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PRESS YOUR LUCK debuted on Monday, September 19, 1983 at 10:30am. Its hostwas Peter Tomarken, and the announcer, Rod Roddy. A lot of people don't know that Press Your Luck went up against $ale of the Century & The NewlywedGame (see left TV Guide ad). Press Your Luck had its share of moving around the time slot often, starting in 1986. Such time slots included 10am and 11am.But on January 6, 1986 (incidently, a day when many new game shows debuted, such as Card Sharks with Bob Eubanks and Bruce Forsyth's Hot Streak), PYL was given the noon time slot. Surprisingly, it lasted until September. It was canceled on the 26th of that month. However, the show did NOT die quiteso easily.
Starting on September 14, 1987, the USA Network obtained the rights to theshow. The USA Network at the time had quite a collection of game show rights,like Hot Potato, Tic Tac Dough, Jackpot and Scrabble already, and PYL was agood addition to it. At least they thought so. And so did the viewers. PressYour Luck was on in reruns THREE TIMES LONGER than the original run. As youmay notice nowadays, USA Network no longer airs game shows. But Press Your Luck was on the game show lineup until it no longer existed - October of 1995.A network in the UK (Sky One) also aired PYL. I don't know exactly when itstarted, but I know that they stopped airing the show sometime in 1996 or 1997.
Now that you know WHEN the show aired, how about you learn how the game was played?There were 3 players in each game of PYL. One champion and two challengers. Press Your Luck was divided into 4 rounds, with 2 different maingames. No bonus round, just 2 different maingames played twice per game. The first and third rounds had questions. Usually some sort of common knowledge or survey question. A player had to buzz in with the correct answer. 
After they gave their answer, Peter would mention 2 other answers. The other contestants then gave their answers. If the contestant that buzzed in first gave a correct answer, that contestant got 3 spins. If a player that answered the question multiple choice gave a right answer, they got only 1 spin. A wrong answer gave you no spins, but you didn't get penalized for an incorrect answer to a question. There were a total of 4 questions (5 in the pilot). Thus, the maximumnumber of spins that could be earned by one person was 12, the most per round, 20.Each "spin" gave you a chance to play one time at the "big Press Your Luck gameboard". THIS was what the show was made famous for. Here is how it was played:
The big board round made the show a hit. In front of the contestant was a very largeelectronic gameboard, with 18 different positions. Each square had 3 different cashvalues, prizes, or a Whammy. The value of each square changed every second or so. Theboard would spin, and when the player was ready, they stopped the board by slamming aplunger in front of them. Most of the time, for an audio effect, they would yell "STOP!"at the same time. When the board stopped, they got what they stopped on. If they landedon a Whammy however, they lost everything they accumulated up to that point in the game.Four whammies at any time made you out of the game. The player with the least number ofspins got to play first in the first big money round. The player with the most money atthe second round got to play last (which Peter would say, that is an advantage). Thevalues on the board the first time would range from $100 to $1500 [$1250 in very earlyepisodes and the pilot]. The second round, the values were from $500 to $5000 or more,depending on what prizes were there. Also, there were special spaces on the board thatwould double your money, let you choose fom 2 or 3 spaces, and there was a space introducedin 1985's round one that would add a 1 to the front of your score (thus $1000 made yourtotal $11000).
The player with the most money in the end of the game got to return the next day to playagain. In the event of a tie, both or all 3 players would return. If all 3 players got4 whammies, no players returned. There was a limit of $25000 that one person could win inone day, and a grand limit of $50000 total. Sound simple enough? :-)
