Line #11 Main/GameShowWinningsCap


1	Way back in the earlier days of television in TheFifties (more specifically, 1956), a man named Herb Stempel competed on the GameShow ''Series/TwentyOne''. Although he claimed to have intentionally lost to Charles van Doren upon instruction by producer Dan Enright, he was ignored until ''Series/{{Dotto}}'' was found to have been certifiably rigged two years later. After that, the entire game show industry was [[GenreKiller nearly brought down]].
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3	Although the genre regained popularity in the 1960s-70s, many shows from that point onward had to endure a series of standards and practices to prove that they were on the up-and-up. Among these limitations was the Game Show Winnings Cap, which is ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin: a limit to the amount of money that a game show contestant can win and/or how long s/he can be a returning champion.
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5	In response to the seven figures available on big-money shows such as ''Series/WhoWantsToBeAMillionaire'', many other game shows have offered seven-figure winnings. With the late-1950s rigging far in the genre's past, tighter security to prevent cheating and rigging, and multiple $1,000,000 game show winnings in the 2000s, winnings caps are pretty much a ForgottenTrope.
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7	Returning champion caps, however, are still present, as most remaining game shows are one-and-done while ''Series/FamilyFeud'' continues to hold onto the same five-game limit it has had since 2002. Further, contestants may not participate on more than one game show within a one-year period, or three in ten years.[[note]]This last point applies specifically to American game shows; limits may vary between countries.[[/note]]
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9	!!Examples:
10	* The Big Three networks imposed winnings caps on all network game shows, all in answer to the quiz show scandals:
11	** Creator/{{CBS}} imposed a cap on game show winnings. Initially, contestants on CBS-affiliated shows were retired after winning $25,000, and could not keep any winnings over that limit (although sometime in the mid-to-late 1970s, a contestant could keep up to $10,000 more than the limit, for a $35,000 maximum payout). ''Series/{{Whew}}'', not by coincidence, offered that much as the jackpot for winning the bonus round. The cap increased to $50,000 in 1984, $75,000 by 1986, then $125,000 in the early 1990s. By 2006, with ''Series/ThePriceIsRight'' having long since been the only CBS original game show (although a new incarnation of ''Series/LetsMakeADeal'' joined it in 2009), the winnings cap was done away with entirely.
12	*** ''The Price Is Right'' used to limit contestants to one appearance in a lifetime on the show, whether they played a pricing game or not. Since Drew Carey became the host in 2007, however, contestants can return 10 years after they first played, which such contestants often reference on their t-shirts and/or when they chat with Drew after getting out of Contestant's Row.
13	** Creator/{{NBC}} put a limit on the number of games a returning champion could play, but did not cap winnings (and numerous shows took advantage of this.). An exception to this was ''Series/ThreeOnAMatch'' (1971-74), which eradicated championship limits entirely in mid-1973. Several game shows took full advantage of this, particularly the 1980s version of ''Series/SaleOfTheCentury'' (which, accounting for top-end Cadillacs and opulent trips as prizes plus cash jackpots of $50,000 or more, could net a contestant well over $100,000) and ''Series/DreamHouse'' (which ran for 15 months during 1983-84, where a couple could [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin win a house]]; with the value of the house and other prizes added in, big winners came away with $125,000 or more during their stay).
14	*** The daytime ''Series/WheelOfFortune'', although they didn't have the massive prize budget as the syndicated series, sometimes had weeks with increased budgets, with Porsches and yachts parked onstage in the years before the syndicated show premiered. As far as returning champions went, contestants were limited to a five-day stay during (roughly) the first two years before a three-day maximum stay was instituted for the rest of the run (over both NBC and CBS).
15	*** The original ''Series/{{Concentration}}'' also did not have a winnings cap, again thanks to NBC's rules, but a 20-win maximum was instituted. That said, some of the big winners could come away with well over $20,000 in prizes – and that's in 1960s dollars – if their puzzle-solving skills were sharp. When ''Classic Concentration'' came around, champions were at first retired after winning five games (sans interrupted games) [theoretically they could've won as many as five cars; the most anyone actually claimed was three]; this later changed to a contestant being retired immediately after winning a car, although the five-win maximum was left in place.
16	** Creator/{{ABC}} limited winnings to $30,000, although contestants were retired after winning $20,000. This cap was removed in 1984.
17	** ''Family Feud'' retired families at $25,000 (later over $30,000 in the final season of the Richard Dawson version).
18	* Considering that they were the ones who rigged game shows in the first place, Creator/JackBarry and Dan Enright Productions didn't limit returning champions on their flagship shows ''Series/TicTacDough'' and ''Series/TheJokersWild'' — you could literally stay on as long as you kept winning. In 1980, Thom [=McKee=] (the most famous contestant on ''Tic Tac Dough'') won $312,000 in cash and prizes. However, starting in 1981, the shows imposed winnings caps (at the CBS owned-and-operated stations' insistence). As such, Joe Dunn, the biggest non-tournament winner ever on ''The Joker's Wild'', [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dn7NH0R3syU was retired as an undefeated champion in 1983 and kept $50,000 in cash and prizes (raised from $35,000).]] The remaining $16,200 in cash and prizes was donated to the United Cerebral Palsy Association.
19	** Meanwhile, on ''Tic Tac Dough'', [[https://youtu.be/sZwv3wCLZDU?t=255 Joan Diaz gave her excess $7,850 to Operation Head Start]] upon losing. There was one other contestant that hit over $50K during the ‘83-‘84 season.
