10 Huge Mistakes Everyone Makes On 'The Price Is Right'

We've all seen hundreds of episodes of America's favorite game show, but almost nobody realizes there's a winning strategy for The Price is Right.

Ben Blatt, a Harvard grad with a degree in applied mathematics, managed to crunch the numbers in the show's most popular games and created an all-in-one cheat sheet with tips for how to win. As it turns out there is a science to even the most "random" games like Plinko. We break down how you can avoid the 10 most common Price is Right blunders:

Mistake #1: Not impressing Stan Blits

Who is Stan Blits? He's a longtime production assistant for the game show with a very special job: Stan screens every person in the studio audience, looking for contestants to "come on down" to Contestant's Row, and he alone decides who gets to play.

You could know all the prices by heart and still never get a chance to prove it if you don't impress San Blits while waiting in line. Luckily, Stan has revealed what he's looking for: "energy, sincerity, and potential humor. And if they can equal my energy or exceed it and maintain it, they are at the top of the list."

Mistake #2: Guessing on Contestant's Row

How much is a new barbecue, a vinyl record player and a flat screen TV worth? The odds are whatever number you just thought of was too low. Blatt checked the data on Contestant's Row bids and found they were almost always lower than the actual price.

Whatever they bid, the last person to guess the price has a 35% chance of winning this round. Always try to guess $1 higher than the highest bid so far. If you do this as the last bidder, your odds of winning are an impressive 53%

Mistake #3: Starting from the bottom on the Clock Game

We don't expect you to know the average price of the Clock Game prizes, but Blatt assures us that they're almost always between $500 and $1,000. Your first bid in this "higher or lower" game should be $750, smack-dab in the middle.

If you keep using that technique (for instance, if it was higher than $750 your next guess would be $875, because that's halfway to $1,000) you can normally get the exact price in 10 guesses or less.

Mistake #4: Bidding low on the Cliff Hangers prizes

The aim of this game is to guess the exact price of each of the three prizes, because for every dollar you're off the mark by the mountain climber rises one of the 25 steps. The trick isn't to guess perfectly, but to bet smart to keep the price difference low.

Blatt recommends starting with $19 (which is usually very close to the first prize). Each prize is more expensive than the next, so once the first prize has been revealed bet $11 more (so after a $30 prize, bid $41). Your mountain climber should be safe if you follow this strategy.

Mistake #5: Ending a car price with 95 or 50

One of the most exciting things you can hear while competing on Price is Right is that you'll be bidding on a new car. But many contestants mess up their chance to win their new ride, and host Drew Carey thinks he knows why.

He says that most contestants make the same mistake when they bet on a car: ending their guess in 95 or 50. Here's his reasoning:  "Car payments end in 95, 50, and 99. And, when you look in the paper all you see is the payment, you never see the car price. In the ad, you always see the payment, so that's why people say the car has got to be 98 or 95."

Keep reading to learn how to master Plinko and the Big Wheel...

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