Episode Transcription

Hey, today we're talking about the Press Your Luck Scandal, a guy named Michael Larson who learned how a game show worked and exploited that also gotten into some pretty neat scams. Neat Is that the way you would describe as scams? It's the way I would. Anyways, this is a comedy podcast. We're gonna laugh a whole bunch. There's some serious parts in here, but the majority of this you're gonna learn a little bit. You're gonna laugh, Hopefully you're gonna laugh, or you're just gonna be annoyed with us. Hey, make sure you hit that like subscribe button, hit the bell icon, all this stuff that YouTubers say, and let's check out this episode. Hey man, what's up? Hey? Have you ever heard of Michael Larson? Michael Larson, Michael Larson. You might know him by his other name, Paul Michael Larson, or do you might know him by his other name, which is more of the less of a name, more of what he's known for The Press Your Luck Scandal, Press Your I have heard of him? Have you heard of this? Yeah? Yeah? Yeah, game was yeah yeah, yeah, forget about it. I forget that. I'll forget. I'll forget, forget about forget about it. He went like on stage covered in bandages, right, and no one wanted to call him out on it, and they were like, this is normal. Yeah with Jennifer Lawrence. Yeah, which is crazy because of the seventies. She was really young at the time. Yes, okay, so what happened? Yeah? So Michael Larson, he this is him. He was born in Lebanon, Ohio, and he was pretty sure. If it's in Ohio they call it Lebanon. Same we would call it Lebanon here in Missouri. I don't think. Yeah, that drives me crazy. I never call it Lebanon. That's wrong in Missouri. We have Lebanon in Nevada. Yeah, both instead of Nevada and infuriate me. Both of them infuriate me. You should talk to someone about the things that make you mad, you know, because sometimes I call you and I go, this is crazy, shouldn't isn't this insane? And you're like, I mean yeah, Like the things that don't make you mad are more concerning whenever you put them next to the stuff that does make you mad. Nevada, Lebanon, the McDonald's, that the Grand Canyon, costing freaking price. It's like the hurricane right now. But what you know, the hurricane and the car warks and the Caribbean right now. Oh sorry, Hurricane Barrel. You mean to make a joke about an actual disaster. There's a hurricane going through the Caribbean right now, and it's about to make landfall in Jamaica. I don't know if this is true. I saw something yesterday. Someone said that they were trying to get their family out of there, and Jet Blue is charging thirty eight thousand dollars for tickets out of Jamaica. Really, yeah, which is infuriating because that's Ruggan the same thing McDonald's was doing the gris. Have I told her I've done the chicken thing on here before. Have I talked about how my mom's got bad ideas? No, my mom, and she listens to this and I don't care, And I've told her she's Actually she started to come around on this too. Though. Is that she she's of the like the libertarian position where it's like we should be able to barter chickens. Oh yeah, you know I'm talking about where she's just like I want if I want to pay the doctor and chickens I should be able to pay the doctor and chickens. And I was like, but the problem is that does do But no, but the doctor asks you how many chickens you've got, and then then you go, I've got ten chickens. The doctor's are great, well I want eight of them. Yeah, and it's like, that's a lot of my chickens. And then she goes, we just go to a different doctor, and I said, yeah, sure, sure, sure. But that doctor called the other doctor and was like, hey, I said eight chickens, so don't undercut me. Well that that doctor was like, hey, I see a patient coming from your doctor's office. What do you think the world is? This is still the current world. I see the patient coming from your doctor's office. Would you happen to know? And this might sound crazy, but I just kind of know how many chickens they have. They got ten, Gray, I'm gonna ask for nine. What'd you ask for? I said eight, but but nine could probably get it at this point. Now, if they come back, I'm gonna say nine. If they give you the nine, give me the extra one as a finder's fee. The so many ideas that exist of people who are just like we should abolish the education system. They don't understand what it means or the idea of people who are like, you know, life was probably better in the eighteen hundred or whatever. Even why New York watching any medieval time pieces whatever, Like we're watching life was not better. We're watching Game of Thrones. Yes, my wife is like at a documentary if we lived in this time, I know, but I'm saying, like it's a it's a good visualization of what the point is that she goes, Oh, if we lived in this kind of time era, I would love to live in a castle like that, Like you wouldn't live in it? No, Yeah, that would suck. You would live in one of the huts. Yeah, where the water runs down the street from the castle. That's where you would live. But also living in the castle versus where we live now. If you live, if you live apartment now, your life is ready to kill you at any point. True. That's also how every single conflict ends. Every time. If you're just out for a walk and you run across strangers, you both have to be like, are we gonna kill each other? That's not the world lives Okay, I'm saying that the world we live in everyone can read in our current society, and a lot of people are like, we should, we should abolish the education department. And You're like, you're not understanding what it would mean to live in a society where everyone is that basic ability to read. Yeah, yeah, what are you talking about? I saw this thing yesterday and I'm curious how you answer this. Would you rather live now at let's say, just the average income today? Okay, is that the average income in the US today? Or would you rather be the richest person on earth? Like? At what point? As being the richest person on earth not be as good as being at the average income? Now? Like, what's the earliest? What's the answer? Do you know what I'm saying? Do you know what question I'm asking right now? If I'm not as lived in the seventeen hundreds and you were the richest person on