“The VCR had pretty much just come out and he just figured it out. “When everything came out it made more sense,” says Dakin, who appeared several years later on an episode of “The Price Is Right” with Bob Barker (she didn’t win). When he died in 1999 from throat cancer, at the age of 49, he was being investigated for fraud by the SEC, FBI and IRS. In the years following “Press Your Luck” he lost most of his money in a succession of get-rich-quick schemes.

Ed and I talked afterward and we were like, ‘What just happened?’ Everyone was buzzing around and admitted pretty quickly afterward how he did it.”

“As it went on I was thinking, ‘Is this “Candid Camera” or something? There’s something wrong here, come on.’ I was just out to win money with little babies at home. What I do remember is that I answered all the questions correctly and got some good spins and I felt really good about it. It isn’t real.’ I won only one consolation prize. “ just knew the board and when it was happening we were like, ‘What the heck is going on?’ ” says Dakin. I was there to win.”Īfter flubbing his first spin - and landing on one of the show’s dreaded “Whammys,” which reset his score to zero - Larson was virtually unstoppable as Long and Dakin could only sit back and watch in amazement. “Here’s this guy who needed grooming and bought a sports coat at a thrift store on his way in. “You don’t know who you’re playing against and I thought I could beat this guy easily,” she says. ABCĭakin, reached by phone, recalled that fateful day. Larson’s victory was a big deal in an era when “The $25,000 Pyramid” was TV’s biggest cash prize his unprecedented win and unorthodox methodology inspired a 2003 Game Show Network documentary, “Big Bucks: The Press Your Luck Scandal,” which dissected his one and only game down to his eye movements and how he positioned both of his hands over the show’s buzzer to strike quickly - unlike his opponents Ed Long and Janie Litras Dakin, who used one hand.

That version last aired in 1986 but will forever be remembered in game-show annals for Larson, who subsequently revealed the secret to his astonishing victory: he’d spent the previous year studying “Press Your Luck” episodes on his VCR, memorizing the game board’s five cash-winning patterns.ĬBS thought about keeping his dough but, in the end, coughed it up - since Larson technically didn’t break any rules. James Holzhauer’s recent 33-game run on “Jeopardy!” has turned a focus back onto game shows, so the timing is fortuitous for “Press Your Luck,” hosted by Elizabeth Banks and airing in prime time (10 p.m.) unlike the CBS original, which aired in daytime with host Peter Tomarken. “ Press Your Luck” returns Tuesday night on ABC - 35 years after its infamous “scandal” when unemployed ice cream truck driver Michael Larson, wearing a thrift-store sports coat, won more than $110,000 in a seemingly random fashion.

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