Due in part to its longevity and in part to its simple play-along factor, Wheel of Fortune has received many board games by way of various companies. Unless otherwise noted, gameplay is of the play-for-cash nighttime version with no Bonus Round.
For the video game adaptations released since 1986, see Video games; for the slot machine adaptations released since 1997, see Slot Machines.
Milton Bradley (1975)[]
Issued two editions as part of their "Key to Fun and Learning" line (strangely, both classified as #4532), each containing an instruction/puzzle book with 168 puzzles, Milton Bradley Bucks (play money in denominations of $5-$10-$20-$50-$100-$500), a 30-space puzzle board, a large supply of cardboard letters, and a spinner representing the Wheel.
The boxes show a host who somewhat resembles Chuck Woolery, but isn't (Susan Stafford has stated that the Milton Bradley Company paid her $500 for the right to use her likeness); they also feature color-coded contestant displays and the "real" version of the in-game Wheel, complete with the original special spaces. The puzzle board on the First Edition reads L_DY M_CBETH, with the As replaced by the green-glitter side of their respective trilons.
The instruction booklet shows a similar picture with a different Wheel angle and several prizes to the right of and behind the puzzle board (including the second set of pricetags), plus the complete LADY MACBETH puzzle. This is likely to be the source image used when designing the box cover.
Gameplay[]
Much like the NBC version at this point. The categories are Event, Fictional Character, Landmark, Person, Phrase, Place, Thing, and Title; none of the puzzles seem to hint at a compilation date, with all mentioned titles, events, and characters dating to 1974 or earlier. The play money is handed out upon correct letter calls to keep score during each round, and paid back when vowels are bought.
Unlike subsequent versions, there are no pre-made puzzle cards; the puzzles are instead listed in the instruction booklet, with the host placing them into the puzzle board letter by letter, which also allows for custom puzzles. Also unlike subsequent versions, there is no Used Letter Board.
Notably, this is the only home adaptation to use the shopping aspect, represented here by a deck of 20 prize cards: three $100, two $200, one for each $x00 value from $300-$1,700 (minus $1,300), and a single $3,000. Gift certificates are denoted by the player putting their remaining money on the prize cards they bought, while not doing so is considered as putting money "on account". Oddly, there is no mention of a house minimum nor what to do in the event a player solves with less than $100 or the lowest remaining prize, although money put "on account" can be spent on vowels.
There are also four Free Spins, represented on cards much like the prizes. All 24 cards have the Wheel logo on the reverse.
Wheel[]
Unlike subsequent adaptations, the Wheel does not use its standard fonts and appearance. While the color scheme mostly matches that from the first half of 1976, the special spaces do not use their traditional colors: Bankrupt is green, Free Spin is light blue, Lose A Turn is orange, and Buy A Vowel is yellow.
The layout, starting from Bankrupt and going clockwise, is Bankrupt-$500-$175-$300-$200-$500-$125-$100-$300-$200-Free Spin-$100-$200-$150-$450-Lose A Turn-$100-$275-$200-$150-Buy A Vowel-$100-$250-$100.
Second Edition[]
The cover for the Second Edition is slightly different: the logo is white, the "Some Assembly Required" note is not present, the "Object" box on the left has enlarged text and no suggestion of players (3-6 on the First Edition cover), and there is a yellow "NEW SECOND EDITION" graphic on the side of the Wheel with a large "2". The sides of the box are changed from yellow with red letters to blue with the First Edition's yellow letters; "TV GAME" is shrunk and moved over to fit "2 NEW SECOND EDITION", which are in white.
The puzzle on the box is changed to K_NG R_CHARD, in a very different font (most notable with the C). The 168 new puzzles use the First Edition categories plus Things and People, although their scarcity (Things in #20; People in #64, #125, and #147) suggests that "plural" categories were a very new concept at the time the puzzles were compiled. The prize cards, minus the $3,000 one, are entirely new.
The assembly instructions on the inside box cover, plus the cover and first few pages of the instruction booklet, are recycled from the First Edition (the LADY MACBETH puzzle on the cover and BABY BUGGY samples), and the other game parts are likely the same. As recycling parts was (and remains to this day) a common practice to reduce costs, it is not certain whether Buy A Vowel was still in use on the TV show when the Second Edition game was released.
