Aahana Swrup
Directed by Samir Oliveros, ‘The Luckiest Man in America’ is a biographical comedy film that is based on the real-life story of Michael Larson and his winning streak on ‘Push Your Luck.’ In the story, the protagonist manages to secure his position as a contestant on the television game show where one button holds the power to change the presser’s life. Initially, the showrunners and executives are expecting an ordinary day of filming where the odds of one in six will determine the fates of the contestants, Michael, Ed, and Janie. Nonetheless, to their surprise and horror, the first contestant makes incredible progress, securing win after win at the randomized spin on the Big Board. Naturally, this compels the people behind the camera to believe Michael must be cheating at the game one way or another. Consequently, as he continues to gamble with his winnings, which only get more lucrative with each turn, Bill Carruthers and his team scramble behind the scenes to unveil the lucky player’s secret. SPOILERS AHEAD!
Michael Larson Had Cracked the Code Behind the Big Boards
In the film, the “Press Your Luck” game show operates within much the same parameters as the real-life game show of the same name. Three contestants enter a trivia round where they earn points through fast and correct answers. In accordance with their points, they receive a number of spins that they carry forward to the next section of the game, which involves the Big Boards. This board is made up of 18 spaces, most of which include cash, additional spins, and other prizes. However, a few of the spaces are “Whammys,” characterized by the show’s eponymous mascot. As the spin begins, a light flashes through the board in random patterns, and the player has to press their button to bring the light to a stop. Depending on the spot on the board, the player accumulates their winning over the course of the spins. However, if they land on the Whammy option, their total winning are reset to a net zero.
After one spin, the contestant can choose to pass their spin to another player in an attempt to ensure their own winnings are safe from a Whammy. Ultimately, there’s a one-in-six chance of the player landing a Whammy, making it impossible for one to accumulate too many winnings. Nonetheless, Michael seems to have no trouble with it. Although he stumbles in the first round and lands on a Whammy on his first try, he becomes a man possessed with luck in the second round. Each one of his consecutive spins seems to rake in more cash prizes and additional spins, making the man virtually unstoppable. Thus, before the showrunners and executives knew it, he had nearly six figures in cash rewards. This odds-defying run makes one thing clear: Michael isn’t playing the odds. Instead, he’s playing the game that none of the other contestants have noticed before.
As it turns out, the “randomized spin pattern” that determines the player’s fate on the Big Board is actually just a set of five patterns. This means that the quick lights bouncing across the 18-tile board move in five pre-determined patterns. In the lead-up to his appearance on the show, Michael has tirelessly studied these patterns by recording old episodes on VCRs and watching them again and again for practice. His first attempt at the spin is a bust because he is still getting used to the pacing and the timing of the light patterns. Nonetheless, once he calibrates for the same, he’s able to recognize each pattern as it comes and identify the most optimal time to press the button and collect cash and additional spins. This allows him to continue going on a consecutive streak of around 40 spins back to back, winning more than $100,000.
Michael Larson Technically Never Cheated
Initially, when Michael’s winning streak begins, Bill and the others in the control room and the producer chairs are rattled at the unexpected turn of events. After multiple episodes, they have never seen such a performance by any contestant who has managed to go so many consecutive Big Board spins without ending up on a Whammy. As a result, Michael poses an unexpected threat to the format of the game. Simply put, Bill, the creator, never planned for the possibility that someone might take home more than $100,000 from a single episode. For the same reason, he’s desperate to uncover some sort of unethical ploy that could prove the former ice-cream truck driver is a fraud.
This results in many privacy invasion tactics, wherein Bill forces the producer Chuck to investigate Michael and figure out the truth behind his success. Eventually, once the producer finds the contestant’s overwhelming tape collection of ‘Press Your Luck’, everything begins to fall into place. Bill realizes that he has managed to crack the five-pattern code that drives the entire game. As such, instead of relying on sheer luck, he was actually playing a game of skill, based on recognizing the patterns as they came up. The fact that the board only operated on five patterns itself was a holdover from the show’s pilot episode, wherein a limited budget forced Bill to make do with limited patterns. As time went on, negligence made this pattern a permanent fixture, opening up a flaw. Michael exploits this same flow, but doing so isn’t actually cheating. The player has simply managed to identify the game’s mechanics and has built his skills to succeed within that system.
Press Your Luck Rewarded Michael Larson with His Lucrative Winnings
In the film, executive Bill and his team discover the mechanics behind Michael Larson’s success as it unfolds during the time of the episode’s filming. Along the way, they throw many curveballs at the contestant to shake him off his solid ground in an attempt to orchestrate his loss. Nonetheless, these instances are a work of fiction. In real life, things unraveled much differently. For one, the producers and the executives never resorted to underhanded tricks to throw Larson off his winning streak. At most, the host, Peter Tomarken, made remarks encouraging the contestant to bow out while he was ahead. Yet, the real-life executives at CBS did suspect and accuse the contestant of cheating.
An investigation was launched in the aftermath of the episode’s filming, wherein the network examined the course of Larson’s winning streak to determine if he had in any way cheated. Nonetheless, in the end, they came to the conclusion that no foul play had been employed. As per iHeart Radio, a CBS executive, Bobby Boden, spoke about the incident and said, “He (Michael Larson) fit every criteria. He had not broken any rules of the game, he had played fairly, and he was an eligible contestant. We paid him his money. He was simply smarter than CBS.” In the end, Larson received a total of $110,237 in winnings. $104,950 of it was in cash, while the rest included a sailboat, and all-expenses-paid trips to the Bahamas and Kauai, Hawaii.
Read More: Michael Larson: How Did the Press Your Luck Contestant Die?
