Transcript
Michael Larson broke Press Your Luck - Game Shows Part II
The largest single-day haul in game show history. An Ohio conman exploits Press Your Luck so cleanly they're forced to admit it and hand him the cash. That's only the beginning of his strange, sad story.
This transcript was automatically generated and may contain errors. Edited transcripts replace generated versions when they are available.
00:00This is World's Greatest Con. I'm Brian Brushwood.
00:04I don't know for sure if this was my first one, but it was definitely an early one, and the one I remember the most.
00:13A moment of inspiration, a moment when I knew something that nobody else did.
00:18I was seven years old, going through the Houston Post, looking for the comic pages, and there was a single coupon for four free tokens at Chuck E. Cheese.
00:37Dude, I loved Chuck E.
00:40Cheese, and my friends loved Chuck E. Cheese.
00:43We all loved Chuck E. Cheese. We were seven.
00:48But this is about the coupon, a real coupon.
00:52None of this fake buy one, get one, none of this buy a pizza, get some tokens.
00:58Straight up, you cut out this coupon, and you got a dollar's worth of ecstasy.
01:03You got four games.
01:05You got to play Crazy Climber, Donkey Kong, Tail Gunner, and Asteroids.
01:10They were just giving them out, and then I realized I might be the only person on this street who cared about that.
01:19There was a lot of newspapers up and down this street.
01:23I didn't have the right words at the time, but now as an adult, I understand what I did was I formed a cabal of three co-conspirators, and up and down the streets of Greenwood Forest in North Houston, we stole every copy of the Houston Post we could get our hands on, and we were gods.
01:45Even when we got caught, my mom made us go back, ring doorbells, explain we had taken their newspaper, and asked if we could just keep the coupon.
01:57Even doing the wrong thing, we walked away rock stars.
02:00So if you're listening to this and you never got your morning edition of the Sunday Houston Post from 40 years ago, I may owe you a few bucks. You know what?
02:10I'll even pay it in Chuck E. Cheese tokens.
02:16As fun as spending those tokens was, it's the moment of inspiration that's the beginning of every great con story.
02:25The moment you realize something that the rest of the world hasn't seen yet.
02:30In the Bible of schemes, this moment is the book of Genesis.
02:35For example, you ever see one of those offers to open a bank account?
02:40Usually the bank gives you something to make sure that you bank with them.
02:44Maybe it's a higher interest rate, no withdrawal fees, or maybe they offer you money.
02:51Let's say $500 just to open an account.
02:56One day, a man in Ohio looked at one of those deals and put together that if you signed up for like 12 accounts and then waited the exact appropriate amount of time, when you withdrew, you would make a cool $6,000.
03:14That guy felt pretty smart, exhilarated even.
03:20I guess, but let's say you get 11 friends and you promise them a small cut.
03:26How is it anything other than taking advantage of a system that's a little loosey goosey that hasn't realized that somebody as smart as you exists?
03:35I mean, going forward, of course, they're going to correct it.
03:38They'll shore up their system.
03:39They'll be better for it.
03:41Someone has to learn that lesson.
03:43You just get to be the one to teach it to them.
03:48In the 1970s in Southwest Ohio, there was that someone at some bank and he did teach them that exact lesson.
03:59That man is Michael Larson.
04:04Michael is no longer with us, but I'm willing to bet that Michael was addicted to that moment.
04:14As a magician, I've had just enough of a taste of it that I truly believe he craved it.
04:19He sacrificed for it.
04:20He went all out to prove that those little epiphanies could turn into something powerful.
04:27And one time when that inspiration hit, he found something that was totally undeniable. Stop!
04:35Stop at $5,000 and a spin.
04:39Michael, you have over $70,000. Stop!
04:43$4,000 and a spin.
04:46Michael, you have rolled 31 times. Stop!
04:51$4,000 and a spin.
04:54Larson realized that one television game show was being lazy, just like that bank.
05:01He knew something they had yet to figure out.
05:04And by that same logic, he figures they're asking to give him money.
05:09They need him to correct their broken system.
05:12All he had to do was show up and take it. So he did.