Wheel proved to be profitable for Milton Bradley, as noted in the February 6, 1976 issue of Variety. Despite becoming outdated by November 1975, the game remained on store shelves until at least the beginning of December 1977, as indicated by this newspaper ad from December 3 (which also offers the company's adaptation of Jackpot, which had been released in 1974; the TV show had ended in September 1975, following a format change 13 weeks earlier which among other things had replaced the riddles with general-knowledge questions).
Definition (1981)[]
Several years later, Milton Bradley recycled the puzzle board, legs, letter cards, and prize cards for its adaptation of the long-running Canadian game show Definition, hosted by Jim Perry. Rather than reuse the old 27-slot (9×3) letter tray of the Wheel games (which the player had to assemble), the Definition tray is a single blue 32-slot (8×4) piece of about the same size.
While the puzzles are on cards and revealed to the host by a red holder, they otherwise resemble and may themselves be recycled from those in the Wheel instruction booklets (one known puzzle is SIMPLE MINDED, not present in the First Edition). The only change is that the category is replaced by a clue.
As a side note, the box and instruction booklet show a drawing of the set with four civilian players. While the show used celebrity/civilian teams at this point, it eventually switched to using two teams of contestants on December 16, 1985, which remained until the show's end in 1989.
Pressman (1985-89, 1991)[]
Pressman released five "regular" editions, the Second and Third in 1986 and 1987 respectively. Each contains a 33-space puzzle board (referred to as "Conceal-N-Reveal"), a Wheel spinner card, a Used Letter Board with dry-erase crayon, and play money in denominations of $50, $100, $200, and $500. Free Spin is now represented by a group of tokens which resemble their TV counterparts, and players may keep any accumulated tokens until the game ends.
The Wheel itself has a red dollar-sign spinner and now resembles its TV counterpart with top dollar of $750. The layout (based off of the Round 1 layout used on the daytime version from 1979 to 1986) is Bankrupt-$750-$250-$300-$200-$100-$500-$400-$300-$200-Free Spin-$100-$200-$150-$450-Lose A Turn-$400-$250-$200-$150-$400-$600-$250-$300; strangely, much like several other home games (including electronic adaptations), $350 is absent. Another oddity is that two spaces of the same color (Free Spin-$100) are adjacent to each other. The "house minimum" is $200.
The individual letter cards are replaced by 24 large puzzle cards with four puzzles on each (96 puzzles total), which slot into the top of the puzzle board. The category display is on top, and the spaces used for the puzzle are underlined; the instruction manual helpfully outlines which spaces to reveal, by looking at the puzzle number and then looking at the space numbers in which the letters are in the puzzle. A "0" (zero) indicates that the letter is not in the puzzle.
Strangely, landing on Lose A Turn costs that player the current turn and their following turn as well. Also, contestants who incorrectly solve a puzzle are "locked out" for the rest of the round and lose all their money, a rule apparently used on the earliest daytime episodes. The player with the most money after Round 4 is the winner.
The back of the boxes show a prototype with a generic spinner, plainer-looking money, and white-on-black puzzle cards.
While the first three regular games and both Deluxe Editions (see below) use an artist's rendering of the puzzle board and Wheel (the pre-1986 Round 2 template with a black Lose A Turn, changed values, and, strangely, a $30 space), the Fourth (1988) and Fifth (1991) Editions use a photo of half the 1988 Round 1 template on the front and sides, though the Fourth also includes a photo of the puzzle board with title. The sides of both the Fourth and Fifth Edition reveal that the other half of this Wheel is the Round 4 template. The Fifth Edition also has a large-print instruction booklet and offered a $5 rebate.
Despite the Fourth and Fifth editions using the 1988 layouts on their respective boxart, they still used the layouts used in the first three editions, although most Fifth Edition releases used a blue dollar-sign spinner just like the Junior Edition (read below). The Fifth Edition also used categories that the previous editions didn't such as Before & After, Star & Role, and even Clue, making this the only board game adaption to offer Clue or any variation of it as a category. Although the show's rules at the time allowed all three contestants to have a chance at identifying what the puzzle was referring to starting with the puzzle's solver, the game's rules allowed only the solver to do so (for a $500 bonus), a rule that the show would not adopt until later on.
Pressman's six years of producing Wheel adaptations proved extremely profitable, so much so that on March 11, 1991 the landmark 10,000,000th copy (a Fifth Edition game) was presented to Merv at a special ceremony in his Resorts International Casino in Atlantic City.
