Ahmad Rashad hosted the series and, in keeping with the theme of the show's location, he was assisted by a man dressed as a Roman gladiator.

Three contestants competed in three rounds, attempting to solve scrambled words up to nine letters in length that were displayed on an onstage slot machine.

The bonus (referred to as the "Instant Jackpot") started at $500 each day, increased by this amount for every word in which it went unclaimed, and reset to $500 after it was won.

The other two contestants received parting gifts, including dinner at Caesars and tickets for one of its headlining acts at the time.

He/she was allowed to place one letter in its correct position for every main-game victory up to that point, then had 10 seconds to guess the word; successfully doing so won the car.

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.

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.

In the markets that did air Caesars Challenge at its scheduled time, the show faced off against Loving on ABC and the first half-hour of The Young and the Restless on CBS but did not perform well enough against either soap opera.

Its place in the schedule was then taken over three days later by the NBC debut of The Jane Whitney Show, which originally premiered in national syndication in 1992; the show occupied the 11:00 am hour, which resulted in NBC returning the 12:00 pm timeslot to its affiliates once again,[5][6][a] but its time on the network lasted only nine months, ending its entire run in September 1994.