The Price Is Right is considered one of the longest-running shows in television history. Since 1956, lucky contestants have been told to "come on down" to test their hand at a plethora of games.
Terry Kniess and his wife, Linda, were fans of the show who attended a taping, while hoping to be lucky enough to play. Yet, unlike the other potential contestants, they had a fairly complex plan in place...
The Plan
Terry and his wife Linda, noticed that many of the games on the show used the same products. Contestants had to guess the price, and since many of the products were the same throughout the years, and so they knew that the prices stayed within a predictable range.
Terry and Linda decided to take their plan to the next level, since guessing the exact price had been done before, so it wouldn't of been much of a story if that's all they did.
Next Level
Terry and Linda decided to watch every single episode, and memorize the prices. They made notecards, and they studied... hard. At this point, they knew they didn't just want to BE on the show, they wanted to win, and now they knew how to effectively.
Sadly, the whole plan was riding on possible good luck. Terry had to make it to Contestant's Row, meaning his name had to be pulled randomly by one of the show's producers. So, before the show, Terry filled out his registration card, dropped it into a collection bin, and waited and hoped. Luckily for them, the producer called Terry's name... he was in.
Contestant's Row
When Terry was called down to Contestant's Row, he was prepared. The host, Drew Carey, asked Terry to bid on a Green Egg smoker, and so Terry did.
He nailed the price with a perfect bid of $1,775. A premium grilling appliance is a nice win for any The Price is Right fan, but Terry didn't care because the bid got him into the Showcase Showdown.
More Luck
Since the prizes for the showcase changed each episode, there wasn't really any way to memorize how much these packages might actually be worth.
Regardless, Terry recognized the pattern and noted that the value of each prize package fell into a predictable range. When the time came for Terry's bid, he offered an apparently random number, $23,743.
It Wasn't Random
The number wasn't random. Terry had known that the packages were worth around $24,000, and he didn't want to go over that price range. He began with $23,000, the $743 came from a combination of his wedding anniversary (7th of April), and his wife's birth month of March.
He was the first contestant on the show to get the bid exactly right. Then, because he was within $250, he won both of the showcases. Carey was convinced that he had cheated, and if you were to watch footage of the moment, he has an incredulous reaction and you can see the suspicion brewing.
Luck, Skill, Preparation
As one could guess, Carey must have asked himself who exactly Terry was? How was he lucky enough to break a game that had been nothing if not predictable for half a century? A look into Terry's past will bring us to Las Vegas.
Many years before Terry's win, he was predicting weather on the local news in Las Vegas. He was trained as a meteorologist, and he developed an incredible ability to predict future weather patterns.
His Wife
His wife, was the numbers person. Linda sealed a job running scheduling for the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, an extraordinary task of arithmetic and organization.
When you take a look into their pasts, it might seem like they had been training their whole lives to win this game show. By the 2000s, Terry decided to leave his job as a meteorologist, but he left with two Southeast Regional Emmy Awards.
Home At The Casinos
Since Terry and Linda loved Las Vegas so much, they didn't want to chase promotions around the country, which is something Terry would have to do to keep his TV presenter career on track. Terry decided to work at the Casinos in surveillance, looking for patterns that would give away the card sharks.
Terry was good at spotting telltale bets, counting cards, eyeing the dealer's hand, and other giveaways, and his attention to detail assisted him in finding success in his new career.
The Move
After their beloved pet, Krystal, died, the couple needed a new goal to focus on. One of Linda's friends from work returned from a trip to California gushing about how much fun it was to appear in the audience of The Price Is Right. They soon found a new obsession.
In the following months, Terry and Linda studied tapes of the program. If Terry had spotted a gambler enacting a plan like this one while he was at work at the casino, he would have to notify security. However, there was nothing in the rules of the show that banned preparation. What they were doing was completely legal, despite the accusations of "cheating".
The Prize
In Terry's winnings, he took home a package of prizes worth $56,437.41. His prizes included four luxury vacations to South Africa, Scotland, Chicago, and Canada.
The couple sold a camper, a pool table, and a karaoke machine to cover the taxes on their prizes. These days, the couple doesn't watch the show anymore since Terry's appearance. In fact, the game show itself has changed since then. Prices are much more random, and the prizes are more upscale and less familiar to the audience.
New Show
The producers of the show now change the brands of products that they use and they chance small details that could affect the prices.
For example, changing a stereo package in a car can boost or lower the sale price of the overall car. Memorizing the prices is now almost impossible, but fans can still study the show to get an idea of how much things cost.
Not The Only One
You might be surprised to know that Terry Kniess wasn't the first person to exploit the vulnerabilities of a popular game show. In 1984, a contestant named Michael Larson memorized the pattern on Press Your Luck to win more than $100,000 in cash in prizes.
In response, CBS refused to pay Larson at first, and said that he cheated, but there was nothing in the rule that prevented a contestant from memorizing the board patterns. After Larson received his prizes, the show altered their patterns ensure that something like this couldn't happen again.