Deluxe Editions[]
Pressman's Deluxe Editions (released in 1986 and 1987, respectively) have more puzzles, a money tray, a replica of the Wheel with a single flipper which spins much like on the show, and play money denominations of $50-$100-$500-$1,000. As the game progresses, the host adds new wedges ($500, $900, $1,000, $2,500, $5,000, and Bankrupt) to the Wheel; while the instructions give suggestions as to their placement, the host can place them in any manner s/he wishes or not use them at all. This allows for many possible layouts, including one with three adjacent four-digit values and a double-width Bankrupt.
The ways the four-digit values were styled were not like the TV-show counterparts. Instead of being lime, yellow, or blue like the ones seen on the show at the time, the $1,000 space was cyan. $2,500 was lavender and in fact was not being used on the show, let alone in its sapphire color, when the first Deluxe Edition was released (having only been used previously in the Head-To-Head All-Cash Showdown on the November 1975 hour-long shows). $5,000 was white instead of silver and had red numbering as opposed to the regular black.
The Deluxe Edition boxes are mostly identical: the cover has a smaller cropped version of the aforementioned illustration, plus a small photo of the Wheel replica with the text "Featuring an Authentic Replica of the Wheel". The back and sides of both each show a prototype with the regular-edition play money and extra Wheel wedges of $1,000 (yellow), $1,500 (green), $2,000 (blue), and $2,500 (magenta; has another magenta wedge of an unknown value underneath).
Interestingly, the second regular edition and first Deluxe Edition are two of only three board or video game adaptations that are known to have been offered as a prize (the third being the Wii version): the former was part of a $300 Pressman collection on a daytime episode in May-June 1986, while the latter was part of a $350 Pressman collection on a late-1986 daytime episode.
Junior Edition[]
Released in 1987, this child-friendly tweak uses a unique rainbow-colored puzzle board (with the plastic board being blue instead of green) and play money denominations of $100, $200, and $500. The Wheel itself has a blue dollar-sign spinner and values in $100 increments, with a top value of $700 (by replacing any $X50 values with multiples of $100); as a result, vowels and the house minimum are both $200.
The layout is Bankrupt-$700-$100-$300-$200-$100-$500-$400-$300-$200-Free Spin-$100-$200-$300-$500-Lose A Turn-$400-$300-$200-$100-$400-$600-$400-$300. Although the color scheme of the spinner used in-game is the same as its regular edition counterpart, some wedges were recolored on the Junior Edition's box cover. All of them were $X50 values on the adult version being covered with wedges containing multiples of $100 (this is indicated by some of the wedges' corners peeling a bit). Also on the box cover, the arrow is red instead of blue.
Interestingly, one of the puzzle answers is WHEEL OF FORTUNE, with FORTUNE aligned further right than the first two words.
Travel Editions[]
At least three were released: two regular editions in 1988, then a Junior Edition in 1989. Along with a wipe-off puzzle board, the dollar-sign spinner is extremely large for the Wheel size. Also, in the Junior Edition, the values are the same as its regular counterparts.
Watches (1987, 1996, 1999)[]
Two watches were released in 1987, manufactured by Sharp (not to be confused with the electronics company) and features the same template from the 1980s Pressman board games (except Junior Edition). Both have small booklets containing puzzle pads and rules for gameplay.
One features the template as a second-hand function. According to the booklet, the player tells the host (the one wearing the watch), "Now" when spinning. The host then tells the player what a black arrow at the top of the watch was pointing to when told, "Now."
The other features a template as the background as well as a separate second-hand, a gold colored Roulette ball on a black rim surrounding the Wheel, although some watches were released with a black Roulette ball on a gold rim.
In 1996, Innovative Time Corporation made 20,000 numbered limited edition watches inspired by the show's success. The watch and the box it came in was based off of Tyco's 1992 board game adaption (read below), although Vanna is not present on the box. The show's logo at the center of the watch functioned as the second hand. On the watch's Wheel, 3:00, 6:00, 9:00, and 12:00 were displayed as $300, $600, $900, and Bankrupt respectively.
The 1999 watch was similar to the first 1987 one, but was released in a 12-wedge template collectible tin that also contains 25 Bonus Round-style puzzle cards, all of which, appropriately, were time-themed. The watch itself uses the tin's template and functions as the second-hand, and at the touch of a button utilizes "Spinning Light Effects".
