This is a list of American game show winnings records . American game shows through the years have had their fair share of big winners. This article looks at some of the records, as well as some people who have held them over the years.
Daytime game shows
Cumulative records
The daytime all-time winnings record (for a cumulative run on a show) is held by Tom O'Brien, a contestant on Sale of the Century in 1987. A contestant during the Winners' Board era of the show, O'Brien won all 11 games he played in, winning 10 prizes off the board plus a $50,000 bonus for winning an 11th consecutive game. That plus over $20,000 in winnings in Tournament of Champions play gave O'Brien a grand total of over $173,000 in cash and prizes.
The record for most winnings by a woman in a cumulative run is held by another Sale contestant, Stephanie Holmquist, whose $150,000+ record run (actual total, see Sale page) was the all-time daytime record as well until it was topped by O'Brien.
(It should be noted that O'Brien's total is not the highest total in Sale history. That belongs to contestant Tim Holleran, who won over $180,000 in cash and prizes. However, Holleran's winnings were from two different shows, with the majority coming from the 1985-86 syndicated show and a little over $20,000 from tournament play on the NBC network show.)
Single-day record
The single day record, for many years, was held by Michael Larson, who won $110,237 on Press Your Luck in 1984. Larson achieved his record by memorizing the show's board patterns. He repeatedly hit the board's money-and-a-spin squares, and his game had to be split into two episodes (which aired Friday, June 8 and Monday, June 11, 1984 after being taped on May 19) because his turn caused the game to go well over the show's half-hour allotted time. In 2003, Game Show Network produced a documentary about the event.
In 2006, Larson's record was broken by Vickyann Chrobak-Sadowski on The Price Is Right , who also set a regular show record in the process on the show's 35th season premiere. She won $147,517 in cash and prizes, including both Showcases.
Overall winnings record
1950s-1999: Big money quizzers, Teddy Nadler, Thom McKee
The record for overall winnings on American game shows has changed hands quite a few times over the years. Although the fifties had their share of big winners (Herb Stempel and Charles Van Doren of Twenty One infamy being two of the most notable), the biggest winner of them all was Teddy Nadler in the 1956-57 television season, who set a record that would stand for the next two decades by winning $264,000 on The $64,000 Challenge .
It wasn't until 1980 that Nadler's record fell. During the summer of that year, a US Naval officer named Thom McKee began a run on Tic-Tac-Dough that carried over into the following season. Since champions on Tic Tac Dough played until they were defeated, and games on the show could end in ties with the pot carrying over, McKee was able to keep building his total as long as he kept playing and winning (which wasn't true of many other shows). McKee won $312,700 in cash and prizes in 43 games, which included eight cars (on Tic Tac Dough and its sister show, The Joker's Wild , a contestant automatically won a car after every fifth game they won).
In 1999, McKee was passed by Michael Shutterly, who was the biggest winner in the first airing of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire in the United States. Shutterly was the first contestant on the show to get to the 15th and final question, but elected to walk instead with $500,000, which made him the highest winner in game show history.
While McKee was the biggest solo winner until 1999, nine couples on The $1,000,000 Chance of a Lifetime won the show's top prize of $1,000,000 (in a combination of prizes and a long-term annuity) during the show's run in syndication from January 1986 to September 1987. However, this program had no solo players.
1999-present: seven figure wins become almost the norm
It was during the second season of Millionaire in the United States that the show crowned its first million-dollar winner. On November 19, 1999, John Carpenter climbed to the top without using any lifelines, save for a phone call on the final question to tell his father he was going to win the million dollars. After Carpenter answered the final question, which concerned Richard Nixon's appearance on Laugh-In in 1968, host Regis Philbin called the answer "the final answer heard 'round the world," then proclaimed Carpenter the show's (and worldwide format's) first millionaire.
Carpenter's record stayed until the following year. In early 2000, Rahim Oberholtzer, a contestant on the revival of Twenty One , won four games in his appearances on the show, along with $120,000 in the show's "Perfect 21" bonus round, for a total of $1.12 million. (Maury Povich proclaimed him "the TV Game Show king" for surpassing Carpenter's mark.)
Oberholtzer's record did not last long. Late in its run, the Fox show Greed began bringing back some of its previous winners to try for an extra $1 million. Curtis Warren, who was part of the first team to win $1,000,000 on the show (of which his share was $410,000), was one of the contestants brought back to do so on February 12, 2000. After answering an elimination question, Warren was given a question about TV shows that had been made into movies, with 8 choices (of which he had to identify the four correct answers). He successfully did so, giving himself $1,410,000 and the record for the time being (although his record was actually higher than what was reported, based on his winnings on Sale of the Century and Win Ben Stein's Money prior to his win on Greed ).
Warren's record was even shorter lived than Oberholtzer's had been, lasting only four days.
Three days before Warren's big win, a contestant named David Legler on Twenty One began a run to the top. Four days after Warren's win, the run continued, with Legler earning a grand total of $1,765,000 in six wins to surpass Warren's total and become the third contestant in a span of two months to top $1,000,000 on a game show. (It should be noted that shortly after Rahim Oberholtzer's win, Twenty One changed its payoff structure, which is part of the reason why it took Legler 5 wins to reach $1 million in winnings and 6 to top the record instead of the four it took Oberholtzer to top Carpenter's record.)
Legler held the record for well over a year. As 2000 ended and 2001 began, the producers of Millionaire decided that it had been too long (five months) since their top prize had been won, and instituted an accumulating jackpot which would add $10,000 to the grand prize amount for each game it was not won. By the time Kevin Olmstead took the hot seat on April 10, 2001, the jackpot stood at $2,180,000.
After answering all 15 questions, including the final one about Igor Sikorsky's invention of the helicopter, Olmstead became the first contestant to top $2 million in total winnings on a game show and supplanted Legler as the all time leader. Within a year of the win, however, the primetime Millionaire was gone. No other show outside of the syndicated Millionaire that premiered in September 2002 was offering a seven figure prize (which, for the syndicated Millionaire , was permanently fixed at $1,000,000), which instantly made Olmstead's record that much harder to top. Nevertheless, the show's producers launched an ultra high-stakes version of Millionaire entitled Super Millionaire in 2004, with a $10 million (US) top prize. Two separate Super Millionaire series were aired, one in February 2004 and one in May 2004. However, despite the higher stakes and the potential for someone to top the all-time record for winnings, by the time the show went off the air for the last time on May 26, 2004, the largest prize the show had awarded was the $1,000,000 Robert "Bob-O" Essig won in the February series.
Exactly one week after Super Millionaire came to an end, Ken Jennings of Salt Lake City, Utah, became the new champion on Jeopardy! This June 2, 2004 episode was the first in a long winning streak for the software engineer, made possible due to the fact that at the beginning of the current season (the show's twentieth on air), Jeopardy! eliminated the longstanding rule that limited the amount of consecutive appearances for a champion of five. With Jeopardy! now employing a play-'til-you-lose match limit, it became possible for any contestant to accumulate millions of dollars in winnings, as long as they kept defeating opponents. Jennings took advantage of the rule change, breaking many game show records along the way. As his streak continued deeper into the 21st season, Jennings was inching closer and closer to Olmstead's record. He joined Olmstead as the only two game show contestants at the time to win over $2,000,000 on a quiz show with his 59th consecutive win on October 25, 2004. It took Jennings six more wins to top Olmstead's record, which he accomplished in his 65th consecutive win.
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