There’s been a lot of talk of late about the way betting culture seems to be doing its damnedest to infect even more American brains by the minute: John Oliver recently did a handy takedown of “prediction markets” like Polymarket and Kalshi, but it’s not like the more traditional sports betting companies aren’t doing yeoman’s work in the field, as sites like FanDuel and DraftKings run relentless ads in an effort to convince saps that the key to making a lot of money in a minute is to give them all of your cash on hand right now. Now, they’ve somehow even managed to infect the world of also-kind-of-gambling-but-it-feels-more-wholesome TV institution The Price Is Right, which just handed out its biggest-ever single game win… with a sponsorship for betting site BetMGM slapped all over it.
This is all per Deadline, reporting on a Friday Mother’s Day episode of the Drew Carey-hosted game show, in which mother and veteran Vanesa managed to win $240,150 by letting it ride on pricing game The Lion’s Share—resisting the urge to stop after pulling one $100,000 ball and risking losing everything by pulling another. (She also got a trip, and a couple of other prizes; you can watch footage of her win here.) Vanesa walked away with the biggest win from a single pricing game in the show’s daytime history, and the second-biggest take overall. (Michael Stouber scored the biggest single-day win back in 2019, courtesy of a successful Showcase bid and a very lucky Plinko drop; hey, would it surprise you to learn that there are people who take Price Is Right statistics extremely seriously on the internet?)
“But,” we hear you asking, “What the hell is Lion’s Share?” That confusion likely stems from the fact that it’s the newest game to be added to the show’s pricing roster—and the first one to carry an outside sponsor. Added in 2025, the game includes both verbal and onscreen promotions for BetMGM (which shares its lion mascot with the MGM casinos it’s derived from), to go with its much-larger-than-usual $500,000 potential pot. (Occasional primetime versions of The Price Is Right often feature larger prize pools, but daytime games typically top out at $100,000 for a full win.) And, again, we acknowledge that there’s already a pretty hefty gambling component mixed into The Price Is Right, albeit one leavened by needing to know how much a pack of Oreos usually costs. But it still feels super sketchy to hear a feel-good story like “Veteran mom wins biggest ever Price Is Right game” and then have to append “…because sports gambling is funneling money into the show.” (MGM has also signed a deal with the show’s producers to license The Price Is Right and Family Feud for the betting giant’s slot machines and other games.) Three cheers to Vanesa, in any case; BetMGM can still kick rocks.
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