Line #3 Awesome/PressYourLuck


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4	[[folder:1983- 1986]]
5	* One game featured a returning champ named Greg, who had three Whammies and four spins left, with the leader over $11,000 and another player still to play. Greg took two spins to get into second place, then passed the spins along to the leader, who hit a Whammy on the final passed spin, losing over $13,500. The player who won the right to play last took her total to over $10,000 (with Greg sitting at $3,500) and passed her final two spins to Greg, who had to make up a $6,000 difference without hitting a Whammy. Greg's first passed spin was worth $500, taking him to $4,000, but he would need a "+ One Spin" square to stay alive. Amazingly, he hit $5,000 + One Spin with his last spin and decided to play the new final spin himself...and hit $2,000 to pass the leader and take the win in an incredible comeback fashion.
6	* A contestant won over $21,000 without hitting a Whammy, despite having to take ''eight'' passed spins in Round 2.
7	* Anytime a contestant retires undefeated, due to achieving five victories or going over the winnings limit.
8	* Michael Larson figured out that the Big Board used about 5–6 patterns rather than the perceived random bouncing light, gaming the system for $110,237. How he did it was even more awesome. He taped the show for several months and watched it in slow motion until he had memorized the specific patterns before coming to the show. His AwesomenessByAnalysis is ''why'' the production staff had to revamp the board, and also why CBS increased the winnings cap from $25,000 to $50,000. [[note]]In a DownerEnding Sadly, things went downhill for Michael after his appearance on Press Your Luck. Later in 1984, Larson discovered a radio show promotion promising a $30,000 prize for matching a $1 bill's serial number with a random number. He withdrew his winnings but didn't win and redeposited half of the money. $50,000 that he had in his house was stolen in a burglary. Larson called on the producers of Press Your Luck to stage a "tournament of champions" but was declined. Then he would be accused of fraud and be on the run from the police. And finally, the ultimate nail in the coffin: Larson died of throat cancer in 1999.[[/note]]
9	* During the third and final Home Player Sweepstakes, a home viewer won '''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C4Vc3xIrmmU $5,000!]]'''
10	* Spin-passing battles could get unbelievably tense. Just take a look at '''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0RM4cbC8Ti0 this episode]]'''.
11	* Becky's $33,410 payday was fairly awesome in its own right - but even more so was Rod Roddy belting out the nearly ''two and a half minutes'' of [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qmvyprW2drw continuous, uninterrupted prize copy]] describing the ''eight'' non-cash prizes that she won [[note]]About as long as a Showcase skit on Series/ThePriceIsRight, but those had breaks after each prize for applause.[[/note]]. It's no wonder he was chosen to succeed the legendary Johnny Olson on TPIR.
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14	[[folder:''Whammy!'']]
15	* One of the most maligned features of this version was that, due to a cable budget, there were more prizes on the board, all usually less than $300. They slightly compensated for that by offering a bigger prize (a GEM car in Season 1 and a Suzuki Aerio SX in Season 2), earned by hitting a special square in each Big Board round and then winning the game. In Season 2, one player, Brett, became the only player to win a car on ''Whammy!'', via getting the bottom half of the car key in the 2nd big board round, hitting the Big Bank square, answering the question to claim the top half that was lost by another player, and then winning the game with a regular season record total of $26,522.
16	* And another player, Stacie, in that same season, won $24,929 ($15,000 in cash alone), the biggest total ''without'' winning the car.
17	* Jack won the Tournament of Champions, giving him a total of $50,111, including the Suzuki he got for winning.
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20	[[folder:2019-present]]
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22	* May 31, 2020: The main feature of the 2019 incarnation is the addition of a new ''Series/DealOrNoDeal''-esque bonus round. [[note]]The winner has to play one round of spins at a time with increasing dollar amounts, then (if they have a non-zero amount) decide to either quit with everything they've earned up to that point or press their luck and play the next round, with the final round, known as the Big Bucks Bonanza, having a top amount of $100,000. But the Whammies are still there to take the player back down to zero if they hit one, and of course, hitting four knocks the player out of the bonus game empty-handed (but the player's main game winnings were safe regardless). The ultimate goal is to get to at least $500,000. If the player succeeds in doing that, the game immediately ends, and their winnings are augmented to $1 million.[[/note]] While we had two $100K+ wins previously, this night's winner, Emily, blew them out of the water; despite two Whammies, she managed to reach the Big Bucks Bonanza [[note]]where all cash squares are Big Bucks, ranging from $10,000-$100,000[[/note]], hit a $160K+ Tesla and the $100,000 square, and wind up with a total of $455,286.
