or at least being there regularly, other than picking up what those who are actually there present.

That's why people left, they don't play anymore, don't go to Vegas much if at all, and probably didn't want to read about what they don't do.

So now you have endless threads about what people ate today and the like. Everyone eats. Apparently, not everyone goes to Vegas.

As well, forums in general seem to have declined and the younger generation is less into lengthy text more into video and images. That this forum's software makes presenting visuals less than intuitive might be an issue too for a potential acolyte.

I think this is the highest EV game I have ever seen in TPIR. I agree with the play until you find $100,000 and quit strategy. Here is the probability of finding 100K, according to the number of balls.

Balls	Prob win 100K
5	50.66%
4	42.71%
3	33.76%
2	23.72%
1	12.50%

By the way, I consider further posts complaining about this site in general to be hijacking.

So this game seems to have taken the place of au the rent the shows former highest prize game
If you had a fairly good idea about the products not to hard to win 10k. Top prize was a little trickier to win
Ay the rent seems to have fallen the way of the phone home game

Quote: ThatDonGuy

One question that a number of people are asking is, "Why is BetMGM bothering with this?" Here's my possible theory: there is a bill in Congress that would set federal regulations on sportsbooks, and the version that was introduced in 2024 included a restriction that sportsbooks could not advertise on TV between 8 AM and 10 PM (the 2025 version does not have this, although it could be added as an amendment to the bill, assuming it ever gets to the House floor, which the 2024 one did not), so BetMGM wants a backup plan to retain its TV presence.
link to original post

This is incredibly cheap casino advertising everywhere on a fairly popular, safe show. They can show it doctors offices. The prize is also big enough that it would get some viral views and local news coverage. I am less surprised about the casino doing it than I am about the show doing it. Licensing the brand to slot machines is not the same as directly advertising for a casino. Wheel of Fortune had IGT on its show to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the slots, but that was insulated from actual gambling.

Quote: avianrandy

So this game seems to have taken the place of au the rent the shows former highest prize game
If you had a fairly good idea about the products not to hard to win 10k. Top prize was a little trickier to win
Ay the rent seems to have fallen the way of the phone home game
link to original post

I think the best way to play "Pay the Rent" is to do it wrong: lowest item first, then next two lowest, then highest pair. That pretty much ensures $10,000 instead of trying for $100,000 that can be as few as one correct combinations.

They might have just made this one "easy" because it is the first time, but the price options for the prizes had a huge range that made it fairly easy to guess correctly. I couldn't tell you the price of the whisk, but I know it does not cost $100.

prize	low price	high price	difference (abs)	actual price
hand rake	17	71	54	17
non-stick whisk	29	92	63	29
flashlight (pelican 3310)	48	84	36	48
toaster (4 slot)	38	83	45	83

The "lose everything" balls not ending the game makes the game very friendly to the player.