earth, Yeah, right, that's a different lifestyle than being the richest person on earth now, Yes, absolutely, yes, because in eighteen seventy yeah right, ninety three percent of the world lived in extreme poverty. Okay, now that number is less than eight percent. Yes, so we have we've literally flipped the scale on this. Yes, But prior to eighteen seventy with all the technological advances, the Industrial Revolution, all the stuff that has happened to our world, you know, the connected world that we live in now, the lifestyle that you can live. Obviously, rich people live in sane lifestyles, right, but they still have an iPhone. I have an iPhone. The phone that Jeff Bezos has is not better than my phone. Well it's not, though, the tax in it is. Do you think it is. Do you think he's got a better a secret Amazon phone that they haven't released yet. Oh? Sure, kidding, But I got an iPhone? Ye, yeah, you know. And so there are those kind of like small luxuries that are pretty equal across the red Yes, okay, being the richest person in the seventeen hundreds meant that you might have might have a little bit more food, yeah, yeah, you know, yes, and like air conditioning didn't exist still, yeah yeah. And it was also determined by the number of people that you owned. And there were different elements of being the REI So Rockefeller, how much money Rockefeller had adjusted for inflation or like that, how much he actually had. I don't know how much one hundred million dollars billionaires did not exist then, but he was the richest person in the world. His his his wealth was I forgue which person is the DP was but insane. But I'm saying prior to eighteen seventy ninety percent of the world living in extreme poverty meant that there really was like the one percenters were in like everything that you can say, all of our founding fathers, the leaders that we that formed our country were all the elites of the elites of the elites. And now I guess I try to think of that stuff because I'm trying to be more grateful for what I do have instead of because we do live in a consumer society where it's just like everything you see on TikTok is you're not content. Well, I mean, did you listen to the was was It? Podcast where they were talking about it was the British guy in Propertyes podcast, whatever his name is, but they were talking about how more and more people are not buying homes and housing is a thing that most people, if you polled most millennials and Gen Z, they would say that's something they may never get to half right. But the top reality shows on Netflix are the luxury Realtors. Yes and so seeing the wealth gap that exists there is pretty crazy, but it's still the wealth gap that exists now is still hugely, vastly, incomprehensibly different, yes, than it was in the eighteen hundreds, And I think that that fact is something that a lot of people are just like, you know, I'm trying to be more grateful that when I go to sleep at night, I have an air conditioner that I can run all night. It's going to cost me an extra twelve cents to run it. Yeah, you know, it is pretty interesting in our society, the way it's set up. Like I think back to evangel when I lived in the dorm and I had one half of a small room was mine and I was pretty content with that. And now I bought a house and honestly, probably three months later, I was like, ah, man, I wish we had another room. I thought that today when I was driving to get breakfast, I was like, you know what I miss how big my apartment was in Kansas City, Yeah, which it wasn't huge. Yeah, but now where we're at now, it's like, man, if I just had like a little bit extra space, you so quickly adjust art yeah, and you want more and so that is That's what I'm saying when like there's this consumer demon that has land. Okay, you know, you know, I don't want to call like a spirit, but like something that has Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know what you're saying all of us, Yeah, the desire for And a large part of that is I really did like the Book of Slashing towards Utopia. So much of that was the progress that happened between eighteen seventy uh and then it because that book goes like, decade by decade, how we got here. I think you're right, it's definitely read the rate of progress that existed. But in the last one hundred and fifty years, we as people got conditioned to believe that that rate of progress just normal, is normal, and in fact that it's going to speed up, it's going to continue to grow faster, and we'll go, yeah, this is this is what humans do. Where it's like, actually, the fact is that humans have not done that ever, for every part of existence, except for the part that we forgot back before the Egyptians got conquered and then went moved to actual Egypt and restarted. Is this a correct timeline that the Pyramids for the Roman Empire. The Pyramids were older to the Romans than the Romans are to us. Yes, yeah, that's pretty That's what I'm saying. That rate of technological advancement to then get to the nineteen hundreds, the nineteen hundreds is the most insane century that has existed for Americans, for humans humans period. Yeah. Wild Yeah, So we cannot we cannot comprehend end we went from cars not existing to people arguing whether or not we pants on horses in just fifty years for real though, And that is where a lot of this stuff I just go, like, you know, when people are arguing online, I go cut up, like when when we look at the big picture here, Yeah, it's less it's just stupid anyways. So my question was would I would rather normal income now than to be the richest person? The question is the question is what is the oldest year in history, Like how far back would you go to where you'd be, like, I'd rather be the richest person in the world at that year. That could be the averages person through the fifties and sixties. That'd be pretty tight. Nineteen fifties the first year you would rather be the richest person alive than be an average person today. No, No, what's the first year you would be the richest person. I'm trying to think of when the average income was Like fine, I mean, but I'm mom. Also, we're answering this as two straight white males, so I feel like, yeah, that's still a bit different for the context that is. Yeah, that's also fair probably the two thousand