23	* July 12, 2020: A contestant (Ryan) reaches the Big Bucks Bonanza with no winnings, then proceeds to hit $100,000 twice. His final spin comes when his total is at $310,000, $190,000 away from the $500,000 mark. When he stops on a pair of Teslas, the crowd goes wild, and Elizabeth Banks starts [[PrecisionFStrike cursing]] as she wonders if he's gotten the amount necessary to win the million. When it was time to reveal the price of the two Teslas, it was revealed that he didn't make it (they were only worth $173,480), but for a few tense moments, everyone was on the edge of their seats. His final total, which includes a Mercedes-Benz that he won in the main game (which [[SugarWiki/HeartwarmingMoments he gave to his mother]]), comes to $565,682. He is still to this day the biggest winner in Press Your Luck history, and the closest anyone has gotten to the million.
24	* September 24, 2020 ("They're Baaaaack!", originally scheduled to air on July 12, 2020): This special show has three contestants who appeared on the original show back in 1985, Theo, Pam, and Barbara. In the first big board round, Theo hits Add-A-One while at $21,038, giving him an additional $100,000, for a total of $121,038. After surviving the last of his 4 passed spins, his total in the first round comes out to a record $122,910! And he would go on to win the game, giving him a record main game total of $167,837! Also, earlier in round 2, Pam hits Double Your Money + One Spin at $12,956, giving her $25,912. Sadly, Theo could only add $6,000 worth of helicopter lessons in the bonus game. But it does still give him a pretty respectable final total of $173,837.
25	* May 26, 2021 (Season 3 Premiere): Marcia Harris originally competed on episodes 496-498 of the CBS version of Press Your Luck. She becomes the first player to hit the new space called Take The Lead + One Spin[[note]]which augments your score to that of the current leader's, plus $1, and gives you another spin.[[/note]] but then hits a Whammy the very next spin. She does, however, still win the game with $27,250. In her bonus game, she got to the Big Bucks Bonanza and hit the $100,000 square! She managed to survive that round, giving her $345,837 here, plus the main game winnings, for a total of $373,087!
26	* June 9, 2021: Highlight: Sandra hits "Double Your Money + One Spin" at $8,250 for $16,500. Lowlight: Sarah gets knocked out by hitting four Whammies in a row, the first time that's happened in a long while. Sandra wins the main game with $18,250. Then, late in the bonus game in round 4, she got her third Whammy, making her just one away from elimination. Then she hits the top amount ($75,000) twice in a row! After surviving the rest of her spins in that round, she elects to walk away with $150,000. Her total winnings come out to $168,250, and it's all in cold hard cash.
27	* July 7, 2022 (Season 4 Premiere): Cathy, who won $46,945 in the main game including a trip to India and 52 pairs of shoes, hits a painful Whammy on her second spin of round 4 of the bonus game, losing over $220,000, and goes into the Big Bucks Bonanza with just $9,500 to start with. The new space, called Prize-A-Palooza, is added to the board in this round only. If hit, it awards the player every prize currently shown the moment they hit that square. She didn't hit it, sadly, but she hit the next best thing: an RV worth $196,954. After surviving 2 more spins, for an additional $75,000, she ends the bonus game with $281,454! Her final total comes out to $328,399.
28	* July 14, 2022: Debbie makes it through the entire game without hitting a single Whammy. She chooses to walk away after round 3 of the bonus game when one of her earned prizes out of ten that Debbie would hit in this episode allows her to make her sports-fanatic son's dream of going to the Super Bowl come true. Her final total was $289,233. Also, only one Whammy was hit in the entire hour, even in the bonus game.
29	* August 4, 2022: Clifford becomes the first person in this version's history to make it through every single round of the bonus game without getting a single Whammy. His final total comes out to $353,930 in cash and prizes, one of which was going to the next 10 seasons of Packers vs. Bears NFL games.
30	* August 11, 2022: Julio, with three Whammies, is down to his last passed spin of two by Russ (who was also on the original show back in November of 1985) and the last spin of the main game overall. He needed to hit something worth at least $22,897 to win, and he hit a Dodge Challenger worth $37,190, giving him the win with $60,523! Sadly, he Whammied out in the Big Bucks Bonanza in the bonus game (and it was back-to-back Whammies that did him in too, which is what almost did him in, in the main game), but that's still not a bad night's work.