05:17Put on a cheap suit, rehearsed a sob story, flew to Los Angeles.
05:21And amongst the bright teeth, wide collars, and chest hair of the TV industry, he won the biggest single-day haul in the history of television game shows.
05:32An all-time record that adjusted for inflation still stands to this very day.
05:39That one little schemer from Lebanon, Ohio, made fools of them all.
05:45He made the host of the show wonder if he was about to bankrupt the network.
05:50He landed half the executives of CBS in a conference room to study exactly how he was pulling this off.
05:57Now, while the money's crazy here, this isn't a story about money.
06:01This is a story of that moment.
06:04That moment of realization.
06:06Because unfortunately, once you've proven to yourself that you can pull this off, you can't help but try and do it again. And again.
06:16And again and again.
06:18And the more you press your luck, the more you are guaranteed to eventually get the whammy.
06:24It's also a story of addiction, because I guarantee you that even through everything he goes through in this story, the glory, humiliation, a run from federal law enforcement, you know he's thinking one thing.
06:39I can do this again.
06:43Cons don't fool us because we're stupid.
06:48They fool us because we're human.
06:52And this man, Michael Larson, might just be the world's greatest con.
08:37Michael Larson is a very smart man.
08:58He's got these wild eyes, this irresistible smile.
09:02He's the guy you meet at a bar after the third beer, and you become convinced that the two of you are best friends.
09:09I'm increasingly uncomfortable with how familiar this character sounds.
09:13But the difference is, Michael Larson, no matter how charming he is, is a con artist.
09:21He's arrested three times between 1969 and 1982 by the Lebanon and Dayton Police Departments for receiving and concealing stolen property.
09:31Larceny by trick and petty theft.
09:33He went to college, yeah?
09:35Turns out it wasn't for him.
09:38When he saw college, he saw a bunch of people really excited to sit around and wait for things.
09:45The kind of suckers that Michael was born to teach lessons to.
09:48Now, of course, being smart alone doesn't pay the bills.
09:53Well, actually, one time it did.
09:55Michael registered a business under a family member's name, hired himself as an employee, then fired himself to collect unemployment.
10:02Still, he eventually does some honest work.
10:05He gets a certification, an air conditioner repair.
10:08Works as a repairman while also driving an ice cream truck in the summer.
10:14Michael is constantly scanning everything he can find for that angle, that moment, that gap, that trick.
10:21He reads the newspapers, he listens to the radio.
10:25And in the early 80s, he begins to become convinced that the next moment of realization is going to come by watching television.
10:34So he just parks his ass in front of the tube, starts watching TV, right? Sure.
10:41I mean, at first.
10:43He's not covering enough ground, is he?
10:47So he adds another TV next to it.
10:51Then another one stacked on top of those.
10:56Then another and another.
11:00Ten televisions all on one wall.
11:11The heat from the fans are melting the wallpaper behind them.
11:18And the whole time he's thinking, it's got to be here somewhere, somewhere on TV.
11:25Welcome to Press Your Luck, the one game where there's virtually no limit to how much money a player can win. Wait, that's weird.
11:32He's watching Press Your Luck, which even by the standards of early 1980s game shows, looks a bit shabby.
11:39Three contestants battle in a trivia contest.
11:42Winning answers get them spins on what's called the big board.
11:47Basically a ring of 18 squares that loop around the logo of the show.
11:52Lights flash around each of the individual squares until the player who initiated the spin hits the button to stop.
11:59Now, most of the squares have cash prizes, trips or free spins.
12:03But at any time, four of them have a whammy.
12:07Whammy's a bad guy.
12:08Cartoon embodiment of the bankrupt tile on Wheel of Fortune.
12:12And just like that tile, the result is the same.
12:15You hit a whammy and everything you've earned goes away.
12:18On top of that, making it even more chaotic, not only does the light ring jump around, but the squares are constantly changing too.
12:27And that's what leads the super excited contestants to constantly repeat the iconic phrase...
12:32Big bucks, no whammy, stop!
12:34But that's not what has Michael's attention.
12:38He grabs a piece of paper, draws out the big board, and he starts following the light ring with his finger.
