What I learned from 'The Price Is Right'

EARLY IN 1998, I flew to Las Vegas to watch the Super Bowl at the Stardust for Esquire magazine. We had a swanky room, plenty of cool free passes and carte blanche in the sports book. But the instant the game ended, my wife and I sped across the desert to Los Angeles with only one goal in mind: to get to a taping of "The Price is Right." I wanted to see Plinko up close. I wanted to touch the wheel that contestants spin to advance to the Showcase Showdown. Most of all, I wanted to shake the hand of the vegetarian, karate-kicking television host from the Rosebud Reservation in South Dakota.

Bob Barker, who is taping his final "Price" episode today for broadcast June 15 on CBS, was one of my childhood idols. He was impeccably tailored, and he genuinely engaged the contestants, even when the outrageously T-shirted hoi polloi didn't match the effortless grace of the host.

More important, watching "The Price Is Right" taught me an enormous amount about money.

Naturally, I loved the showcases, the cars and "Barker's Beauties." But what kept me coming back was the daily lesson in the principles of behavioral finance. If you wanted to know how to exploit -- or get trapped by -- market inefficiencies and the often irrational behavior of competitors, "The Price Is Right" was essential.

When a member of "contestants' row" would guess $890 \o7after \f7a contestant had guessed $900, I'd yell at the TV, "How can you leave yourself a window of just 10 bucks?" I cringed when contestants would spin the wheel and inexplicably stick on 50 cents. I noticed how the guesses of some would influence the behavior of others; if a couple of "One Dollar!" bids won in early rounds, contestants in later rounds would play defense, with generally lower guesses.

Today, dozens of websites offer game theory suitable to the ever-evolving mix of estimation exercises on "The Price Is Right." I'd calculate that the amount of solid financial education going on at these sites is fairly low -- someone who needs a website to assemble game-show strategy probably isn't the "studying websites for mathematical advice" type -- but just by making that estimate, I'm drawing on analytic skills I developed watching Barker's TV show.