20	** The versions that ran on CBS had the $25,000 limit (although nobody on the CBS version of ''TTD'' reached the limit- mainly because it only ran from July to September of 1978).
21	* After contestant Michael Larson used his LoopholeAbuse of the game to hit up ''Series/PressYourLuck'' for $110,237, that show placed a $75,000 cap on winnings. In Fall 1984, contestants were retired after winning $50,000. The show already had a cap on being able to return if the contestant had reached a certain amount. It was just that there was no cap on winnings within any one particular installment, hence how Larson was able to pull it off.
22	* ''Series/{{Jeopardy}}'' also used to limit contestants to $75,000 in winnings, with the balance donated to the player's chosen charity. The cap was gradually raised over time and abolished entirely in 2003. The only two players who were ever affected by the cap were 5-time champions Bob Blake and Frank Spangenberg, who each exceeded the original $75,000 cap by winning $82,501 and $102,597, respectively, during the 1989-90 season. Blake gave $7,501 to Oxfam, while Spangenberg gave $27,597 to the Gift of Love hospice (according to Spangenberg, his sum helped them bring their place up to fire code). The removal of the winnings cap coincided with the removal of the five-day limit imposed on returning champions; since 2003, any ''Jeopardy!'' contestant can stay on as long as he or she keeps winning, and keep all money earned. The very next year, a certain young man named Ken Jennings took full advantage of this rule.
23	** In an additional subversion, ''Jeopardy!'' champions who win at least five games in a row earn a bid to a future Tournament of Champions.
24	* Similarly, ''Wheel of Fortune'' placed a $100,000 cap (later $125,000 and still later, $200,000) on winnings during the early 1990s, which is also the point that the show switched from one-and-done to allowing champions to stay on for up to three days. The winnings cap stayed at $200,000 when the show reverted to one-and-done contestants, but even with the addition of a $100,000 prize in the BonusRound in 2002, the $200,000 cap proved unreachable. ''Wheel'' eliminated the cap in 2008 with the addition of a $1,000,000 prize in the bonus round, which has been won three times.
25	* ''[[Series/BreakTheBank1985 Break The Bank]]'' (1985-86) limited the winnings to $75,000 - this was due to airing on CBS' New York O&O station, so they had to follow their winnings cap. Once the Master Puzzle format was instituted, breaking the Bank retired a winning couple immediately.
26	* A number of shows (examples: ''[[Series/{{Pyramid}} The $10,000/$20,000 Pyramid]]'', ''Series/NowYouSeeIt'', and ''The Moneymaze'') retired a contestant who won its top prize, regardless of what it was (on ''Now You See It'', it could be as little as $5000).
27	** As a matter of fact, the only way to win the top prize on ''[[Series/{{Pyramid}} The $20,000 Pyramid]]'' is to blow the first two bonus rounds.
28	* In the United Kingdom, the Independent Television Authority imposed a per-episode cap following the 1950s rigging scandals in the US. For at least two decades, this limit was fixed at £6,000 with no adjustment for inflation. Eventual successor the Independent Television Commission would eventually remove the cap in 1994.
29	** There was a revival of ''The $64,000 Question'' (and yes, it was titled in dollars) which offered a top prize of £6,400, but they got around this by alternating contestants so that the top prize would not be won twice in a row - once contestants reached £1,600 they would effectively tackle their remaining questions at a rate of one per episode. They eventually persuaded the ITC to increase the limit to £6,400.
30	*** Early ITV in the 1950s didn't have any limits on game show prizes. This meant that accounting for inflation, the top prize of the earlier British version ''The 64,000 Question'' of 64,000 sixpence (£1,600), later 64,000 shillings (£3,200), were worth considerably more in 1989 (at about £16,000 and £32,000) than the top prize of the then-new revival.
31	** To ensure the combined value of cash and prizes didn't get over the limit, ''Series/FamilyFortunes'' originally awarded only a fixed prize for Big Money, regardless of whatever points had been scored beforehand. Like ''The $64,000 Question'', the Big Money prize was £1500 for the first episode of the series, and in any episode where the prize had been won the week before, and £3000 in any week where the prize had not been won.
32	*** In the post-cap revival, the Big Money prize was £3000 plus points, later joined by a bonus of a [[FlawlessVictory car for tendering all five top answers]].
33	** ''Series/SaleOfTheCentury''[='s=] derisory prizes became such a joke that successful contestants were invited to play the Australian ''Sale'' for bigger prizes.
34	** ''Series/ThePriceIsRight'' in its early days offered much cheaper prizes than the American original. Despite this, the IBA ''still'' forced it off the air for repeatedly breaching the prize limits.
35	* Japan has a nationwide cap set at 2 million yen (currently around $13,492 / £10,676 as of November 2023) per person and 10 million yen total for a prize split among five or more players (about $67,460 / £53,380). As a result, even single-player shows like ''Millionaire'' have the contestant bring along four friends and/or family members with whom to split the prize.
36	** This is the reason why almost all game/quiz shows [[CelebrityEdition use celebrities]]: their winnings can just be added to their salary as a bonus.
37	* The Spanish ''Saber y Ganar'' only allows the contestants to play in 100 shows. Seeing how only one out of the three players can be eliminated each day, and they can stay by winning a special game, it's a fair cap since it would be possible for the best players to stay indefinitely.
38	* Downplayed on WebVideo/WipeoutRoblox, but anyone who makes it to round 3 is not allowed to compete in the next episode.
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Context Main / GameShowWinningsCap