He/she had 30 seconds to solve the words, starting with the shortest and working upward by length. The current word was unscrambled, one letter at a time, until the champion solved it. No passing was allowed; the champion had to solve each word before moving to the next. He/she won the car for unscrambling all five words. Under this format, champions remained on the show until they either won the car, lost the main game, or played the bonus round three times. Audience game During the closing credits of every show, Rashad and his assistant moved through the audience, carrying a bowl filled with silver dollars, Caesars Palace casino chips, and chocolate medallions wrapped in gold foil. They chose one audience member at a time to unscramble a five-letter word; each person who did so was allowed to take one handful from the bowl. Pilot episode The pilot episode had significant gameplay differences compared to the show as aired; notably, the contestants bet on if they could guess the word or not (utilizing a keypad embedded into their podiums). The players were given $2,500 at the start of the game; while the questions were still worth $100, $200 or $300 depending on the round, the max bet per word would be $250 with a 2:1 payoff for the first three words; the max bet increased to $500 afterwards, while the payoff odds increased to 3:1 by the fifth word. Additionally, the Instant Jackpot gained by the Lucky Slot would carry over from day to day instead of resetting every day. Broadcast history During development, the show was known as Illusions and was intended for first-run syndication (and continued to be offered by Cannell Distribution into 1993, though only one station, KCAL-TV in Los Angeles, picked the show up); the pilot episode was taped in October of 1992. Caesars Challenge replaced Scattergories on NBC's daytime schedule when it premiered on June 14, 1993 and inherited its timeslot of 12:30 pm Eastern. Some affiliates did not air Caesars Challenge at its scheduled time due to the affiliates' longstanding practice of preempting programs that the networks aired in the noon hour in favor of news or syndicated programming; this resulted in some stations airing Caesars Challenge in another spot on their schedule while others did not air it at all. In the markets that did air the show at its normal time, Caesars