Drew Carey Reveals ‘The Price Is Right’ Games He Knows Players Will Struggle With Most

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After more than 17 years as host of The Price Is Right, Drew Carey has gotten a good handle on all the games that the show has to offer. While he said he gets “excited” to see contestants play all of the games, he acknowledges that there are a few tough ones on the list.

“There’s a couple games where I’m like, ‘Oh, they’re going to have a tough time,’” Carey told TV Insider. “Because there’s a couple games that are really hard to win. Stack the Deck is notorious amongst fans for how hard it is to win. There’s another one called That’s Too Much that has a low win rate. So when I see those, I’m like, ‘Oh man, you’re stuck with a tough one.’”

In Stack the Deck, players are shown seven playing cards with five of the numbers making up the price of a car. Then, three pairs of grocery items are put up on display and the contestant has to guess which item in each of the pairs corresponds to a given price. One correct digit is filled in for the price of the car for every correct guess of the grocery prices. Once guesses are made for all three pairs, the contestant can win the car if they fill in the remaining digits correctly.

That’s Too Much is also played for a car, with contestants being shown 10 possible prices for the vehicle in ascending order. The prices are shown one at a time, and if the contestant can correctly identify the first price shown that’s higher than the actual price by calling out, “That’s too much,” then they win the car.

One of the games that Carey likes to see contestants play is Cliff Hangers. “Even though the money on Cliff Hangers isn’t great compared to the other pricing games we have – you don’t get a car if you’re playing Cliffhangers or anything like that, but it’s totally winnable,” he says. “Like, nobody should ever lose Cliff Hangers that watches the show. There’s a couple other games that are so easy, or 50/50 chance, or just pick one number or the other.”

In Cliff Hangers, contestants are shown a gameboard with a mountain slope that’s divided into 25 steps. There’s a climber figure at the base and a cliff at the top of the mountain. One at a time, the contestant has to guess the retail prices of three prizes. Every dollar that the contestant is off, the climber moves one step up the 25-step slope. The correct price is revealed once the climber stops or falls off the cliff, and the player wins all three prizes and a larger prize if the total of their errors on all three of the guesses is no more than $25.

The Price Is Right, Weekdays, 11/10c, CBS