Did anyone see this?

I watched some of it but I couldn't figure what was the point. did anyone actually win the money?

Out of that crowd of people whoever got closest to the 6-digit number would win 1 million dollars. If that person had the exact number he would win 1 billion dollars. So the last guy had 4 or 5 numbers the same as the winning number, but he had at least one number wrong, so he won a million, but not a billion.

ah, you know, they might have gotten everyone to actually watch this if everyone was playing. I didn't care to much for it cause I had no chance of winning it.

was this on tv? when and what channel?

Technically, yes it was. Last night (Sunday) at 8 ET on the WB (hence the "technically" part of my first answer).

Did anyone else think Drew Carrey seemed anxious?

Yeah. I couldn't tell if it was excitement or lack of interest. He acted a bit odd.

Ok, it wasn't the worst thing ever, but disappointing that a billion dollars was given away: I mean after all, Pepsi was insured, might as well give it away.

They had a nice segment with Jamie Kennedy and three teens. He made them go through a stupid driving test, and whoever got the highest score won a car. Happily, all three teens won a car.

Another segment had two teams of best friends in college. They were given a ton of information about different countries in the world and 5 days to memorize all of it for a big test. The prize was a trip around the world (on United Airlines and staying at Mariott Hotels, of course). One pair didn't really study, but were semi-impressive. The other pair, two chesty girls, were really impressive in their knowledge and completely beat them.

The girls got the trip, and the guys got to go on one leg of the trip, to London.

It was interesting enough to kill some time, but ultimately disappointing. If something better was on, I would have watched it instead.

how the hell did pepsi get insured on this? who would insure it?

that differnet countries quizzes reminds me of CRAM (the game show on game show network) only to a higher degree. great show.

from this CNN/Moneyline article:

Amusing, really.

could you imagine winning a BILLION dollars
that would be sooooooooo sweet

After taxes, it'd only be a paltry $480 million. Not even worth my while....

It wasn't as cool as it seemed. They actually gave a relatively small payment for the first 39 years, with a huge balloon payment for the 40th year. Still more money than one would ever need, though.

Anyway, the person closest only missed by one number? Wow. That'd be a kick in the face. At least there was a million dollar consulation prize.

when you say missed by one number was it like a lotto thing where he had say, 5 of 6 #s right or did he miss it like he had #184729 and the winning # was 184728?

He actually missed it by 2 numbers. They were 6 digit numbers. They started revealing them from the 6th digit. He had the last 4 digits (first 4 revealed), but the first 2 were wrong.

You can look at it the other way and see that pepsi just gave a 7 figure payment to the largest shareholder of their rival. Even though that guy got 4 numbers, the chance of anybody winning was really low. Unlike the lottery, the people had to have the numbers in the right order and I assume the same number could appear multiple times.

as scott said it was 2 numbers.

It was "easier" than the lottery in the sense that it was only single digit #'s to choose from (0-9).
You had to choose 6 single digit numbers (and they could repeat, unlike the lotto) in the correct order.
So you basically chose a 6 digit number.

They kept saying the "closest" won a million.
But that wasn't necessarily true. It was who matched the most right. The guy who one didn't even match either of the first two numbers but matched the last four.
He matched the most, but was off by 100's of thousands on the "number" due to missing the first two digits.

It was kind of neat to watch the people and the reactions/strategies of eliminating each other and taking the "offer" to leave each round.
I thought the 2nd place guy did play it right it showing there was no way he was going for it, trying to play the guy into taking the $100k cash to guarantee something.
Also interesting how the women basically all took the money quickly in the early rounds.

I was praying that one of those women would have had the BILLION-dollar number the entire time, and instead turned it down for like $30k. That person would have been the laughingstock of the Entertainment section for quite a while.

I thought that when Pepsi was advertising this giveaway that they said for sure that somebody was going to win a Billion dollars. When they had the show they said that somebody might win the money. Couldnt someone sue Pepsi for false advertising or did I miss something?

I disagree, since the game was called "PLAY for a Billion", not "WIN a Billion". The odds of a billion dollars ever being given away was always low.

What got me was not only did the women take the early money, but some of the time they did it with a ton of time left on the clock. One woman couldn't wait to buzz in and did almost as soon as the count down started. Was she afraid that someone would beat her to it and she would have to wait until the next round and get an extra 10K?

so how did the rules work for the early rounds? you said they could take certain amount of money and leave early? how much were they offering?

and whats the clock for?

All the finalists were at a buzzer/podium. Drew would get a envelope with one of the finalist's name in it. Drew would explain that a counter would begin (10 secs, I think it got longer as the rounds went on) and if nobody buzzed in, the person who's name was in the envelope would be eliminated and receive nothing. However, if somebody buzzed in they would get the prize money for that round and leave. If that happened, nobody would be forced out, Drew would get a new envelope and the remaining people would move on to the next round. I didn't catch the first round, but it must have started with 20K or so and increased 10K per round. I think the last round was 90 or 100K.

I didn't catch every round, but I don't think anybody got eliminated because somebody always buzzed out and took the cash. Except when there were only two remaining, because then each guy had a 50/50 chance at 1 million. During this round, one of the contestants raised his hands above his shoulders to show that there was no way he was buzzing in.

I believe in the first round, no one buzzed in, but I'm not 100% sure about that.

Basically, the way the 6 digit number was chosen was they had some chick roll a ten-sided die 6 times and then those six numbers were placed in a bag and a chimp drew the numbers out and that was the order in which the six digit number was made up.

Each of the 1,000 contestants got a six digit number (randomly assigned I believe) and then the 10 contestants that had the most numbers correct - matching the billion dollar number - were chosen to go on stage and play for a billion.

When someone was eliminated in the final round, their six digit number was taken and placed on a podium and the person left standing at the end of all the eliminations got all the envelopes - so he was guaranteed the best shot at the billion dollars and even if he didn't win that, he at least won a million dollars. But at the end, the last person standing was the person who was the closest the whole time - rather than one of the people that took the bribe to leave the game.

I really wanted that guy to win - he seemed like he would genuinely put the money to good use rather than blowing it on a sports car like the other guy (not that there's anything wrong with that - it's what I would have done - but since I had no shot at the money, I was hoping it'd go towards a good cause).

Actually, I think they got to pick their own numbers, so it was just a matter of picking the right random numbers.

The chick who picked the numbers is Holly Robinson Peete, the Queen of failed WB sitcoms. Her new soon-to-be-canceled on is "Like Family". What an odd coincidence that she should appear on that show, just when her new sitcom, "Like Family" is premiering the on the WB on Friday, 8:30/7:30 central!

Almost as odd as the surprising amount of Pepsi commericals.