Tyco/Mattel (1992, 1996, 1998)[]
Tyco created two editions in 1992 with Vanna White on the box along with two Travel Editions in 1996. Each contains the same contents and rules as the regular Pressman versions (including an updated look of Pressman's layout with Clarendon font and purple and white wedges instead of orange and tan; no values are rearranged or changed), albeit with just 50 puzzle cards. The Wheel resembles the Pressman Deluxe Editions (although most of it is made of cardboard with 24 pointy ends instead of 72 pegs), and the front and side box art features Vanna and the Wheel with Round 4 template (though on the front, the Wheel is blurred to look as if spinning). The Puzzle Board cover is now two separate pieces instead of one large piece, and the board itself includes a Used Letter Board that is used in the same manner.
Gameplay is the same as Pressman's games only bonuses are added at the end of the last three rounds. Whoever solves the Round 2 puzzle gets a $100 bonus, Round 3 awards $200, and Round 4 awards $300.
Interestingly, the Travel Editions uses red letters for "TRAVEL" on the cover. While the first of these editions use the Puzzle Board to display the title, the second is merely on a green background modeled after the ones used on the show's Puzzle Board's trilons. In addition, the font used on the Wheel of the second Travel Edition is Times New Roman Bold. The gameplay of the Travel Editions is also different from the regular version in that only two rounds are played.
While both regular editions and the first Travel Edition are common, the second Travel Edition ranks among the rarest board game adaptions of the show, with only a handful of copies known to exist today.
The prototype for the first regular edition, seen on the back of the boxart, had a red triangle for the Wheel's pointer, black outlines separating each of the Wheel's wedges, longer cardboard cover pieces for the game's Puzzle Board, white backgrounds for the letter location areas on the Used Letter Board as opposed to lavender, and darker colors for the play money. A promotional image seen in a 1992 Tyco catalog served as the front of the boxart for the prototype. The image was a photo mashup of the show's Puzzle Board with all of its green squares showing (although another photo of the show's Puzzle Board showing the show's title was used in the prototype which was somewhat different than the photo used in the released version), Vanna in a blue dress instead of a red one, and the Round 2 layout with a Prize wedge marked Diamonds (albeit with half the pegs edited out) instead of the Round 4 layout. The sides of the boxart prototype had a red background and used an artist's impression of the 1986 Round 1 layout.
Mattel released a reproduction of the Tyco game in 1998, having updated the boxart with the new puzzle board and Wheel base, though the Wheel itself still uses the 1987-96 Round 4 template (although the side of the box uses the late-1996 layout). In addition, Vanna is no longer on the box, and the back reflects the show being produced by Columbia TriStar Television. However, the contents (also shown on the back as usual) are the same ones from the original Tyco games, including the same Wheel layout, although the knob used to spin the Wheel is noticeably different from Tyco's knob.
Andrews & McMeel (1996?-)[]
Produces a licensed Wheel day-by-day calendar each year, dating back to at least 1996. Each day has a puzzle treated like the Bonus Round, giving RSTLNE plus another three-and-a-vowel. Strangely, Same Name, Before & After, and all other "long-puzzle" categories are used, even though they have never been (and probably never will be) used in the Bonus Round.
Notably, both Megaword and the yellow $1,000 appeared in the calendars long after they had disappeared from the show: Megaword for February 10 of the 1996 calendar (LABYRINTH), the yellow $1,000 for the artwork of the 1998 calendar.
Parker Brothers (1999)[]
Parker Brothers' rendition also resembled the Pressman games, with 96 puzzles. The box shows the 1997 puzzle board with title and the 1996 bare Round 1 template with the yellow $1,000, however two purple spaces have different colors than the show: $500 is blue, while $600 is peach.
The Wheel has only 12 wedges and a top value of $800, with the layout Bankrupt-$300-$100-$500-$800-$700-Lose A Turn (gray)-$300-Free Spin (orange)-$600-$200-$400. The spinner itself is a carbon copy of that from The Game of Life, and may have been influenced from it. This version is also the first to feature the new puzzle board cardboard piece.
