High Rollers

High Rollers Game Show

High Rollers was a game show based on the dice game called Shut the Box.  During the show's initial run (1974 - 1980), Alex Trebek was the host.  Wink Martindale picked up the honors during the second run from 1987 to 1988.  All in all, there were well over 700 episodes of the show that aired.

In this game, the object was to remove the numbered cars, 1 through 9, from the game board.  In order to do this, the players would roll a pair of dice.  The sum of the rolled dice was the numbers that could be removed in any summed combination.  For example, if the player rolled a 7, they could either remove card number 7, or they could also remove card numbers 3 + 4, 5 + 2, or 6 + 1, depending on what numbers were left.  If the player was unable to remove any numbers, they lost their turn.  The player to remove the last number won the round.  Although the prize format varied based on the iteration of the show, it was always a mix of cash and/or prizes.  For example, in the late 80's version, each round featured a single prize package.  For example, with the Around the World game, each number on a die represented a trip to a different location, and if the player rolled a 6, they won all the trips.