12:46Jumping from square, square, square. No way.
12:51No way it could be that easy.
13:00But he has to be sure.
13:03So Michael goes to the store and buys a VCR machine.
13:06He starts religiously taping Press Your Luck and watching every single episode back to back to back, frame by frame by frame.
13:13And then there's that moment when the tickle becomes a certainty.
13:21Big bucks, no whammy, stop!
13:25Holy shit, it's real.
13:29The big board isn't random at all.
13:33It runs on five different predetermined patterns. And he's right.
13:37The Press Your Luck big board was custom made just for the pilot.
13:42And it was never guaranteed to be picked up as a show, which meant all of it was done on the cheap.
13:50And then the pattern wasn't improved enough when the show went into production. That's the moment.
13:56You can feel it, right?
13:58The moment that powers everything.
14:01But of course, that's not the entire plan.
14:04Because right now, all we know is that there is a pattern, right? Okay, great. There's a pattern.
14:10But all the whammies are still going to randomly pop up all over the board, right?
14:15Unless the prizes and the whammies have to rotate on a predetermined pattern too, right?
14:21I mean, I guess there's only one way to find out.
14:26Big bucks, no whammies, stop! You're shitting me. There it is.
14:32There are two squares.
14:34Two squares on the board where a whammy never, ever shows up.
14:41If you know the five patterns, and you know the two spots where no whammy will ever show up, then theoretically, you could keep pressing your luck. forever.
14:55At this point of our story, Larson has been married and divorced twice.
15:11He's living with his common-law wife who must be the most patient woman in the entire world considering her boyfriend has a dozen hot-ass TVs running at all day and night.
15:22One night, Michael screams for her to come into the living room.
15:26He's, quote, playing press your luck by running an old episode on a VCR and hitting the pause button when he knows the light ring is going to land on one of the two safe squares.
15:38And he does it over and over and over again.
15:42He has the timing down. It is brilliant.
15:47He could do this.
15:49So Larson makes the decision he's going to get on this show.
15:56He's going to make his moment pay off.
15:58He's going to make history.
16:00Oh, wait, hold on, hold on.
16:02If we put this much thought into what he's going to do on the show.
16:10Probably a good idea to think about how he's going to get on.
16:13You can't just walk into the casting director's office and say, hey, I figured out how to beat your game.
16:18Please let me take your money.
16:20My common-law wife thinks I'm brilliant, although that would be amazing.
16:23No, you guys know how TV works.
16:26You're going to get on one of these shows.
16:29You need a story.
16:30What do we say?
16:31The tableau, all the effort into the first impression.
16:34So what's Michael's story?
16:36OK, what do I got here?
16:40I'm behind on my bills. Oh, that's first. L. A.
16:44hotshots probably assume I'm poor the moment I say I'm from Ohio. Oh, damn. That's an idea.
16:50I'll double confirm it by saying I took a bus from Ohio.
16:54Oh, poor old Rube sitting in a Greyhound for days, watching flyover country drive on by filling my head with all the winnings I'm going to have when those nice TV people put me on the TV. That's not enough.
17:10On Press Your Luck, they always ask, what do you do for a living?
17:14Always teachers and salesmen and whatnot.
17:16It would be the most pitiful job. Is he repairman? True. Got the certificate. In L. A.
17:24, they probably don't even know what AC is.
17:30Oh, an ice cream man.
17:31Everybody loves an ice cream man.
17:33Yeah, there we go.
17:34OK, so we just need one finishing touch, something that'll pull at the heartstrings.
17:38I mean, this one might be too real, but I got to get on the show.
17:45I need to buy a gift for my little girl.
17:48Her birthday's coming up and I don't have any money.
17:52She's so sweet, sweet like the ice cream I sell.
17:56She deserves the world. Perfect. That's a wrap.
18:00Wrapped up in a cheap suit that he insists he bought from a thrift store just down the street, Michael recounts the entire tale to the casting director.
18:25There's just one thing he didn't figure on.
18:28The other can't miss element of every Press Your Luck contestant is enthusiasm.
18:34Everybody loves the yelling and the screaming.
18:38And when the big board goes nuts.
