Gambit (game show)

Gambit was a television game show, created by Wayne Cruseturner, produced by Heatter-Quigley Productions that aired on CBS from September 4, 1972 to December 10, 1976. A slightly retooled version, Las Vegas Gambit, aired on NBC from October 27, 1980 to November 27, 1981, originating from the Tropicana Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas. Both versions of the show were hosted by Wink Martindale, and announced by Kenny Williams. Elaine Stewart was the card dealer for the CBS version. On the Las Vegas Gambit version, the card dealer was Beverly Malden; she left half-way through the series' run and was replaced by Lee Menning.

A British version of the show was produced by Anglia Television for ITV. It ran from 1975 (It started as a programme shown in the Anglia region only, it became a networked show in 1978) to 1985, it was originally hosted by Fred Dinenage and then it was hosted by comedian Tom O'Connor, the card dealer on the British version was Michelle Lambourne, The programme returned briefly in the early 1990s but only in the Anglia region and was hosted by Gary Thompson.

Rules of the game

Main game

Wink Martindale asked a series of questions, either multiple-choice or true-false, to two married couples. The couple who buzzed in and answered the question correctly got to control the next card off of an oversize regulation deck of 52 playing cards. (The first would be shown before the question, the rest would be presented face-down.) Once a couple got control of a card, they had the choice to either add the card to their own hand or force their opponents to take it (unless they're frozen; see below). The objective of the game is quite similar to Blackjack, to get your hand as close to 21 without going over as possible or of course, obtaining blackjack with an ace and a face card or a ten. As in blackjack, the value of cards 2 through 10 are as shown; face cards (Kings, Queens and Jacks) count as 10s and an Ace counts either as a 1 or 11.

After a couple received any card, they could elect to freeze their board, disallowing any more cards to be added to their hand. Once this happened, the other couple answered questions until one of the following conditions occurred:

Conditions for winning

Once an opposing couple "froze" (stood before reaching 21), the unfrozen couple does one of the following:
- Misses a question, giving the game to the other couple.
- Busts (went over 21), giving the game to the other couple.
- Passes the score of the frozen couple (ties didn't count) winning the game.
Either couple reaches 21 exactly at any time, winning a jackpot that started at $500 and went up $500 per game that it wasn't won.

$100 ($250 on Las Vegas Gambit) plus $50 for each tie game was awarded for each game won. Two wins earns the match and the right to head to the Bonus Round.

Bonus round

The Gambit Board

The winning couple played the Gambit Bonus Board. They faced a large game board with 21 cards, numbered 1 through 21 (18 screens on Las Vegas Gambit). Each card concealed a prize; along with each prize the couple won, they received a card added to their hand from the deck.

The game ended in one of three ways:

The couple elected to stop before reaching 21 (especially if they feared the next card would push them over 21 or in some instances, if they got a desirable prize they wanted to keep).
Going "BUST" (over 21), at which point they lost everything they found on the board.
Reaching 21 exactly, wherein they won a new car ($5,000 on Las Vegas Gambit) plus the Gambit Jackpot.

One prize occasionally offered during the bonus round was "Beat the House": contestants winning this prize would then have the opportunity to play one hand of blackjack (standard single-deck rules, with the possible exception that there did not appear to be any cases in which contestants "split a pair" or "doubled down") against the house (as personified by Martindale) for a cash prize.

The bonus round for the Las Vegas Gambit pilot featured a "Living Deck", a group of 52 audience members, each holding a different card. Every time the couple earned a prize, the audience member with the selected card would win the same prize.

The Gambit Galaxy (Las Vegas version)

The second half of the Las Vegas run featured "The Big Numbers", a game borrowed from another Heatter-Quigley game, High Rollers, which Wink Martindale would eventually host six years later. The couple was presented with a pair of dice, and was asked to "knock off" the numbers 1 through 9 from a board in front of them. To do this, the couple eliminated numbers that added up to the total they rolled (for instance, if the couple rolled a 10, they could eliminated 4 and 6; 3 and 7; 1, 2, 3 and 4 or any other combination that added to 10.) Each number the couple knocked off won $100 per number, and if all nine were knocked off, an accumulating "Gambit Galaxy" prize package was awarded. In the event a double was rolled (e.g. a pair of ones, twos, threes, fours, fives or sixes), then an insurance marker is awarded and can be used in the event a bad number is rolled.

