Press Your Luck scandal

The Press Your Luck scandal was contestant Michael Larson's 1984 record-breaking win of $110,237 (equivalent to $341,622 in 2025) on the American game show Press Your Luck.

An Ohio man with a penchant for get-rich-quick schemes, Larson studied the game show and discovered that its ostensibly randomized game board was actually only five different patterns of lights. After successfully auditioning in person at the Los Angeles studio, Larson performed on May 19, 1984, and played so successfully, CBS executives accused him of cheating.

After the network paid, Larson moved on to other endeavors. In 1995, he fled a law-enforcement investigation of a fraudulent multi-level marketing scheme and died in hiding in 1999 in Apopka, Florida. A recurring subject of interest and inspiration, the Press Your Luck scandal has been revisited in two documentaries by Game Show Network, a Spanish-language graphic novel, and the 2024 film The Luckiest Man in America, starring Paul Walter Hauser as Larson.

Background

Press Your Luck

CBS' Press Your Luck is a half-hour television game show that ran from September 1983 to September 1986, hosted by Peter Tomarken.

Each half of the show began with a round of multiple-choice questions, where correct answers earn "spins" on a randomly generated game board known as the "Big Board". The Big Board was a ring of 18 light-up squares, six wide and five high, that rapidly illuminated in a seemingly random sequence until a contestant pressed their button to stop the lights. The sequence was originally limited to only five different patterns, a holdover from the pilot episode's limited budget, an Achilles' heel and calculated risk understood by the show's producers.