and eight financial cris Yeah for me, it's nineteen oh two. Nineteen oh two, Yeah, why that was the year air conditioning wasn't mented. I want I want to go before. That's what I'm thinking. I wouldn't want to live. But I also like like cars, like driving, Yeah, yeah, you know, I mean they had the model T then you can model t it up. Sure, but I hear those breakdown lot. But I'm saying that again, and I'm it wouldn't matter if you were the richest person in the world if the rest of society is truly like desolate. Yeah you know, yeah, And so I think that because what are you buy in? What do you got to buy? You're spending your money? Do we have to buy at that point? Right? Yeah? Where's all the steak where's all the what, where's all the steak, I'm so rich. There's no steak saying that the luxury life they were living was not very luxury compared to today's state, today's luxury. That's the question. That's the question is like, at what point do you feel like it would be worth not having the average life today? Right? Right? I mean, like, you know, we've stayed at some really nice hotels before, and it would be nice to be very, very wealthy. Well duh, yeah, yeah, there's always you can be the wealthiest person anytime and have a better life than what most people are living at that time. But I do agree that I don't know. I think I think if you go before easily, I think easily you go before eighteen fifty and you're the richest person in the world, your life today as an average person is better than the richest person in eighteen fifty and behind. That's interesting. Yes, I would, I would say yeah, because there's no air conditioning, and then there's less fear even as the richest person. Yes, And so I was going to say indoor plumbing, all that stuff, it's actually just general security. Yeah, Because again what I've said is that before is if you are the richest person, people are coming. Everyone's trying to kill you, even your own family, right. Yeah, and like, uh, rich people used to just have piles of gold and they could just come to your house and they can kill you. And literally they can't take my offshore accounts. Yeah for many people who can do that as Sweden. Uh. Anyways, you got to talk about this. That's why I don't ride the matterhorn ride at Disney Money. Dude, Oh you're friend. Yeah yeah, I thought, okay, that makes more sense for my money. In the early days of this show, we did like affiliate ads where we were like, hey, sign up for grammarly and use code tilling, and we got like fifteen cents. And now we just do Patreon. It's a much better way. It's better for us as creators, it's better for you as listeners, and it's a much more fun way for us to interact. We do monthly hangouts like on Zoom. We just hang out and play games online and uh and get know each other. It's a really fun time. So, but do you still use our code tilling at grammarly dot com because I think it's still we might get like a couple of cents from that, But join us on Patrion because we're having a great time. If you don't, we're gonna have to start doing mobile game ads. Okay, So Larsen, Michael Larson, Paul Michael Larson sometimes goes by, normally goes by Michael Larson. He he was a guy who he was here's the thing. Born in Lebanon, Ohio. That's how we got here. Cow. Sorry, So he was a guy who had his life gone a little different, we would look back on the story I'm about to tell you and say, wow, he was a mogul from the start, but because of the way his life went, you're gonna be like, he kind of sucked from the start. Interesting. So at an early age, he always was running in to just different opportunities to try to make a buck. And so for example, when he was a kid, he would buy candy bars and mark him up an extra dollar and sell it to all the kids in his neighborhood. And he was an entrepreneur. He was the entrepreneur. That's what I'm saying is, had his life turned out a little different, people would be like he was always destined to be a successful person, but because his life turned out the way it turned out, everyone's like he was always destined to be a trash back. We'll find out where I end up. We still got a lot of time. So he graduates high school, goes through his life in the eighties. He's working by day, he's repairing AC units and on the weekends. On the weekends, he's an ice cream truck driver, and he spends all of his free time in his living room doing his favorite passage. I talked about my ice cream truck driver on here before might talked about and they drove my ice cream drunk. I'm pretty sure because I'm pretty sure I told this story about my parents. Ice cream truck driver. Oh yeah, he would pull people over and stuff. That's right, Yeah, what was your I didn't have a thumb. Oh that's right, it was Mario. Yeah, yeah. And he would have a different story about how he lost his thumb every time, every time he brought it up, because he didn't remember. You're a kid, you bring it up, your kid, You go, Mario, Mario, your thumb. I put it in. One day, I would be at my house and he hit he hit my neighborhood in the morning, and then we would go to Grandma's house. That afternoon and he would have made it across town. Yeah, and you'd be like, I could go see Marios and he'd ask him about the thumb the second time, the same thing, different story, terrifying song. Sure. So he would spend the rest of his time doing his favorite past time, which was a little insane. This is the eighties, okay. Okay, TV's are not what we think they are today. Picture of TV today. They're super flat and yeah, like thousand and four give game and towards it, they were huge. You went to like a friend's basement and they had that massive TV and the speaker was as big as the screen below it. Yeah, why and you turn it to one hundred, it's still quieter than our to the speaker watching insane. Yeah. So, uh, he doesn't have those. He's got like eighties tube TVs, right, sure, but he's got a wall of fifteen of them stacked on top of each other in his living room. And what he would do in his free time. He had fifteen tube TVs, five three rows of five, and he stacked him up on top of each other. So he had fifteen TVs. Okay, And he'd get home from his shift of ice cream diving. You go on a date and he's like, let me cook your dinner in my house. And so you, as a