18:41So picture Michael telling the casting director about his sad, sad life, but doing it with a big, broad, energetic smile, an electric attitude, jiggling in his seat. I'm pathetic.
18:54I sell ice cream.
18:56I have 12 televisions and I need to get a present for my daughter.
19:01Put me on TV, please. Ha ha. I'm poor, baby.
19:04And it's at this moment the casting director has his own moment.
19:11That moment where he knows without knowing that something is off here.
19:16So he goes to the producer and he tells him, I think something's off with the super excited poor guy.
19:24The producer recounts his conversation like this.
19:27Edwards, the senior contestant coordinator, said something about the guy that bothers me.
19:33I said, Bobby, you know, I've been doing this together for years.
19:37I mean, come on.
19:38I like the guy, you know, we very rarely disagree.
19:40I got to overrule you. And it's done.
19:43Michael, his cast is going to be on the very next show.
19:49From television city in Hollywood, it's time to press your luck.
20:08Meet our second player, Michael Larson.
20:12How are you, Michael?
20:14Now, Michael, what do you do for a living?
20:19Oh, I drive an ice cream truck in the summer.
20:22I hope to win enough money here not to have to do that.
20:25Do you have it with you today?
20:26You have the ice cream truck with you today? No, I didn't.
20:28Oh, we had all kinds of orders we were going to take.
20:31What a day for it.
20:32Well, Michael, you want to earn enough money so you don't have to deal with the ice cream truck. Right.
20:36You just want to eat the ice cream, though.
20:37No, I've done enough of that, too.
20:39You kind of OD'd on ice cream, right? Yeah.
20:41Well, hopefully you won't OD on money, Michael.
20:43Best of luck to you.
20:44And let's meet our third player.
20:45If you've never seen Press Your Luck, take a moment to Google it just so you could visualize this setup.
20:51Garish gold colors muted by the camera tech of the 1980s.
20:55Sitting between his two competitors, Michael.
20:58It looks mousy in the beginning movements and it makes sense because ever since that moment of discovery, everything he's done has led to this proving ground.
21:11You don't get cast on a game show twice.
21:15Michael has to make this one count.
21:18Think about how many hours he spent watching, practicing, selling his sob story, crafting a character.
21:26This is his shot.
21:28Michael has to make this one count.
21:31Soon enough, he answers one of the questions right and he earns himself his first few spins. This is it. Go time.
21:41Let's get this money. I'm going. Stop. He got away.
21:47Wait, that's not how.
21:49How did that not work?
21:52The whole plan was about constantly avoiding the whammies.
21:56Did they change something?
21:58Did Michael just screw up?
22:00It's got to be what's going through his head right now.
22:04Is this all for not all of that planning, the practicing, getting out here, the storytelling, the costuming?
22:11Michael's not exactly rolling in the dough.
22:14Is he about to be the sucker?
22:18Was this just an expensive lard? Michael, $2,500.
22:23JD, you have the lead. $4,608.
22:26You've got the advantage.
22:27We're coming right back with a whole new round, so hang in there.
22:31But it can't though, right? Nothing's changed.
22:34Why would they spend all the money to update the board?
22:37The pattern is the same.
22:39It's just the timing difference between sitting on a couch with a VCR and playing for real. Michael resets.
22:45He answers the second round question correct and earns himself some more spins. Then, it happens. Stop!
22:52Stop, pick a corner. $2,250.
22:56$1,500 in his bid or $2,000, Michael? $2,250. $2,250.
23:02You got it, Michael. $28,336.
23:04And Michael says, let's go. Unbelievable.
23:08$3,000 and a spin. $32,361, Michael.
23:14Stop at $500 and a spin. He's unbelievable.
23:21He hits the spot. Stop!
23:27$4,000 and a spin.
23:31And he keeps hitting the spot.
23:35And the more he wins. Stop!
23:38Stop at $750 and a spin. Go again!
23:42The louder he gets.
23:44The more he wins, the louder the crowd gets.
23:48The more he wins, the more his competitors begin to get kind of angry. This is unbelievable.
23:58We've never had this happen. Oh, big time.
24:02And the more he wins, the more the host gets worried.