Vowels still cost $250 (also the "house minimum"), and incorrect vowels actually allow a player to keep their turn (see instruction booklet link). Play money denominations are $50-$100-$200-$500-$1,000 (albeit as very generic "Game Show Money"; the same money was used in the concurrent Parker Bros adaptations of Jeopardy! and Hollywood Squares). There are also Free Spin tokens and Prize wedges, making this game the first board game to offer the latter. Instead of ten like the Pressman versions, this version has only two Free Spin tokens. Additionally, instead of being awarded automatically upon landing on the Free Spin wedge, the player has to choose a correct letter (for no money) in order to receive a Free Spin. The Prize wedges are each worth $2,000 and first used in Round 2 (placed on $100), although the Prize is simply replaced if it is not picked up.
Unlike nearly every other home adaptation, the winner is determined by who reaches $10,000 first, although the instruction booklet states that the show's style can also be used as a game mode. Also, unlike the Milton Bradley and Pressman games, the legs used for the puzzle board snap in rather than simply sliding in and out; these legs consist of three "prongs" with the center piece facing the opposite direction, a design which makes the legs difficult to insert and remove.
The instruction booklet, which can be found here, also contains a "letter guide", which shows where a particular letter appears in each of the 96 puzzles (with a dash if it is not in that puzzle). This layout devotes two pages to each letter even if they appear infrequently enough for one page or less, such as J, Q, X, and Z. Also, while the booklet's intro correctly mentions that Wheel debuted in 1975, it then incorrectly states that the nighttime show airs on ABC, although this is true for some areas such as Chicago (WLS), Los Angeles (KABC), New York (WABC), Philadelphia (WPVI), San Francisco (KGO), Fresno (KFSN, California), and Raleigh-Durham (WTVD, North Carolina).
Lucky Numbers Inc. (1999)/TootsieToy (2000)[]
Made a travel version which involved a battery-operated rattle-shaped spinner in the sphere at the top, which can be spun via a white button on the tube. This was one of only two home adaptions to have any layout from Season 16 as a playable one (the other being Tiger's 1999 Deluxe Edition); in this case, the Round 1 layout was used. This also marked the first time $350 and $550 were playable values in a board game adaption.
Instead of play money, small cardboard chips were used. The game had 25 puzzle cards containing 50 puzzles altogether, plus one blank card for two custom puzzles in an 8x3 Puzzle Board. The instructions provided 200 suggestions for custom puzzles divided into categories.
TootsieToy also released a version with titles, puzzles, and non-cash spaces on the Wheel in English and French. Despite having the same title as France's version, it was intended for release in Canada as well as the United States.
Similar to Pressman's versions, four rounds are played with no Bonus Round afterwards. Unlike Pressman's versions, however, Lose A Turn does not cause the player to skip the following turn, Free Spins must be earned with a correct letter (albeit for no money), and missolving a puzzle does not result in elimination from the round.
Along with Tyco's second Travel Edition (read above), these versions, especially the French-language version, rank as some of the rarest board game adaptions of the show to exist.
Pressman (2002-)[]
Pressman re-acquired the board game rights to Wheel, typically using very similar parts to their first era. So far, there have been:
- The 20th-Anniversary Edition (2003; released as the "Original Edition" the following year; the "Original Edition" and all subsequent editions used a 30-space puzzle board)
- Two more regular editions (Second Edition released in 2005; Third Edition released in 2009 and rereleased in 2014).
- Silver-Anniversary Edition (2007), celebrating the syndicated run's 25th year. This was re-released as a Deluxe Edition styled after the 1980s ones (without the extra wedges; additional 1980s puzzles were included exclusively in this edition) and then in a tin with 96 puzzles (half of which are "kids puzzles") and a wipe-off puzzle board.
- The Simpsons Edition (2004), followed by a Deluxe Edition tin containing another 24 puzzles. Notably, the box art (done in the traditional Simpsons style) appears to be a parody of the box art used on the first three regular editions and both Deluxe Editions of Pressman's first era; further, the Deluxe Edition box art seems to be a combined parody of the aforementioned 1980s box art and the cover photo used for the 1992 Tyco games. Strangely, this Deluxe edition does not used a Deluxe-styled spinner like the other Deluxe editions.
- Disney Edition (2008), based off the 1987 Junior Edition (the value layout is exactly the same as that game, only with the values rearranged to resemble the 2001 layout) and styled after the 1980s Deluxe Editions (complete with three prize wedges); it was subsequently re-released with a different cover, more puzzles, and a spinner styled like the regular editions. Another updated version was released in 2011.