woman, walk into that living room. Do you a what? I think? Wow, this guy's a psychopath. Last that you would stay, you know, like, how long until you go? I'm out of here. I'm out of here. So what he would do is he would come home from a shift of ice cream trucking. Ice wrote, ice cream truckers. You a TV? Yeah, I got a couple. Wait a minute, I got some, And then he made his way to Richmond, Virginia. So he he'd come home from his ice cream truck shift, turn on all fifteen TVs. This is him, you turn all fifteen TVs. I'm with you. And he turned on all the fifteen TVs to different game shows, and he would watch all fifteen and he would study them for strategies that he could easily exploit. And you just sit there and watch, and then one day he found his victim. Press your luck. There's a game show in the eighties, and the concept of the game show, like many other game shows, that started with trivia, and there would be there would be a series of trivia questions and each trivia question you got right, you would earn three spins on the press your luck board that would come and face be of the game. Okay, and so you and the contestants, so you got to know the trivia, Yeah, you and the contestant would answer trivia questions and then all of you would earn your spins for your right answers at least three if you won, or I guess at least zero. But if you got at least one question right, you'd have to spins. To be clear, though, before we get to this, he's spending his evenings. He's an ice cream truck driver. Yeah, who's then going home? It's dark, Yeah, you know the TV glow scene. He's just sitting there, probably a pint of ice cream and just you're not exaggerating it up. He's watching fifteen tube TVs. So his head is on a swivel. He's doing have you seen the the what's that lifeguarding technique called have you seen that where people think of people think they're robots, dude, where they're doing the whole like it's the craziest thing in the world. The way they're moving their head. They look like birds. Birds are lifeguards. So and then so you'd answer all your questions, every one you got right. You get three spins on the board and the board looks like this, and what would happen is the board would spin and they would light up, but you don't see like it doesn't show you what each of those categories are before you hit them. They just have the icon on it. So this is a flipped board. It shows you everything on the board. Oh okay, cooky. But so then it lights up and you have a button and when you push the button, it stops. It's a spinner and whatever you land on is your prize. And so there's a lot of cash prizes fifteen hundred, five hundred dollars, and then there are like go back two spaces, so you get whatever was two spaces before. There's trips. There is often like cars or appliances. Yeah, I was like Australia, there, Jamaica. And then there's these little demons. Yeah, and they call that the whammy and this is the whammy. And what Whammy did is Whammy took all of your money. And so some of the whammies looked different, they all had different animations. But whenever you got the Whammy, he would show up on screen like this and whammy all your cash. Well, however much you won, he took all of your prizes away. Okay, little mister whammy. They're like little bowling animations kind of Yeah. Everyone looks so sad. Yeah, because you because you you lost it all. At any point you could hit a wammy and lose everything you've got before. Sure. And so he's watching this this game, and he's pretty good at trivia. He watches a lot of game shows fifteen a night to be precise. Uh, and so he's pretty good at trivia. He knows a lot of trivia. It's like, I feel pretty confident I can get fifteen different channels happening. I don't know if there are different channels. I think he had VCRs and he was recording programs and thank you for counting in your head to make sure you do all fifteen. It's pretty annoying. Stop stop stop. I didn't rewind him. I didn't rewind that one. You got fast forward to the commercials. So he he want he studies this game and he's like, he's like, I'm pretty good at trivia. I think I can get every question right and get a lot of spins. He's that the question is how good can I spin? So he's watching these this thing go around, and everybody believed that where these prices ended up was random, and but he realizes there was five patterns of where they would place different prizes, and they would alternate throughout the game. And so if then when the game starts, he could pick up what pattern he was on and know exactly what square does stop on to get the highest price. And so he basically figured out that in any given pattern, square four and square eight were always large cash prizes. Okay, so he said, if I can land on square four or land on square eight, then I win. He also identified where the whammis always land and so he knows exactly where the wammies always are. He knows what to avoid, and he says the only the hardest thing is getting used to the rate to hit that button, to figure out the timing of that button. But he really believes, He's like, he's like, I know where this is going to be. I think I can do good at this. And so he spends his entire savings to get a bus ticket from Lebanon, Ohio. His whole savings was worth a bus let's just start there. First of all, it's not any bus tickets. A bus ticket from Ohio to Burbank. So, I don't know, this is the eighties. Fifty bucks, I don't know. I don't know how much it costs to ride a bus and how much it costs a fly. Yeah in the eighties though. Anyway, So he rides this bus from Lebanon, Ohio thirty eight thousand dollars. I said, because their price, GOUG is get back to Kansas City. They know that this podcast exists, and they're like, oh man, they're filming the next big thing. So support is on page. They're ten years into filming the next bab. So he gets out there, and he had two issues once he got to town. Okay, one, he didn't have any clothes that were television ready appropriate. I don't know, the chest cut out you worry about. You had to buy a suit. Yeah, so he had to buy a suit, but he didn't have a lot of money. Everyone in the eighties wore suits on game shows. Yeah, you had to look nice. And so he went to thrist store in Los Angeles and he managed to get a