Gambit (game show)

Broadcast history

CBS aired Gambit at 11 a.m./10 Central, where it defeated NBC's Sale of the Century and later Alex Trebek's The Wizard of Odds. On April 1, 1974, CBS moved the show to 10:30/9:30, facing NBC's Jeopardy! with Art Fleming. NBC moved Jeopardy! to afternoons on July 1 and placed Winning Streak in the slot, making late 1974 a ratings high point for Gambit. The show was greenlit by ex-NBC executive Bud Grant, along with The Price is Right and The Joker's Wild, all premiering the same day.

On January 6, 1975, NBC replaced Winning Streak with Wheel of Fortune, which hurt Gambit's audience. NBC also expanded Another World to sixty minutes, affecting The Price Is Right, leading CBS to shuffle its schedule on August 18, 1975, moving Price back to mornings. Gambit moved back to 11:00 am, bumping Tattletales to afternoons, and stayed there until late 1977, then returned to mornings until its March 1978 cancellation. At that slot, Gambit faced sister show High Rollers, but NBC aired a sixty-minute Wheel of Fortune starting December 1, with the second half competing with Gambit.

The experiment ended in January 1976, but Wheel continued to erode Gambit's ratings. CBS announced cancellation in November, replacing it with Double Dare. A weekly nighttime syndicated version was planned in 1975 but never materialized. Repeats aired on KHJ-TV in Los Angeles from fall 1977 to spring 1978.

Personnel

Wink Martindale hosted both the original Gambit and its Las Vegas version, with Kenny Williams announcing. Jerome Shaw directed both series, and Robert Noah produced them. Elaine Stewart dealt cards on the original show, while Beverly Malden handled early Las Vegas Gambit episodes before Lee Menning took over. Mort Garson wrote the original theme music, and Stan Worth composed the Las Vegas Gambit theme.

Episode status

A significant portion of the series is considered lost, despite CBS having abandoned its wiping process around the same time. Five episodes of the CBS version from 1973 are held by the UCLA Film and Television Archive, along with the pilot for an unsold 1990 revival hosted by Bob Eubanks. Several episodes, including the CBS finale, exist on YouTube and Dailymotion, with some posted by Wink Martindale on The Game Show Vault. Reruns of the CBS series aired on WPIX-TV and KHJ-TV in 1976 and 1977, distributed by Rhodes Productions, but the fate of those episodes afterward is unclear.