When you watch a game show, you see the host, the contestants, the flashy set, and the prizes. What you don't see is the extraordinary machinery behind the curtain — layers of rules, procedures, and oversight that ensure every game is fair and every contestant has a legitimate shot.

The Game Show "Bible"

Every game show has what the industry calls a "bible" — a comprehensive rules document that covers every conceivable scenario. Thanks to donations to The Strong National Museum of Play, we can peek inside one: the bible for The $25,000 Pyramid (CBS, 1982-88).

This wasn't some casual memo. It was a 21-page document jointly authored by production staff, the network, and Standards & Practices — the people whose entire job is preventing rigging. The bible covered how contestants are paired with celebrity partners (two full paragraphs just on ensuring fairness), rules that viewers never hear (like the prohibition on using unrelated rhymes as clues), and procedures for mechanical failures (a backup stopwatch in the control room ran alongside the on-screen clock).

It even addressed logistics that would never occur to a home viewer: trip prizes had limited availability windows, so producers had to screen contestants' vacation schedules before they could be eligible.

Shuffling Giant Cards on Card Sharks

Some shows require procedures that border on the absurd — in the best way possible. Card Sharks featured playing cards that measured up to 17" x 24". As documented by the Museum of Play, shuffling those cards was a multi-step security operation:

A network representative first counted all 52 cards. A crew member took the deck to a specially built three-section table. Cards were cut, alternated, and stacked in a precise sequence. Then the entire deck went into a massive sealed envelope, with the network representative signing across the seal. On the ABC version, an adhesive ribbon was wrapped around the deck with witnesses initialing it. Only at game time were the cards unsealed — and contestants cut the deck themselves.

Why It All Matters

These procedures might sound excessive, but they exist for good reason. After the quiz show scandals of the 1950s devastated the genre, the television industry rebuilt game shows on a foundation of verified fairness. Every shuffled card, every sealed envelope, every paragraph in every bible is proof that when someone wins on a game show today, the result is genuine.

That disclaimer you hear at the end of every episode — "contestants are selected in advance and are advised of the rules of the game" — isn't just legal boilerplate. It's a direct descendant of the reforms that saved the genre.

Sources: Museum of Play: The $25,000 Pyramid Bible · Museum of Play: The Card Sharks Shuffle