dress shirt for sixty five cents, which is equivalent to a dollar ninety one and twenty twenty three, So inflation didn't hit the thrust store's shirt market very hard. Sure, and so he gets out dress shirt and now he has to get on the show, Like that's the thing. You don't just show up and they're like, yeah, welcome, you be on the show. You have to ear in it. And so so he shows up. You gonna sing for three judges and get a gold ticket? What are you talking about, mayor? I'm going to press your luck. Let's see what you got. Let's see what you're made of. Oh, put some pants on that horse, and I will not taller rate the newded iceo here in all the USA. Oh pants, And they're like, all right, go ahead, Like I didn't know you were part of the society. You should have said something else. You could be on my Oh no, they're saluted. Oh oh, so he uh he shows up to the like auditions, and the auditions were basically are you a personality? Yeah? Yeah, I mean they're kind of aren't are you personally? But it was more of like what's your story? Can we craft your story? And so he tells them I'm an ice cream truck driver from all I I spent the last of my money getting to LA and buying this shirt. And they were like, it's a great story, back of the SOB story we need, And so they put him on the show. People needn't know how poor you are? Is that okay for us as hell? So they put him on the show and they tell his story. Here he is in his sixty five cent shirt. Yeah, how old is he in this the time he's doing this? I you know, that's an interesting question. I think he would have been in his early thirties. That's what I was. That's what Google What year he's born? He was born in forty ninety nine. What year is this? This is eighty three November, thirty four years old. Just so people can know we're prety, we're thirty. This man is thirty thirty four years old. Dang, the next forty years are going to be rough, bro, If anything like your last Yeah, this is what you look like at thirty four, if you spend every night watching fifteen TVs and eating a PI device like a thirty four. If I didn't, I didn't look like he mentally abused in a relationship ten years ago. So see, bullying is good I got emotionally abused into losing a hundred pounds. I'm very happy on my marriage now. Oh my gosh, that's incredible. So the way this game worked, it was kind of like Jeopardy. There was always two new contestants in the returning Champion, and so he's in the middle. He's standing in the middle, and to his left is the returning Champion. Ed Long, who lives in California, got an advantage to have to drive very long. He's a Baptist minister. On his left is Janny Lee tres This is her first appearance. She's a dental assistant. This is her first time and the first question and has been on before. Ed's been on. Yeah, he's the reigning champion. And to put it in perspective, like Jeopardy, where you can get you if you win, you go on to the next game over there kind of perpetually until you lose. And to put it in perspective before we get too far into this, the average winner on this show walked away with about fourteen thousand dollars in prizes between cash and like, appliances and travel, about fourteen thousand dollars value, which adjusted for inflation today is about forty grand today, so like a pretty big like sizable winning on average on this show. And so in this first question round he gets a question correct, so he gets three spins. And so this is his first time out. He's trying to learn the rate, and he knows right off the bat. He says, I need to avoid square seventeen, and I think it was square two because he knows that in this round with the pattern, those are going to be the the whammys. Well, he nails square seventeen, gets the whammy first round, and this this is his actual genuine reaction to that they're pulling a fast one up. But I know this route better than I know my ice cream truck route, and I know that they're playing a little game. They're playing a little gamy with me. I bought this shirt sixty five cents. Uh, so we're not going to get anything past this thirty four years of experience. So luckily his first spin was a whammy, and so he didn't lose anything. He just lost the spin. But he's frustrated about it, but he knew now he's like, he's like, okay, I think I got an idea of like the touch and so he hits his second two spins. His second spin he lands on square four and then his or no, he lands on the square for the next two spins, which get him a total twenty five hundred dollars equivalent to seventy three hundred and today today. Sure, and so a pretty decent first round. Out second round he does a lot better than the trivia and he lands himself seven initial spins. It's a good a good round. And so he started in last place on this round because he had that whammy. So the other two people are ahead of him coming into this this next round, and at twenty five hundred, he's in last place. They're ahead of him. He comes into this second round with seven spins. And here's the way the game works. There's also certain on the second places. One spin, Yeah, where you get cash, you also get another spin, right, And so he knows those are like like we talked about before, hit those four and eight you can get not only cash, but you also get spins. Sure, And so he goes and he gets seven spins, and throughout the course of those seven spins, he gets fifteen additional spins. Okay, so he's now at a point where he's got twenty five spins so far on the game, and uh, he's landing. The video of him doing this, by the way, I've seen the video is pretty fun to watch because he collaps like a psychopath. He hits it and he goes, yeah he does. He does thirty four and has nothing else to live for. Yeah, this is this is it. Remember, this is this is what thirty looks like years old. Okay, So he's going and he's nailing these spins. If you're listening to this, by the way, and you're thirty four, he looks like you up until uh uh spins sixteen sixteenth spin. He's a little all over the place. He hasn't quite dialed it, and so he's hitting four and eight a lot. But he also manages to hit six once, which got him twenty two hundred dollars, So that was a decent one. He hit seven twice, and through those two seven number seven boards he got twenty six hundred. He hit seventeen