Actually, there are still plenty of gameshows around where people play for (generally) sub-thousand dollar prizes. Cash Cab (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cash_

Actually, there are still plenty of gameshows around where people play for (generally) sub-thousand dollar prizes. Cash Cab (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cash_Cab http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cash_Cab) comes to mind. $50 payouts on that show are actually surprisingly common, although that is considered doing poorly. I suspect that the perception of the cash prize size is related to the perceived commitment the contestant has to put forward. So they are fairly large on shows the contestant has to go out of their way to be a part of, but low on shows where the contestant just happens to "stumble upon" the contest.