To Spin or not to Spin? Natural and Laboratory Experiments fromthe Price is Right

Abstract

The Wheel is a sequential game of perfect information played twice during each taping of the television game show The Price is Right. This game has simple rules and the stakes are high. We derive the unique subgame perfect Nash equilibrium (USPNE) for The Wheel and test its predictive ability using data from both the television show and laboratory plays of this game. We find that contestants frequently deviate from the USPNE when the decisions are difficult. The pattern of these deviations is (a) largely independent of the stakes of the game, and (b) consistent with a psychological bias of the omission-commission type.