that first time was a whammy, but in the second round, seventeen is no longer a whammy, and so's two. He hit two more times and ends up getting thirty three hundred. Dollars from the whammys and so by six spin six seventeen from seventeen yeah, and then at spin sixteen he then goes on a run of twenty nine additional spins, and on those twenty nine additional spins, the only two numbers he hits his four and eight, which are the two highest number. Like prizes, you can think the producers are watching, they are losing their mind. They are in the they are in the truck and they are yelling at their like, hey, hey, kill him, pull the gun. This is why we have the gun on set, going out and shoot him right now. That is for this shoot dis man. There's an assassin on set. Oh no, people are fainting. Everyone's getting out here. Great television. And so he goes on this run and he essentially gets the point where he spends forty five times, and at this point they're not letting him on the next That's what I'm saying. They're not like, you know what you won? Yeah, you get to come back tomorrow. Hey, if you're enjoying this episode, a great way you can help us out as by sharing it. Send it to your friends. Click that share link, send them the link and say Hey, this is a little show that I watched sometimes, and I think you might like to watch sometimes and your friends will say this is weird, but it's okay. There'll eventually start laughing at it. I think maybe it depends what kind of friends you have. If you have someone, I hope you do, this is a great way to help. He's at this point obliterating his opponents, like literating his opponents. So at this point, here's where he's at. This is right before his sin, this is right after spin forty five he hits it. And this is the totals of the game. One hundred and two thousand. Yeah, and so which is how much today, adjusted for inflation today, that one hundred and two thousand is equivalent to three hundred and one thousand, six hundred and thirty five dollars in today's cash. And so to his left Ed has four thousand and eighty and to his right, Janas has forty six hundred, and he has one hundred and two thousand. And if you're listening, this picture, this picture is perfetible. Ed is Ed thinks hilarious. Ed is like laughing in his face. He's a little annoyed. Janice is is fury is so angry, so mad, because I want you to think, for a second, we're in this game show. We did a round of questions. We did a round where everyone got five or six spins, and now we did a round a question standing there and then you just stood there and watched this guy spind forty five times and he just keeps getting more spins. Uh. And so after this round he wins, he wins it. He's celebrating the hands out like this, and how does it end? I mean, if you're hitting over and over, the idea is that you don't. That's the idea is eventually you run out of spins, is the rules of the game. But it's like, you keep going until you run out of spins. And so I'm saying, how did he run out of spins? Well, here's what happened. So he gets to this forty he spins forty five spins, and he in an interview afterwards, he says, I remember that moment. I was just so drained and I realized I forgot where the whammys were. And he's like, I'm looking at the board and he's like, I don't know where the whammys are and so there was an option in the game where you could pass your spins along if you didn't want to risk anymore because because because for a normal player who doesn't know where the wammis are, you at any time are risking that you're going to hit a raammy, and so you could pass it along. And so he says, I figured I would pass my spins over to the other boarder players, and so they both got his remaining spins, and so each of them get the remaining Edlong's first spin hits a whammy, back to zero. Janie gets a couple spins, and so it bounces to Janis. Now Janis has a couple spins, up hits a couple, and then on the last spin that she inherited from him, she hits a whimmy. Both of them walked away with a zero, and he walked away with one hundred and two thousand dollars adjusted for three hundred and one thousand dollars in today's cash. So you know, the producers are like, he's done, He's done. You're exactly right. The producers are losing their mind. They like, the network heard about this, and the network's now on the phone. They heard about it. Yeah, the networks on the phone with the producers and they're like trying to figure out. They're like looking through the rules, they're like, how can we make it to where we don't have to give this guy with killing and so they makeus we don't have to pay him, Yeah, because they don't want to give him that much money because that's a lot of money for the show. That's a lot. That's the way of a higher budget for the season. Yeah, that's it. I mean that is basically eight shows worth of eight episodes worth of prizes that they did in one day. And so they spent a long time looking over the footage, looking over the rules to try to figure out, well, there's nothing he did technically wrong. What they started to figure out is they saw that he hit four and eight over and over again, and they were like, there's no way someone knew. Yeah, but that's on them for not making it actually random in court. I don't think that holds up. So they knew they said something's up because he could just keeps hitting four and eight. He knows to hit sequence. But that's still on you, like something's up. So they watched, they watched this religiously. They went to his house. They put the tape on his fifteen TVs and they stood there watching all fifty They said, thanks for having all these fifty TVs, thanks for having us over. We've got fifteen tapes we want to show you, and it's just uh. So they watched the tape over and over, and what they realize is that he squence. Well, what they realize is that there he was reacting a split second early, so before he would know he was reacting, and so that he knows what's coming up because he's reacting before we reveal what's happening, figured out the sequence. Yeah, And so they tried to use that to not pay him, but they went to the legal department, and the legal department was like, that doesn't that's not cheating, that's not he's not there's nothing in the rules that says you