Watching something on a near-daily basis makes it easy to take certain elements for granted without questioning anything. Wheel of Fortune may be among the best game shows of all time, but that doesn’t mean it’s 100% perfect in all viewers’ eyes, and I love that fans recently debated a concept that I’ve long taken issue with: prize amounts being added to contestants’ total winnings.
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Over on Reddit, theWheel of Fortune viewer dubbed @costoaway1 plainly stated their opinion that players’ final totals shouldn’t include the value of any prizes won, and should only reflect the money earned from wheel spins and puzzle solves. The argument made is a European vacation, for example, can sometimes be worth such a significant amount of money that winning it gives that contestant a giant advantage over the others, even if that contestant doesn’t solve any other puzzles.
As well, the Redditor points to the “strategy” of the game suffering because of it, with contestants arguably less likely to keep spinning for potentially more money when scores are more lopsided, and the instinct can often be to solve the puzzle as quickly as possible just to get any amount of money on the board. So let me just get my own stance out there.
I Totally Agree That Certain Prizes Should Be Excluded From Contestants' Winnings
I certainly can't remember the first time I mentally scoffed at Wheel of Fortune, but I know for sure that it became far more magnified once the show introduced the standalone Prize Puzzle, which guarantees at least one contestant's earnings being boosted by a costly trip. They might as well just also have a $15,000 round where whoever guesses it right automatically gets $15K added to whatever was earned from getting letters correct.
One of the fans commenting beneath the OP's opinion made a pretty solid additional point that I think I agree with more than the idea of just eliminating all prize totals from players' winnings. As @FlightTwoZeroNiner put it:
I agree with this about the prize puzzle only. The prizes on the wheel add to the chance aspect of the game in a way that is exciting. The prize puzzle is arbitrary. The player didn't do anything special besides solve a particular round's puzzle. Based on it being arbitrary, I think it should be excluded. I think the prize puzzles can be easier, since they're often travel-related, so I see that as even more reason the trip shouldn't be counted.
Those are valid points against the idea of removing prizes from the equation entirely, and probably play into why I may not have been so bothered by it until the Prize Puzzles came into being. It's the spontaneousness and chance that makes the prizes just as important as anything else, knowing that winning one could send someone from third place to first. It's similar to any of the higher-total wedges on the wheel in that way, if more costly.
Other good points were also made, as seen below, and it makes me wish that Wheel of Fortune's creative team had Reddit alerts set for when fans have logical ideas about changes.
- I think they need to increase the values on the wheel anyway. As it is, the person who wins the prize puzzle goes to the bonus round like what 90% of the time? - @ReazonableHuman
- the inflation economy has kinda broken the prize element. if the wheel numbers don't inflate, but the value of the trips do, the game is broken. - @one-hour-photo
- As an alternative, they can start by being more consistent with keeping the prize puzzles to a lower dollar value. This happened a lot in the last couple of weeks of the season, where the prize puzzles were mostly in the $7-8k range, which made it so that the winner didn't always have a runaway game. Contrast that with the repeat game from tonight (originally aired 2/4) where the prize puzzle was a trip to Patagonia worth over $16k. No one is catching whoever wins that, and there is no longer any drama for the triple tossups and the final spin. - @tributtal
I doubt audiences will see any changes made to episodes set to air on the 2026 TV schedule, but I think if enough viewers start saying episodes aren't exciting and are too predictable because of the Prize Puzzle, it's technically possible that such viewpoints could affect future seasons. Not that I think they'd get rid of trips altogether, or else the show itself might not make any money.