31	* August 18, 2022 (Redemption Special): Falawna[[note]]who was on the show back in season 3 and Whammied out[[/note]], hits a very painful Whammy late in round 2 of the main game, losing $82,283, including a truck, and then hits a digital camera worth $5,499. She elected to pass her remaining 2 spins to Mark and pray that God was on her side and that he Whammies. IT WORKED! He hit back-to-back Whammies, and Falawna won the game! And then she goes on a great run in her bonus game, winning $265,585, all in cash, for a total of $271,084. Falawna sure did redeem herself tonight!
32	* August 25, 2022: Janet, despite earning ''no spins'' in round 1, somehow makes an amazing comeback in round 2 and wins the game with $73,622. After the bonus game, where she walked away after the 3rd round with $234,339, her final total, which includes a private yacht charter in Miami, an Infiniti Q50, a dragon boat, trips to Tunisia and Italy, and more, comes out to $307,961.
33	* December 6, 2022 (Press Your Luck's Holiday Extravaganza): Ben, in the bonus game, hits a Hawaiian vow renewal for 20 people and a 2-week Spanish honeymoon prize worth $210,240, and then completes the Big Bucks Bonanza, giving him a total of $408,739 in the bonus round, plus his main game winnings of $43,600 (which included a Christmas sleigh and professional gift wrapping), giving him a total of $452,339. MERRY CHRISTMAS INDEED!
34	* October 10, 2023: Press Your Luck's fifth season on ABC starts with a bang. First off, there's a new space in Round 2 called "The Big 40" to commemorate Press Your Luck's 40th anniversary of its debut back in 1983. Hitting that space awards the contestant 40 of... something. Something amazing, as Elizabeth Banks promises. In round 2, Tyler, with only 2 spins and trailing by just over $15,000, after one of his opponents, Nick, gets up to $21,750, hits a Camaro on his first spin, worth $46,885, and ends up winning the game with $53,585 after passing his last spin to Nick, where he failed to get another spin. Then, in round 3 of the bonus game, he hits the $50,000 square twice in a row (the first time was from a Move 2 Spaces hit)! After surviving round 4, where he hit $75,000 in one of his 3 spins, he elects to quit before the Big Bucks Bonanza, despite having no Whammies, with $242,407. Total winnings: $295,992 ($240,608 in cash, $55,384 in prizes).
35	* October 17, 2023: The second round features a climatic spin-passing battle that somehow manages to top the Cathy/Lori battle from August 1984. One particularly notable moment: after a sub-$47,000 speedboat catapulted Sumatie into the lead, she passed her spins back to Carlo, who promptly proceeded to hit the Take the Lead + One Spin space during his turn. Carlo ultimately wins the main game with just over $135,000, which includes 40 nights at the Ritz-Carlton, from hitting The Big 40. Sadly, in the Big Bucks Bonanza portion of the bonus game, he hit a Whammy on the final spin. BUT STILL, WHAT A GAME!
36	* October 31, 2023: After hitting a Whammy on the penultimate spin of the game, Michele, who's in 3rd place, trailing by $32,282, decides to just take the last spin, as she's got nothing to lose at this point, and lands on The Big 40, which is... $40,000 IN CASH! That's enough to surpass Michelle's total for a last-to-first victory! [[note]]Because the two female contestants shared nearly identical names (albeit spelled slightly differently), Michelle permitted Elizabeth to call her "Purple Lady" due to her love of the color purple, and the nametag would be changed during the first commercial break.[[/note]] Unfortunately for her, just like when Julio made his main game final spin comeback by winning a Dodge Challenger in the previous season, she Whammied out in round 4 of the bonus game. But still, what a comeback that was.
37	* November 14, 2023: After hitting his second Whammy in the Big Bucks Bonanza portion of the bonus game, bringing his total down to zero, Michael simply takes the last spin for a consolation prize (he only had two Whammies, so he couldn't Whammy out), and what does he hit on the last spin? A brand new [[CoolCar Bentley]] worth ''$248,325,'' the most expensive prize ever won on this version of Press Your Luck, and the most expensive car ever won on an American game show. That was one heck of a consolation prize! Not to mention, he also won a Porsche Macan on the last spin of the main game, too! His final total comes out to $339,300.
38	* November 28, 2023 (Press Your Luck's Holiday Extravaganza II): Amber, after hitting a painful Whammy on the first spin of three in the Big Bucks Bonanza portion of the bonus game and losing over $200,000, including a trip to Crimecon and a Cookie Palooza prize package (a Kia Carnival and a cookie truck), hits $100,000 on the last spin of the bonus game! What a great recovery! Final total: $159,650, including a Mercedes-Benz, and a trip to the Flying Squirrel Trampoline Park.
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Context Awesome / PressYourLuck