The Shocking True Story Behind the Luckiest Man in America’s Game Show Win

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Films that are “based on a true story” often invent a lot of fun details to fit the standard structure of a compelling drama. The trick to a solid historical biopic is finding a story that’s unique and engaging enough to command attention without much imagination. War, crime, and conflict can make that easy, but people tend to expect narrative films to be a bit more bombastic than documentaries. Thankfully, IFC’s The Luckiest Man in America finds a heady mix of high-stakes scheming, astonishing fortune, and truly depressing reality.

IFC Films isn’t the first indie producer that comes to mind for most people, but it is one of the most prolific and fascinating. They have a strong claim to horror fame, but they’re just as strong in everything from drama to comedy to action. Their catalog contains countless massive successes and tremendous failures. The IFC logo might not promise much, but it often precedes some of the most unique, experimental, and unforgettable movies of the past few decades.

What game is The Luckiest Man in America playing?

Michael Larson, the film’s eponymous Luckiest Man in America, was a contestant in a 1984 round of the hit game show Press Your Luck. The show first aired the previous year, starting a relatively short run that ended in 1986. The game is a mix of trivia and random chance. Contestants answer questions to win opportunities to “spin” a massive board marked by a rotating selection of cash and prizes. It’s up to the player to stop the spin, giving them some agency in what would otherwise be a slot machine. Spaces on the board can also contain additional spins, changes in score, or the dreaded “Whammy,” a red mascot whose presence instantly deletes the unlucky contestant’s winnings. If a contestant lands on a Whammy space four times, they are eliminated from the game. The player who accumulates the most cash wins and leaves with their treasure. This is the unique competition that Larson turned into a massive scandal.

How did The Luckiest Man in America win Press Your Luck?

Director Samir Oliveros
Writer Maggie Briggs and Samir Oliveros
Starring Paul Walter Hauser, Walton Goggins, David Strathairn, Shamier Anderson, Maisie Williams, and Johnny Knoxville
Runtime 90 Minutes
Release Date April 4, 2025

Michael Larson was a lifelong con artist who spent the vast majority of his time looking for a way to get rich quick. By middle school, he bought and resold candy bars to his peers at an absurd markup. He defrauded banks out of thousands by repeatedly opening and closing accounts under false identities to take advantage of their new account rewards. He also pulled one over on the government by firing himself from a fake business to collect unemployment benefits. Larson had several run-ins with the law, including at least three arrests during his 20s and early 30s. He was no stranger to earning his living through honest means, holding down jobs as both an air conditioner repairman and an ice cream truck driver in the 1980s. It was in 1983 that Larson first watched Press Your Luck while scanning his absurd 12-screen TV setup for new get-rich-quick schemes. By 1984, he saw a golden opportunity in a tremendous failure of the show’s production crew.

Larson put his life on hold for weeks to study Press Your Luck. He quickly discovered that the game board’s movements weren’t random and that they followed one of five predetermined patterns. Larson picked out the safe spaces, which never seemed to feature the dreaded Whammy, and noticed that those two spots almost always featured excellent prizes and extra spins. He honed his pausing skills with a VCR until he was a master of a game he’d never played. Clearing out his savings, he flew from Ohio to Hollywood to sell himself to Press Your Luck‘s producers. Thanks to his sob story about being an unemployed superfan without the money to buy his daughter a birthday present, executive producer Bill Carruthers picked Larson for the show. The episode saw Larson win $110,237 in cash and prizes, all thanks to his understanding of the board’s unintended patterns. Though the network tried to sue Larson for cheating, the lifelong con artist won this competition fair and square. He kept his money and never returned to the show, mostly because he’d exceeded its return threshold.

What Happened to The Luckiest Man in America?

Michael Larson didn’t get to be the luckiest man in America for very long. Around $30,000 of his $110,000 went to taxes, while another considerable chunk went into a real estate Ponzi scheme. He did live up to his promise to the producers by purchasing a very expensive gift for his daughter’s birthday. Only a few months after his episode, Larson took out $50,000 in an attempt to win a radio contest by matching serial numbers on bills. He hid the 50,000 singles all over his home, allowing burglars to make off with almost half of his winnings without ever being caught. Larson kept working and scamming. Over a decade after his Press Your Luck victory, he left Ohio and his job at Walmart to flee the authorities after collecting the ill-gotten gains of his long-running multi-level marketing scheme. Unfortunately, Larson died of throat cancer in 1999 while hiding out in Florida.

The tale of Michael Larson is one of endless avarice. Though the people at CBS might have disagreed, Larson won Press Your Luck through a level of skill that most contestants simply couldn’t bring to the show. Unfortunately, satisfaction was not in his nature, leading him to consistently struggle for more. He could have lived out his final 15 years in the lap of luxury if he’d only settled for what he had. Luck had very little to do with The Luckiest Man in America.

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2025-03-18 16:49