- Two Deluxe Editions (2006 and 2009), similar to their first set minus the extra wedges.
With the exception of the Disney Editions, the Wheel in all of these games was the Round 4 layout used from 1999 to 2003, with $5,000 as top value, and Free Spin (under different designs in the Simpsons and Disney Editions) used throughout the game; however, the layout has since become stagnant and very outdated, failing to adapt Free Play, the second Bankrupt, or any alterations made to the cash values and their positions.
The dollar bill denomination is changed, as well. Although $50, $100, and $200 from the 1980s versions are present, $500 is strangely decreased to $400. Due to the larger Wheel amounts, $1,000 bills are also added.
In an interview at the 2015 New York Toy Fair, Jim Pressman, the company's president, announced a Fourth Edition. Although the initial release date was supposed to be August 4, 2015, it was not released until November of 2016. The Wheel layout was now updated to the barren Season 33 Round 2 layout, marking the first time that $650 was a playable value in a board game adaption. This was also the second appearance of $3,500 in a board game adaption after Endless Games' 2008 card game (read below). Although Free Play is now present, the rules for it are the exact same as Free Spin in Pressman's previous board game adaptions. One major problem with this edition is that the puzzle cards do not align correctly with the plastic board provided although they do align correctly with the plastic boards made for the 2008 Disney Edition and the 2009 Second Deluxe Edition.
In 2020, Pressman released a Quick Play Edition followed by a 5th Edition. The Quick Play Edition reworded the rules for Free Play to be the same as the rules for it on the show. The 5th Edition has the puzzle cards use a different font than in previous editions in order to align correctly with the plastic board provided. In 2022, a 6th Edition was released.
Endless Games (2008)[]
Released a Wheel card game as part of the "Quick Picks" line. The game contains 30 Wheel cards, 100 puzzle cards (each containing three puzzles and a Bonus Round puzzle), five Bonus Round prize cards, a wipe-off puzzle board, a wipe-off scoreboard, a dry-erase marker, and a 10-second sand timer.
Strangely, the scoreboard includes a column for the yellow $1,000 wedge, despite the fact that there is no such card in the game and the wedge itself had not been present on the Wheel in any form since the PlayStation 2 video game five years earlier. It is possible that the Mystery Wedge was planned but scrapped before the $1,000-per-letter option could be removed from the scoreboard.
Some other notes about this game:
- One of the Wheel cards is a $10,000 Jackpot, using the wedge's tenth design.
- The wipe-off puzzle board is the most accurate of all board game iterations thus far, using the correct number of spaces in the correct layout.
- As the Bonus Round deck has only five cards ($25,000, $30,000, $40,000, $100,000, and a car), it is hence a variant of the W-H-E-E-L envelopes.
- This is one of only two known board game adaptions to feature rules for the Bonus Round. The other was a home game of France's La Roue de la Fortune, released by TF1 Games that same year. Unlike Endless Games' version, France's game does use a Bonus Wheel layout.
Wendy's/Oldemark (2011)[]
A set of five toys offered through kids' meals from April 11-May 15 of that year, containing the game and a puzzle card for a contest on the week of May 23. As with many kids' meal toys in recent years (especially those with fewer items to collect), unopened full sets were quickly made available on eBay.
While "Portable Game" uses the Round 4 Wheel layout (minus Free Play), "Spin to Solve" and "Wheel on the Go" use a somewhat different layout with letters above each cash value, a top dollar of $900, and Free Play represented by Free Pick (using the colors of Lose A Turn and letter format of the Free Spin wedge). Notably, there are two Free Pick wedges on the Wheel.
The layout is Bankrupt-$600 (A or E)-$400 (Vowel)-$300 (B or C)-Lose A Turn-$800 (T)-$350 (P or V)-$450 (O)-$700 (N)-$300 (Q or R)-$600 (I)-Free Pick-$600 (A or E)-$500 (H)-$300 (D or L)-$500 (F)-$800 (X or Z)-$550 (U)-$400 (Vowel)-$300 (M or G)-Free Pick-$500 (S)-$300 (J or K)-$900 (W or Y).
Most of the letter-to-wedge assignments appear to be arbitrary, minus two: the pink $300 next to Free Pick, the only one which does not present its choices in alphabetical order, offers the initials of Merv Griffin. The other, $350, offers the first-name initials of Pat Sajak and Vanna White.