24:08Remember, for anybody who doesn't know that Michael knows the secret, all of this money could theoretically go away with just one win. What? I don't care. Whatever. Here we go. Stop!
24:21Stop at $500 and a spin.
24:24Michael, I've never seen anyone press their luck like you are.
24:29And you are pressing your luck. I'm going! $52,851.
24:32And he's going again. Stop!
24:34$4,000 and a spin.
24:37OK, Michael's going again.
24:43I don't have to guess what Michael is thinking as he passes $50,000 in winnings.
24:50Here he is in his own words.
24:55$100,000 of early 80s money.
24:59And he does it. Go again! Stop!
25:06Stop at $3,000 and a spin.
25:13Michael, you did it.
25:15Michael, you're going to pass him.
25:17At $102,851, he decides to pass his spins.
25:20I don't know if it was fatigue, or maybe he had just proved himself right enough to satisfy the moment.
25:29But he was full.
25:31Now the others could have their chance to win some money.
25:35He got 40 spins on the board without hitting a whammy, of which 37 were for cash.
25:41Can you believe it? He did it. It worked.
25:45For anyone obsessed with that moment of inspiration, this is the heaven you always strive to return to.
25:53Those precious minutes when the itch is finally scratched.
25:56God damn it, you were right.
25:58Sitting alone in that room, when you had that thought, you were right.
26:03The drive has subsided.
26:04Your vision gets wider.
26:06The world is brighter.
26:08Michael Larson, in that moment, has to be at peace.
26:13Or at least probably was until this happens.
26:19Those other players, the ones who are pissed off that Michael's dominating the entire game, they start passing their spins to him now, right there at the end of the game.
26:32Remember, even if he knows the cheat code at this point, he's only one split-second reaction away from either pulling off the heist of the century or leaving with literally nothing.
26:42He already hit a whammy once while he was getting used to the game.
26:47What if he starts to wobble?
26:48What if he starts to lose his groove?
26:50One bad move while he's tired could end everything in disaster.
26:54Now, Michael's just trying to refocus and land this plane.
27:03But over at the control room of Press Your Luck, everybody is freaking out.
27:13They know everything is going totally sideways.
27:15They call the producer Michael Brockman, who says something was very wrong.
27:20Here's this guy from nowhere, and he was hitting the bonus box every single time.
27:26It was bedlam, I can tell you.
27:28And we couldn't stop this guy.
27:30He kept going around the board and hitting that box.
27:34Step back a moment.
27:35Let's look at the business side of what's happening right now.
27:39Press Your Luck is owned by CBS, so the prizes get paid directly from the network.
27:45More than that, they had no total prize cap.
27:49No total prize cap.
27:51Larson could have legally continued winning for as long as he wanted.
28:00In fact, Larson's streak was already so long, the crew knew they'd have to split this into two episodes, something they'd never done before.
28:11But what can you do?
28:12I mean, there didn't appear to be any cheating.
28:15And if they stop the show, the entire day of filming is probably going to be scrapped.
28:20I'll have to either hunt for an answer or restart everything.
28:23And so they let it ride.
28:25Because unlike our story of Dan Enright in 21, the producers here don't really care if a winner goes hog wild.
28:33It's not their money getting paid out. It's CBS. Whatever.
28:37Let the suits handle it.
28:39We're making good TV right here. Back to Larson.
28:43One final spin to pass again.
28:46But he's out of that flow state, that rhythm that he was in. $107,601.
28:52A trip to the Bahamas. That's it. Game over.
28:59Triple zeros on the clock.
29:02Get that MVP over here.
29:03Let's do the interview.
29:05Grand total, Michael, of $110,237. Congratulations.
29:07You're so wrong on time, it doesn't matter.
29:10Michael, I understand that you borrowed the money to get here. Yes, sir.
29:17You went to a thrift shop to buy a shirt to get on the show. 65 cents.
29:2265 cents for a shirt.
29:23I'm sure anybody would give you the shirt off their back right now.
29:26Okay, now, Michael, I understand that yesterday was your daughter's birthday. Yes. What happened?
29:30I didn't have any money really to buy her anything. She's...
