August 6, 2014

BREAKING: Billy Gardell To Host “Monopoly Millionaires’ Club” In 2015

The “Mike and Molly” star will preside over the future Las Vegas-based lottery game show.

 

Scientific Games Corporation is hoping to score a Monopoly next year.

28850Deadline reported this afternoon that Billy Gardell, star of the CBS sitcom Mike and Molly and the Clint Eastwood film Jersey Boys, has signed on to host the new syndicated weekly one-hour game show Monopoly Millionaires’ Club. Produced in Las Vegas and based on the world-famous Hasbro board game, Millionaires’ Club will tie in with a multi-state lottery game of the same name, of which sales are set to start on October 15, 2014.

The contestants on Millionaires’ Club will be selected from a live studio audience comprised of winners of the Monopoly Millionaires’ Club lottery game. Players will have a chance to win up to $2.5 million on every episode. To qualify for the trip to Las Vegas and admission to the taping, hopeful contestants will register their winning lottery tickets online.

In 1990, Monopoly made its first foray into the world of television game shows with an ABC primetime series produced by Merv Griffin and aired alongside Super Jeopardy!. Hosted by then- (and still-) unknown Mike Reilly and featuring a format that was a radical departure from the board game itself, the show lasted only three months. In 2006, billionaire Donald Trump announced that he was working with Hasbro to mount a new Monopoly-themed game show, but the project never materialized.

No airing or casting information for Monopoly Millionaires’ Club has been announced yet.