can't learn the order that the thing goes. And so you still are like, you still have to pay him, right, And so he ends up getting paid. He owes thirty thousand in taxes on this on these winnings, but still walks away with seventy grand in the nineteen eighties, and so he goes on from there, moves back to Ohio. He invests half of it in a real estate venture that turns out to be a Ponzi scheme, loses all of that and then Bitcoin, and then he learns on the radio that there was a the Sweet Stakes that the radio station was doing where every day they were going to read out a dollar bill the serial number on a dollar bill. If your dollar bill matched, then they were going to give away half a million dollars thirty. He took all of his cash out of the bank. Yeah, he took all the cash out of his bank and left it in his house and would check those every morning on a serial number. And someone found out about it and robbed him and took all the cash. Uh. The theory because you can't have your tangible money. That's wild that we say, yeah, I know, I can't have your tangible money in your in your house thirty thousand cash and the leading theory it's never been like actually connected, but the leading theory. He was dating a girl at the time, they were actually living together, and they went out for a date. The money went missing. A week later, she breaks up and never see sure. So everyone's like, yeah, she's still have fifteen TVs and thirty thousand dollars in your bathtub every day he's in the bathtub, like looking at all the serial numbers. This is That's the stupidest thing I've ever like, that's so dumb. Yeah, like just you have thirty thirds, Like this is what I'm saying. Okay, here's what I'm saying. If I had thirty thousand dollars, Yes, we could turn that into more money. Yes, okay, yes could We're not dumb. Yes. The fact that you would pull it out in cash and try to win a sweepstakes, yeah, it's just like yeah, okay, yeah, it's pretty crazy. Uh So from there stresses me out. What are you doing? Just buy don't don't get a robin Hood account, don't try to buy a hot stock. Just put some of it in a high yield savings accounts so you have access to it and then put the rest in some index funds and grow it. And like, could you look up if you invested thirty thousand dollars in nineteen eighty five, how much that would be worth now you were in type A little harder? Thank you. Let's see if this is actually gonna calculate. Okay, cool? Are you on how many seven thirty sevens dot com. So thirty thousand invested in nineteen eighty five. If you put it in MA S and P and just let it sit in the SMP, it's worth two point one today two point one dollars. That's pretty crazy. No, but that's what I'm saying. It is just like, oh, it's hey. I don't know if it's the unnamed energy drink that refuses to sponsor me or the stress of the situation, but it's given me heart palpitations, that's for sure. So after that, after he lost his money, yeah, he became a job, or he became a job. He started working at Walmart and climbed the ranks to assistant manager. I worked there for a few years and then imagine losing Oh my gosh. Anyway, and then he got into a really exciting new business and he actually got to the point where he had fourteen thousands. I like portfolios with the dollar bill. How are you reading the serial numbers? You got him like a Pokemon card. He's got like a freaking finder just want to say, a freeing binder. He's like, okay, let's see. Uh came imagine reading thirty thousand serial numbers every day. That's crazy. I don't think he did. They had to be like because he got them all one time. They're like, you know, sequence like so he has like duct tape on it that's written like, well, I didn't even know what a serial and I'm around a dollar bill is? Do you have a dollar bill? I haven't looked at a dollar bill since I was twelve. I haven't. I haven't had many cash and years. I got them all my offshore accounts an Apple page. So he gets into uh, he gets into a new business and so this is like uh ninety the early nineties, early nineties. He gets into a new business while he's the assistant manager at Walmart, and he ends up selling all of his shares in this business, which was an mlmuh and he sold out one point eight million dollars of his shares in this MLM and he pulled it all out cash. He has heard as she heard about this seemstakes. Now he joined an MLM. He joined an MLM, and he actually had shares. Yeah, he made one point eight out of this one point eight million dollars out of the MLM was adjusted for inflation, it's three point six million today, I don't know what MLM it was actually, but it was enough for the FBI, the IRS, the Security and Exchange Commission all to say, excuse me, what CA And so they charged him with fraud uh and UH stealing. Okay, because because he scammed fourteen thousand investors to get into this MLM. I don't know if he came up with it or if it was a big name MLM. There's fourteen thousand people who got in on it, and he cashed out one point eight million dollars from it something. How do you cash out shares of an MLM. That's where I'm saying. I don't know what his involvement was in the CMLM. I just know that the FBI was like, you may one point eight million dollars doing something illegal, and so they came after him and he ran to a Popka, Florida, where he hit out for forty years and they did not find him. He ended up dying there in ninety years. Yeah, he spent four years in Apopka, Florida, with basically two million dollars. He died in ninety nine. He died in ninety nineties. Yeah, he died of throat cancer in ninety nine and there was an interview where there was an article that was put out about him in twenty eleven kind of telling his story, and they said his impressive performance on Press Your Luck may be one of the only honest days of work that Michael RS had ever did. So, yeah, he had I read my eulogy this morning. I did you know the thing that Yeah, yeah, the journal and I didn't I didn't put it in there about the MLM you're gonna do. Yeah, I hope that I live a life that at my funeral people aren't like, yeah, I mean the podcast was the only real thing he did real on his day of work he ever did. Yeah, but who knows, we got so much time to figure out who has so much time left to fraud artists to get scammy? So