Game shows – we play along all the time at home, but becoming the host or co-host TV game show is a very lucrative business. We’ve managed to unearth some information on how much these game show hosts are worth, and these figures might just surprise you …

11 – Pat Sajak

Worth: $45 million

Source: Pinterest

70-year old Pat Sajak has done a number of things in his lifetime, game show host being just one of them, and he’s also a TV personality, talk show host, actor, and former weatherman too. Many people will remember him for his spot on Wheel of Fortune, and you may be quite surprised to learn he was once a DJ in the U.S. Army, and was even deployed to Vietnam. He’s now the celebrity spokesperson for Great American Deals, and is a keen businessman to help boost his wealth.

Pat Sajak is said to earn approx. $12 million per year while Vanna White, co-host, earns $8 million per year.

10 – Alex Trebek

Worth: $50 million 

Source: Pinterest

Said to earn $10 million annually, Alex Trebek is worth over $50 million, and when you look at his impressive career that spans over fifty decades, it’s not difficult to understand why. The Canadian-American TV personality has been the host of a number of TV shows, including To Tell the Truth, Classic Concentration, Battlestars, High Rollers, Double Dare, The Wizard of Odds, and of course, Jeopardy!

9 – Bob Barker

Worth: $70 million

Source: CBS News

From 1972 to 2007, Bob Barker hosted The Price is Right, and this earned him the title of hosting the longest-running daytime game show in the history of North American TV. Impressive, right? Well, his career has earned him a worth of over $70 million over the almost-70 years, and you may also remember him as the host of Truth or Consequences from 1956 to 1974 also.

8 – Steve Harvey

Worth: $100 million

Source: Just Jared

Many of you will probably known who Steve Harvey is because of that HUGE Miss Universe 2015 mix-up, where he announced the wrong girl’s name as winner. The good news is that they didn’t hold it against him, and he was still called upon to host the 2016 competition, and that’s not all. Not just a host of beauty pageants, Steve Harvey is also a TV personality, author, actor, radio personality, and even producer. There’s a few self-titled shows – Steve Harvey talk show, and The Steve Harvey Morning Show, and you may also remember seeing him host Little Big Shots and Family Feud also. for the record, he’s also won three daytime Emmy awards too. Just saying.

7 – Jeff Foxworthy

Worth: $100 million

Source: Fan World

If you’ve ever seen the Blue Collar Comedy Tour, you’ll know who Jeff Foxworthy is, and he’s also released no fewer than six comedy albums, with big name labels too. Of course, many of you will know him as the host on Fox’s Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader?, and with an estimated worth of $100 million, he’s one of the most successful stand-up comedians, and also one of the wealthiest also. Not bad for a guy who is considered a “late bloomer” in the comedy business, and who started his job history with IBM, maintaining computers. It wasn’t until the nineties that The Jeff Foxworthy Show started to make him a big household name, and things have just gotten better and better for him ever since.

6 – Don Francisco

Worth: $100 million

Source: Storify

Also said to be worth over $100 million, Don Francisco, born Mario Luis Kreutzberger, is a Chilean TV personality, and is perhaps better known among the Spanish-speaking viewers. There are two shows that you may remember him from – Don Francisco Presenta, and Sábada Gigante, and it was the latter that he first started in 1962. He used a very clever system of working out what had worked for American TV, using those ideas in Chilean TV, and it ended up being such a great hit, it aired for over fifty years.

5 – Regis Philbin

Worth: $150 million

Source: Parade

With a career in game shows that has spanned over 50 years, Regis Philbin has amassed a great wealth of a reported $150 million. It’s hardly surprising when you consider that he has hosted, and even debuted in some cases, a bunch of much-loved TV shows – America’s Got Talent, for example, plus Who Wants to Be a Millionaire and Million Dollar Password. This isn’t bad for a man who, in 1964, took over from the spot that The Steve Allen Show had originally held, and the ratings were so bad, his appearances were dropped. He moved on to morning shows after that, and he even managed to help the network pull KABC-TV from the very bottom of the ratings list, to the number one spot.

4 – Drew Carey

Worth: $165 million

Source: Parade

Another name who first started in comedy, Drew Carey was actually in the U.S. Marine Corps before all of that. He’s had actually had an impressive and varied career, and as well as being a well-known and much-loved game show host, he’s also a sports executive, a comedian and an actor. Shows include ABC’s Whose Line Is It Anyway and The Drew Carey Show. It was in 1985 that he made the leap into comedy, after a friend suggested he read some library books on how to write and tell jokes. It turns out that was very good advice, and the American household name is now said to have amassed a wealth of over $165 million.

3 – Dick Clark

Worth: $200 million

Source: NBC Los Angeles

Sadly, Dick Clark died in 2012 of coronary heart disease and a heart attack during a surgical procedure, but he managed to earn himself a very impressive wealth of $200 million and more. He was a very big name in the world of TV and radio, and the thing he is most remember and loved for is American Bandstand – 1957 to 1987. His entire career spanned a whopping 67 years, right up until his untimely passing, and even earned him the nickname “America’s oldest teenager”.

2 – Ryan Seacrest

Worth: $200 million 

Source: The Gazette Review

42 year old Ryan Seacrest has had a great career, best known for his role as the presenter of American Idol. Not just big on TV, he’s also had great success in radio, starring in On Air with Ryan Seacrest on KIIS-FM, and also hosting the American Top 40 countdown show. He received countless Emmy Award nominations for his work in the radio industry, but it was back in TV that he finally won an award, and that was for his executive producer role with Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution, which took the entire world by storm. Of course, there have been a few other delights to build up his wealth of over $200 million – The Million second Quiz, Ultimate Revenge, and even a few films, including New Year’s Eve (as himself), Knocked Up, and Get Smart. Oh, and who could forget when he gave the voice to Butter Pants in Shrek Forever After?

1 – Merv Griffin

Worth: $1 billion 

Source: Esquire

Merv Griffin, also known as Mervyn Edward Griffin, Jr., sadly passed away in 2007 following a battle with prostate cancer, but he built up quite the empire in his lifetime, becoming a media mogul, actor, singer, musician and TV host for American television. It was actually big band singer and on radio that he first found fame, but in 1965 he was given his own talk show – The Merv Griffin Show. He started a business, two, in fact, and under the names Merv Griffin Entertainment and Merf Griffin Enterprises, he created two of the most popular game shows in the world – Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy! He was said to have been worth over a billion dollars.