29:33She will get something now.
29:35Like perhaps the state of Tennessee?
29:37You have won at least, I think, three times more than anybody's ever won on the show. Congratulations.
29:44Spend it wisely and get your daughter a lovely birthday gift. Okay, thank you.
29:47It's been a real treat.
29:48Ed, we'll leave you with $11,516. And I need...
32:24The next day, CBS is on fire. Stop!
32:26A war room is created in a conference room, and the goal is very, very simple.
32:38Figure out how this son of a bitch cheated and how we're gonna justify not paying him.
32:52This time it's the CBS execs who are copying Larson's moves, watching the tape back frame by frame during key moments to figure out what his secret was.
33:02Larson took Press Your Luck for $110,237.
33:06That's $283,000 in today money.
33:08Plus he got trips to the Bahamas, Kauai, and a sailboat.
33:15It was the most that anybody had ever won on a single episode of any game show in the history of game shows.
33:27Adjusted for inflation, his record still stands.
33:29By the numbers, the odds of hitting a whammy are one in six, the same odds as rolling a seven at a craps table.
33:38Larson had made 45 spins without crapping out once.
33:43It was a statistical impossibility.
33:45Larson had beat odds of roughly three out of 10,000.
33:49There's something going on.
33:50In the war room, the suits begin to pick up on a few key clues.
33:59First off, Larson reacts to his wins when the lights around the square are lit and before any of the prizes are settled.
34:10It's as if he didn't know what he won, but he knew that nothing bad was gonna pop up.
34:17And of course, that's exactly the case.
34:20Further confirmation was Larson's face after he won a trip to Kauai.
34:24That was one of the few times during his run that yes, he did hit something good, but it wasn't one of his two desired squares.
34:34Thankfully for him, it was only a trip to paradise, not a whammy.
34:38What do the suits got? Nothing.
34:39Still, the lawyers wanna fight it. Let's withhold payment.
34:44If he wants to go to court, we can offer a settlement.
34:48That's until producer Michael Brockman speaks up and asks a very simple question.
34:54How did he cheat?
34:56He beat the system.
34:57This is the moment that CBS was taught a lesson by Professor Michael Larson.
35:04CBS pays him his winnings.
35:07The only caveat is since he passed 25,000, he could not return to the show as a repeat champion as per the tradition.
35:22Like all of us would be, Brockman was ashamed of being made the sucker.
35:27After airing the two-part episode, he orders the Larson victory to never be run again.
35:34Even after selling the show into syndication, he builds into the deal that Larson's episodes could never be played ever.
35:42Larson, meanwhile, goes back to Ohio.
35:45He's flush with money, he buys his daughter those birthday presents, and then, well, I guess he waits.
35:55He waits for another moment, right?
35:58Waits for that tickle.
35:59I mean, there's this irascible energy to Michael Larson.
36:03It's tempting just to paint him as a rascal who couldn't stop rascaling, you know?
36:16You almost want to make excuses for him.
36:20The story doesn't end.
36:23With a rascal experiencing redemption.
36:24It ends in humiliation, exile, and a very lonely death.
36:27Michael Larson is a junkie and a slave to that moment of inspiration.
36:37And it will be the end of him.
36:44I don't want to take anything away from how incredible Michael Larson's insights were and how extraordinary his accomplishment was.
37:00But the problem is, it's like that moment you figure out that there's a backdoor to a concert.
37:14And the first time you get away with sneaking inside, you feel like this must be how it always is.
37:22But you don't realize that there's a backdoor to a concert.
37:26That the concert that you just broke into was somehow the Beatles reunion, complete with a seance, I guess.
37:31Michael Larson snuck in the backdoor of the greatest concert of all time.
37:34But because he did it does not mean he can do it again.
37:41As far as he's concerned, there's a backdoor to every concert.
37:45And there's always a way to sneak past the guards.
37:49I'm convinced that from this point forward, Michael is a slave to the gambler's fallacy.
37:54I believe that he's convinced that no matter how many times he tries, he's always due for the next big win.
38:05And it's this conviction that's ultimately going to be his undoing.
38:09It's November of 1984.