yeah, so he he had this this really high moment in the eighties, winning Pressure Luck. Yeah, they ended up having to release that episode in two parts. Was too long for a single episode, and they actually they after they aired that episode, they went to the network and they said, never rerun that, never rerun that. That's the only time that will ever air, And they actually negotiated when that went on to streaming services and stuff like that years later, and when that went to like TV Land, any other network, it was part of the contract, you cannot play this episode. This episode is not included in this package. Didn't want anyone to know that it was possible, and so they actually reworked the board after that. They made it signal sgnificantly harder, like there was now instead of five patterns, there's like forty, and so it's much significantly harder to pick up on the pattern and the patterns were a little bit more randomized, but not more randomized. And he actually called the game show and I'm he called the Game show years later and he said, hey, he's like, I figured it out. Yeah, that's what he said. He said, he said, bring your champion. He said, let's do a tournament of champions. It's me Michael Larson. And like you hear like coffee cups drop in TV Land and they go, they've got it on speaker, they got his picture on the every phone's on TV and they're like, Michael Zychael. I haven't heard that name. They're all they're all thirty eight, So they sound like that. I haven't heard that name years because because they're angent yeah. Yeah. That's another thing about being rich though in nineteen oh two is that if you get sick, you got your dead. Mean, I think medicine is also pretty new, a pretty big factory in what Yeah, that's your point anyway, maybe we should figure out what years the best to be the richest. Anyway, But yes, so he called back and he was like, He's like, let's do a tournament of champions. You get your best best ever to play this game, and I'll play them. I'll beat them. I can learn your I learned your your your patterns. I can still win. And they're like, no, thank you, we don't we don't want to see it. We don't trust that. We don't believe you. And so they, I mean, they do believe you. That's why in two thousand and five the show wasn't running anymore. But in two thousand and five CBS did a special broadcast where they recreated the set and they brought on two of the best people that ever played the game. And two thousand and five, he had been dead for six years. They brought his brother showed up. They were like, what he's like the over exaggerated. They walk up, they walk up the two champions are like two of the best people that ever played. And then lastly our final guest, and then it was the undertaker of the he'd been buried in the cell and that's because the Sorry but no, they got his brother. They had his brother come and be him, but he wasn't as good. He wasn't anywhere near. Yeah, his brother lost contact with him decades ago because he got in all the scam stuff and his brother's family. I came into thirty thousand dollars and I turned that into two point eight million dollars. Oh I did was invest in SMP. Turns out that's all you needed to do. That all you need to do is put your money somewhere and forget about it. But not in your house. Don't don't forget it in your house unless you tell me about it. So that's a story of Michael Larson and how he he He had that was the biggest single winning on a game show in game show history and was a record until the late nineties when it was broken by someone on prices right, and then a few years later someone broke down on the prices right again, but adjusted for inflation, it's still far more because in the late nineties. I think the winning was like one hundred and forty thousand, and then then one after that was like one hundred and seventy thousand. But both of those, because there's so much more recent you adjusted for inflation, is not even close. Sure, he by far in terms of like actual buying power of his winnings is still It's pretty wild to me that Big Brother in the past couple of years was like, now it's seven hundred and fifty thousands, Just jump to a million, just take it all away twenty twenty four to go there, Yeah, jump to a million. Yeah. So, but also, let me be clearer for casting. I would do it if there was no money involved. Yeah, just so you guys, I would do it if you took seven hundred thousand dollars from me. Hey, seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars to play Big Brother. Do you understand? Do you understand? I just I love the idea. I learned your patterns. I know that I love the idea of you getting on Big Brother and winning, and I paid the plan finale night, I go to I gotta put this in the ATM right now before the recess. On finale night, the producers are sign that clip and they roll that clip and finale I'm coming after and they're like, this is legally said. You said, you said you'd pay. That's something those producers would do. They're vicious. They they're so and that's why I want to do It's so bad. I love them. So I I watch Big Brother for the producers. Yeah, starts in next. It's got to be starting soon. It's the seventeenth. Really, I haven't heard anything about it. It starts in like that's exciting, I mean not from now. It is probably middle You can join our discoord. We have a we have a channel where we talking about Big Brother. But anyway, Yeah, I love toilers and real stuff. So I love real life. I'm such a fair it's so high on real I love real life anyway. Yeah, so that's Michael Larson Paul. Michael Larson was the biggest winner and maybe the biggest so shout out to him. Hey, thanks for checking out this episode. If you liked it, you might like Stephan Mendel. It's an episode we did a couple of years ago about a guy who figured out the math to lotteries and just one over and over again. It is a wild story. You got to check that out. And if you want to see next week's episode right now, you can do that by becoming a Patreon supporter, and you can do that at tillin dot com slash support, or just become a subscriber and then you can see every episode as soon as they come out. We have so many past episodes. You can dive down the deep dive. 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