Scheduling History (U.S. Versions)

CBS, 1972-76

CBS plugged Gambit in originally at 11 a.m/10 Central, where it defeated NBC's Sale of the Century, which tried to combat the attack by apeing Gambit's married-couple contestant configuration, but to no avail. It also easily handled Alex Trebek's American debut program, The Wizard of Odds, which NBC began in July 1973. On April 1, 1974, CBS moved the show ahead a half-hour to 10:30/9:30, where it faced NBC's struggling quiz Jeopardy! Before any sort of rivalry developed, though, NBC moved Jeopardy! to the afternoons on July 1 and placed one of many Bill Cullen-Bob Stewart collaborations, Winning Streak, in the slot. That show's weakness made late 1974 the high point of Gambit's original daytime run, at least in the Nielsen ratings.

But January 6, 1975 saw the debut of a show that would eventually become the second-most-popular game format in the world: Wheel of Fortune. Not only did Wheel impact Gambit's audience, but NBC's expansion of Another World in the afternoons forced CBS to return The Price is Right to the morning after a two-year sojourn at 3/2 Central. In order to make room for Price, the network decided to return Gambit to its original slot on August 18, where it remained for the rest of its run. Unfortunately, it had to go against its sister Heatter-Quigley show High Rollers, until the day after Thanksgiving, something the packager certainly did not like. But worse things were to come: early 1976 witnessed Wheel once again eating away at the casino game, and this time, CBS did not move it to another slot. The network cancelled the four-year-old game on December 10, replacing it with Goodson-Todman's Double Dare, not to be confused with the better-known children's game that aired on the Nickelodeon cable network during the late 1980s and early 1990s. In a convoluted irony, the host of High Rollers and DD was none other than Alex Trebek.

NBC (Las Vegas), 1980-81

In June 1980, NBC cancelled Heatter-Quigley's flagship show The Hollywood Squares and the revival of High Rollers in favor of a 90-minute (later 60) talk-variety show hosted by future late night icon David Letterman. When Letterman's effort failed miserably after a four-month run, the network obviously decided to make amends to the packager by reviving Gambit. Furthermore, since Wink Martindale was by that time the host of the huge syndicated hit Tic Tac Dough, NBC hoped a new version would ride on those coattails.

Plugging the show in at 10 a.m./9 Central, NBC found out, however, that many affiliates would not give the show a chance, due to the increasing popularity of syndicated talk shows like Donahue and Hour Magazine, which station managers thought would draw larger audiences (and, more importantly, larger local advertising revenues) than NBC offerings. Further, even though CBS ran sitcom reruns against Las Vegas Gambit, many of their stations (or even ABC stations) carried those forementioned syndicated offerings and often won their markets with those, instead of the network feed.

This meant that Las Vegas Gambit, despite everything going for it on paper, lasted a mere 13 months, giving way to a half-hour talk show hosted by, ironically enough, game show host , Regis Philbin, who, 18 years later, shot to fame as moderator of the U.S. Who Wants to be a Millionare. Over the next several months, NBC would rid itself of all the other games on its daytime schedule except for Wheel, which was NBC's sole daytime game show until January 1983 when Sale of the Century, Hit Man and Just Men! premiered, marking the beginning of the last golden era of game shows for the network.

Episode status

It is believed very few episodes exist except for one episode of the original series and a few episodes of the Las Vegas version. In the fall of 1977, reruns of the original CBS version of Gambit aired in syndication (primarily on WPIX New York and KHJ-TV Los Angeles), so it is possible that the episodes from the original version may exist.

Miscellanea

The British version of "Gambit" had an opening title sequence featuring various casino equipment including playing cards, casino chips, a roulette wheel and a fruit machine.

Two other shows besides "Gambit" premiered on the same airdate on CBS, September 4, 1972: "The Price is Right" and "The Joker's Wild" (1972-1975). In total, the three game shows have aired on television for a combined 53 years (including 35 years for Price, four years for Gambit and 14 years for Joker).

The style and size of cards used in Gambit would later be used in The Price is Right pricing game "Hit Me". They were also used on the British version of Gambit.

A pilot for another revival was shot for ABC in 1990 with Bob Eubanks as host. The game pitted two solo players in each match. Orion (which had acquired the rights to the Heatter-Quigley library) was going through financial problems at the time, and the pilot did not sell.

The Casino Pilots

Originally, Las Vegas Gambit was to have been replaced by a new Heatter-Quigley game show, titled Casino, hosted by Jim Perry. It is believed that nine episodes of Casino were produced, but the series was never picked up on NBC; instead, Regis Philbin hosted a talk show in that timeslot. Another attempt to get Casino on television occurred in 1983, this time hosted by Peter Tomarken, which also did not make it to TV. A third attempt was made for GSN; this was hosted by Ron Pearson, and co-host Tanya Memme.

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