38:11After taxes and a few real estate deals go sideways, Michael ends up with around $50,000.
38:20It's at this moment he hears about a contest on the radio.
38:31They would read a random string of numbers each day.
38:34If you happen to have a $1 bill with the same serial number on it, you could bring it in and win $30,000.
38:42Statistics show that Michael Larson Statistically, that's a pretty safe bet for the radio station.
38:47Unless you're broadcasting anywhere Michael freaking Larson can hear you who happens to be sitting on $50,000 that he could change into $1 bills and consult every single day until inevitably in his mind, he's got to win.
39:02And that's exactly what he does.
39:05So each afternoon he gets his common law wife to go through the bills with him.
39:12She gets tired of this crap pretty fast, but damn, this is $30,000 more.
39:17The winning bills have to be in here somewhere.
39:20You just need to find it.
39:22So he does it.
39:23He puts the money in shoe boxes all over the house.
39:27Each day he recruits his wife to help him look through the bills to see if they can find the magic number.
39:35Day after day, the numbers are called on the radio.
39:38Day after day, they pull out the shoe boxes.
39:40Day after day, their stupid fingers are touching 50,000 stupid $1 bills.
39:43And day after day, they don't have the magic number.
39:47For weeks and weeks and weeks they do this.
39:50After weeks of this, Larson is reluctantly pulled away to go to a Christmas party.
39:57His common law wife, she's had enough.
40:01She wants to go out, get them to clear their mind.
40:07He's earned it after all.
40:08This was the biggest year of his life.
40:11He won over $100,000 for being smarter than all of smug TV Hollywood land.
40:15We already know the new plan is foolproof.
40:18It's just gonna take some time to get $30,000 more.
40:21Come on, man, let's go.
40:23Merry Christmas, Michael Larson.
40:24And it might've been a merry Christmas. Maybe.
40:26If somebody hadn't found out that this dude withdrew $50,000 in $1 bills.
40:36If they didn't know he was keeping it just laying around his house.
40:47If they didn't watch him leave for the party.
40:50If they didn't break in and steal all $50,000, every last one.
40:55Imagine being back to square one.
40:57Having gone from $100,000 in your hands to nothing within one calendar year.
41:03He screams at his wife, loses it. She gets scared.
41:11She leaves with the kids, tells them to move out.
41:16Michael knew the truth.
41:18Michael was gonna get that money back.
41:23It was the last thing he did.
41:25Really the best price on Kodak film?
41:26You're not at Walmart.
41:30At Walmart, a 24 exposure roll of Kodak 135 print film is just $268 every day.
41:45And you'll always find real savings.
41:47Might as well start stacking up the TVs again.
41:50Just waiting for that next moment.
41:51That next moment, that's gonna power his next chance to get it right.
41:56He never had a problem making the money.
41:59See the last disaster, that was about keeping it.
42:03Maybe lightning could strike twice.
42:05Larson calls on the producers of Press Your Luck to stage a tournament of champions for a chance to make a big score one more time.
42:14The producers politely decline.
42:15So Larson waits some more, reads the newspaper, scanning for inspiration, watches TV looking for a spark, listens to the radio ready for his next mission.
42:26But it wasn't meant to be.
42:29Not then at least, and Brent was due.
42:32Michael eventually takes a job as an assistant manager at Walmart.
42:3610 years go by.
42:38And then it happens.
42:39He feels that tickle, that familiar tickle in the back of his mind.
42:48In 1994, Michael is reading USA Today.
42:54He sees an ad for a marketing opportunity.
43:04The company that placed the ad is Pleasure Timeline, a 1-900 hotline.
43:09It's a 1-900 hotline company that specializes in betting information and of course, phone sex.
43:15But they had an idea for a different business model.
43:19One that could take advantage of the 90s in a way that had never been done before.
43:26Leveraging the pay-per-call technology, widespread credit card adoption, faxes, and yes, the nascent world of the internet.
43:32Pleasure Timeline teams up with Michael to start a worldwide lottery.
43:36One that anybody can enter just by calling the 1-900 number to quote, buy tickets.
43:42I mean, at least that's the pitch.
