Press your luck was an American television day-time show where contestants collected spins for answering trivia questions. These spins could then be used in a 18-space full of cash and prizes. The format of the game allowed for extra spins, double your money, big bucks and other variations. It also featured a "lose all your money" feature popularly called a Whammy (which everyone tried to avoid, obviously).
All was going fine, till a man named Michael Larson came over to the CBS studios in 1984. This self-described unemployed ice cream truck driver made quite an impression ... he played 45 consecutive times without hitting a second Whammy. In less than an hour, he earned a total of $110,237 in cash and prizes, a record for a single appearance on a daytime network game show up to that time. (the median for winners at shows was around $15,000 till then)
Luck? Nah !
Larson had watched the show at home and with the use of stop-motion on a VCR, he discovered that the presumed random patterns of the game board were not random, and was able to memorize the sequences to help him stop the board where and when he wanted.
The entire episode makes for an excellent read (here) ... and fun to watch (here)
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