Jennifer had to guess the correct price of a Nissan Versa, a video camera, and a home theater. She bid the combined price of $23,294 for the three items. Sadly, it was just $1 over the actual retail price of $23,293. If she had guessed correctly, she would have won all three items and broken game show history by winning $50,000 instead of the maximum $20,000 top prize. To be fair, Jennifer’s bid was close enough that she could have guessed one item at an incorrect price and still won all three if her other two guesses were correct.
Jennifer had to guess the correct price of a Nissan Versa, a video camera, and a home theater. She bid $23,294 for those three items. That’s not bad: each item would have cost her just over $8,500, and she would have paid only five cents more than what they were actually worth. Well done! Jennifer got all but one digit right on her close bid on The Price is Right. Her mistake? It was in which column she put up an incorrect price. It’s a question that goes viral every time a Price is Right contestant gets within shouting distance of winning. Now, we have an answer: Despite bids between $20,000 and $25,000 from other contestants, Jennifer lost by one dollar. Her close bid of $23,294 was enough to make her viral for all the wrong reasons. How come? Because she was wrong by one dollar, said Alison Freer, the senior writer at Business Insider. Jennifer’s viral bid was not only wrong by one dollar, but it was also wrong by one cent, said Freer. That’s because game show rules say that bids can be rounded up or down to the nearest dollar. So if Jennifer had won her bid, she would have lost out by $0.01 either way.
Jennifer knew exactly what she was doing, telling FCFVA that she made an educated guess on how much to bid. I thought for sure I would be over, but my plan was to go as high as I could possibly go without it being ridiculous… The great lesson here? Don’t think you can just guess your way to a win on that show—or anywhere else! Be sure you have all of your numbers down before entering into any kind of big bidding situation. This is a monumental moment for any contestant to make it onto The Price Is Right, but it turns out Jennifer was not as close as she thought. Her guessing price was $23,294 and she got the three items valued at $22,348. We can’t help but imagine how crushing that would feel, especially after such a nerve-wracking experience. It’s safe to say that if you win on The Price Is Right, you better count your blessings and avoid checking an online calculator.