43:45Who knows if anybody really thought this was possible.
43:49Gambling laws are notoriously fickle in America and setting up something like this without assurances is either insanely stupid or out-and-out fraud or both.
43:58Michael's brought on to recruit the seed money for the lottery.
44:03So he sends faxes out to businesses and starts posting on internet message boards, casting the widest possible net so that potential investors know what awaits them.
44:15Quote, without exception, the most lucrative income possibilities ever devised for the average person.
44:20At least that's what the marketing material said.
44:23People would call the number, a phone would ring in an Ohio boiler room.
44:30Answering the phone, one Michael Larson.
44:33Of course this is legit.
44:36Are we gonna make it happen?
44:39We're partnering with a Native American tribe that has the rights to gamble.
44:45I mean, the ink isn't dry yet, but between.
44:48and me, the Maliseet tribe of Holden, Maine is going to work with us.
44:54You don't want to be a loser for the rest of your life, do you? An easy repairman?
44:59What, an ice cream salesman wearing a schlubby suit?
45:02Trust me, I'm rich, baby.
45:03Did I mention that I can make even more money if you recruit a few friends?
45:09See, their earnings pay out to you in our downline system.
45:13For the record, I cannot think of a more 90s scam than this.
45:19We got fax machines.
45:21We got 900 numbers.
45:23We got multilevel marketing horseshit.
45:25The only way this could be more 90s is if he was doing all this while wearing hammer pants and a corn T-shirt.
45:32The American Indian Lottery raised one point eight million dollars from 14000 investors before being shut down by the SEC in 1995.
45:39When the charges were announced, Bob Burson, an SEC lawyer based in Chicago, says, to my knowledge, this is the first case we've ever brought where the Internet has been used as a marketing tool. Think about that.
45:57Ever the pioneer, Michael Larson, this might be the world's first investigated fraud on the Internet.
46:03Unfortunately for Michael Larson, this is the first major Internet fraud being investigated by the SEC and the FBI.
46:11I mean, you could guess where it goes from here, right?
46:18The closer, the tighter that noose gets, the slipperier Michael becomes eventually disappearing from this mortal plane.
46:27And he ends up in that ethereal world where all con men eventually go. Oh, Florida.
46:35And of course, once he gets to Florida, he can't stay well behaved.
46:39Eventually gets arrested on unrelated charges.
46:42Do we have our last bit of contact with Michael Larson?
46:48A phone call to his newest girlfriend from a Fort Lauderdale jail.
46:55Michael's hot hand had run out.
46:57There in Florida, he died penniless of throat cancer.
47:00Or did he die of that addiction?
47:03Did he die because he couldn't give up the hunger for that spark, that tickle, that chance to stick one to the man?
47:18I think we've all had a case of it.
47:24Even as he died, I have to imagine he was looking for an angle to pull off just one more twist, or maybe he had truly gotten past it.
47:41Maybe as he lay dying, he was able to smile, think about his misadventures and think to himself, I did it.
47:51I pulled it off.
47:53I just might be the world's greatest con.
47:59This episode of World's Greatest Con was written by Justin Robert Young and me, Brian Brushwood, your humble host.
48:09Production and research by Dog & Pony Show Audio in Austin, Texas, and credit to the Tampa Tribune, Associated Press and The Hollywood Reporter.
48:28The Game Show Network and their documentary, Big Bucks, The Press Your Luck Scandal, the FBI and SEC for information on the case against Pleasure Time Inc.
48:39, which along with other contemporary news articles, retrospectives, and archived video made for the bulk of our research.
48:45Additional research by Rachel Oppenheimer.
48:47Of course you have questions and we want to answer them all at the end of the In the next episode of World's Greatest Con, a respected military major finds himself in the hot seat of one of the most popular game shows to ever air on television, only to find himself stumped by the questions in front of him.
49:14Faced with losing out on potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars, he comes up with a plan so dumb, so outrageous, there's no way it can work.
49:27And the worst part, it totally does.
49:30That's next time on World's Greatest Con.
49:33Diamond Club hopes you have enjoyed this broker.
49:36Dog and Pony Show Audio.