By chance, how many busts and under $1k wins were in the first 6 weeks? It felt like a lot, would be nice to see what the data says.
I live to serve, and shout out to archive.org:
Final scores of the Money Cards for the first six weeks
600-3000-BUST-5200-BUST-2600-725-BUST-2100-200-6600-1050
Two episodes with no data
800-3150-2400-7200
two episodes with no data
2100-9600-BUST-4800-100(er?)-4500-BUST-BUST-2000 (down from 7000)-3200-12900 (with 8 on big bet)-800-700-BUST-BUST-400-2900-14800
So as opposed to one week giving away $90,000; the first six weeks of Card Sharks gave away $94,425; though there's those episodes to be filled in. It's fun to say "You can win $28,800!" but I think they were planning on a lot of people winning either less than a thousand dollars or a few thousand dollars, and those big wins would come along like on $20,000 Pyramid.