3-in-1 Card Game[]
A 32-card deck containing four each of $300, $400, $500, $600, $700, $800, $900, and Wild Card (its only appearance thus far). The instructions contain rules for Match Play (a truncated UNO), Wheel War (a version of War), and Hi-Lo Solo (Acey-Deucey, but with the ability to guess "tie").
Portable Game[]
Of the five toys, the closest to the show. Contains the spinner, 10 double-sided puzzle cards (with categories of Food & Drink, Living Thing, Person/People, Place, and Thing{s}), a four-letter puzzle board (attached to the spinner), and instructions for Classic Play (just like the show) and Four Spins to Win (try to get as much money as possible in four spins).
Spin to Solve[]
Includes a crayon, two dry-erase scorecards, and instructions for Word Race (collect letters to spell 3-, 4-, or 5-letter words; most money after three words wins) and Solo Word Builder (spell a 3-letter word before accumulating $2,000). The spinner uses a push-button process.
Toss-Up Game[]
Contains a blue, arrow-shaped light-up device with a red Wheel of Fortune button (using the traditional logo), a set of "cards" with various letters and dollar amounts (plus Wendy's Wild Cards), and instructions for Buzz Words (flip over cards until a 3+-letter word is visible, then hit the red button), Match 'em Up (flip two cards to try and get the same background pattern or dollar amount), and Speed Match (a solo version of Match 'em Up).
Wheel on the Go[]
Contains a basic round spinner (spun like Pressman's Deluxe Editions) and instructions on how to play I See It! (find an object that starts with the letter you spun; alternately, the letter and color), Build-a-Word (try to make your preselected 3- or 4-letter word before your opponent), and Color Match (spin 10 times to match the color you spun beforehand).
PennyPress (2009?-)[]
Publishes Wheel of Fortune Word Seek, a series of word searches with missing letters which, when filled in, spell out a puzzle. The category is given at the top of the page for each puzzle.
Forum Novelties Inc. (2014)[]
A toy slot machine bank was developed in 2014, although it likely was not released until June 2015. In addition to having three reels that come to a stop one at a time (although on some units, this feature was defective), a free-spinning Wheel was added to the top similar in style to IGT's slot machines.
Instead of using any of IGT's layouts, however, the Wheel was the Season 31 Round 4 layout, albeit with a dark green Free Play wedge and a red classic-style logo on a black center.
Twitter Toss-Up[]
The show's official Twitter account @wheeloffortune regularly held the Twitter Toss-Up. After giving a category, the puzzle was tweeted with an increasing number of letters revealed, similarly to a Toss-Up puzzle, until the entire answer is filled in. Twitter users could then tweet what they think is the right answer, and the account would then @mention the first person to solve after the answer is filled in.
Originally, the puzzles would be typed out in text, but they later switched to graphics.
Mattel (2016)[]
Wheel of Fortune Bingo was released as late as the summer of 2017. The object of the game is to fill in puzzle cards letter by letter via a 28-wedge Wheel filled with letters as opposed to dollar values. The three-lined puzzle cards can be filled in via small green cubes included with the game. Generally, the more letters a card has, the more points it's worth once it's completed.
The Wheel has two sides, one side containing four letters on each wedge and the other containing five letters on each wedge. If the Wheel lands on a wedge containing letters, the player chooses one of those letters and covers up each instance of the letter. Play then passes to the next player whether or not any of the letters spun up could be chosen to fill in. There are also special spaces such as Bankrupt (which takes away all the cubes from the line on the puzzle card which has the most letters covered), Free Play (which allows players to choose one or two letters, depending on the number shown on the wedge spun up), Jackpot (which allows special blue cubes to be earned and count toward a players score; the Jackpot starts at three blue cubes and increases by 1 every time a white wedge with a blue cube at the top is spun up; once claimed, the Jackpot resets to three blue cubes), and a green wedge with a hand (which allows a player to take away cubes covering a letter on a card belonging to an opponent). The game ends when a player finishes three puzzle cards and a final spin is taken by each of the rest of the players.
In 2020, Mattel re-relased the game as a Fast Fun edition with some subtle changes. One, the Wheel was now spun via an arrow rather than a knob, allowing only one layout to be used. Two, the Puzzle Cards had slightly smaller puzzles and, instead of cubes, were now highlighted with pegs on a clear plastic card cover.