[4][5] The show debuted October 28, 1985, with Chuck Woolery as host and Charlie O'Donnell as the announcer.

Only three weeks later, however, Woolery left the program after its November 18 broadcast to concentrate on hosting Scrabble and Love Connection.

On November 25, Woolery was succeeded by Geoff Edwards, who would soon host the Canadian-produced Chain Reaction, requiring him to commute between the two countries.

For a six-week period after Edwards left, various guest hosts were used in what were on-air auditions for a permanent job.

On January 2, 1999, Pat Finn (of Shop 'til You Drop fame) took over the show, which was briefly retitled Big Spin 2000 to herald the new millennium.

During Finn's reign as host, an award honoring a "Hero In Education" would be presented each month by a celebrity guest.

The announcer for at least the first three months was Charlie O'Donnell, then Rich Hardaway until 1999, followed by Jackie Taylor from 1999 to 2003 (who also filled in for Maiquel as co-host during her 2001 maternity leave).

[citation needed] During a point in the Geoff Edwards run, a bonus drawing was also featured, in which a winning scratch-off ticket was drawn at random, and the person who mailed it in won a car.

Although the show ended with its last broadcast on January 10, 2009, replaced the following week by Make Me a Millionaire, Big Spin Scratchers remained in circulation for a few months.

Winners of this random draw originally played the Fantasy 5 Dream Machine on The Big Spin, but later became contestants on Make Me a Millionaire.

When Geoff Edwards became the host and the show moved to Sacramento, the set became completely white and without ornamentation.

Next to the number is a big screen that rises above the ground to show Pat and Maiquelle entering the stage when Jackie Taylor announces their names.

The fourth theme song was a revamped version of one of the prize cues used on The Price Is Right[citation needed] which lasted from early 1999 to November 8 2003, while the final theme was composed by Tim Mosher and Stoker from November 15, 2003 to January 10, 2009.

When Jonathan Goodson Productions took over the program, the well-known "clangs and whoops" sound, also from The Price Is Right, were used whenever a contestant won the top prize.

A ball bounced among the pegs, and the outcome of the spin was determined by the first space in which it came to rest for a minimum of five seconds.

When the state started Lotto in 1986 (which was the main reason most people voted for a lottery in the first place),[citation needed] interest in the "scratch-off ticket" games that led to the show dropped sharply, and so did the prizes.

On August 22, 1987, a truck driver from Los Angeles, Dave Flynn, spun the wheel, and landed on the "Grand Prize" slot, and won $3,825,000.

The hand was randomly determined by spinning all four wheels, and by the player pressing down on a card to stop them.

Some of these games would carry over to, or came from, other states' lottery shows: A player takes part in trying to get as much money as possible in 30 seconds in two glass boxes.

The player can pick specially marked sheets from the ground or in the air and put them in boxes on his or her sides.

Lottery players from across the state would send in a Weekly Grand or an Extravaganza 2000 ticket to be entered into a random draw on the show.

The money won from these drawings were included into the total winnings announced at the end of the show.

Behind each door is either $1,000, $2,000, or a large key, which means the player wins a chance at the grand prize.

Three concealed amounts of money which were added to the player's total, while one hid another star behind it, which won $75,000.

In the first round, the player set six balls—four gold, two black—down a track of ramps by pulling on a replica of King Arthur’s sword “Excalibur”.

The balls could split up and collide until they reached the bottom of the track and crossed the finish line.

The winning player then tried to draw the green ball again for a one-space head start in the race.

The final round was played between the three winners of each heat, and the eventual champion won $2,000 a week for 20 years ($2,080,000 total).

Following the show's ending in 2009, the wheel was placed into the California Lottery State Museum in Sacramento as part of a permanent exhibit.

The wheel was brought out of retirement in 2021 as part of a COVID-19 vaccine lottery initiative by Governor Gavin Newsom.