Game Show Fans Who Won ‘Fabulous’ Prizes Share Their Stories
What To Know
- Game show winners shared on Reddit how their prizes, ranging from cash to quirky items like lifetime supplies of food, impacted their lives.
- Some winners experienced significant life changes while others faced challenges.
For many people, simply appearing on a game show is an accomplishment in itself, with winning adding yet another feather to one’s cap. That victory can come with glorious, but sometimes impractical, prizes.
But what happens once the lights dim, the audience goes home, and the confetti settles, leaving the victor saddled with a lifetime supply of Rice-a-Roni, or a child’s bike, or worse?
Over on Reddit, people who won a lifetime supply of a product broke down the good, the bad, and the ugly of such rewards in the r/AskReddit subreddit.
“I won $125,000 on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire about 20 years ago. After taxes, I still had about $80,000. I paid my car off, got a computer, was able to quit a full-time job I hated and take a more enjoyable part-time job, and went to college. Now I work at a job I love that I wouldn’t have if I never got a college education. RIP Regis,” shared one happy redditor.
Maria Melin / ABC / courtest Everett Collection
“I won the showcase on The Price is Right. It was the spring break episode, so it was only college students. It was my senior year of college. Winning a new car and a bunch of other stuff made the last semester of college awesome. It’s s been 9.5 years, and I still drive the car. So I guess it’s changed my life in that I’ve never had car payments,” shared another winner. They also shared that they “had to pay tax on the value of all the prizes as if it were income. Luckily, I hit a dollar on the big wheel and a nickel on my bonus spin and won enough cash to cover taxes,” wrote another.
“I won a few thousand on Jeopardy! a few years ago. It allowed my wife and I to finally go on a honeymoon two years after getting married. Maybe not life-changing on a grand scale, but definitely made our lives a bit better,” shared another.
But not all prizes are cash bonuses and dream bikes. “My brother was on The $25,000 Pyramid in ’77 or ’78, [and] he got a lifetime of Rice-a-Roni. It was a case of, like, 48 boxes every year for three years. We got a letter that the show was going off the air and out of the Rice-a-Roni business. Cut us right off,” wrote a side dish-loving redditor.
“As a consolation prize for losing on a TV game show, I was given a popcorn popper, a little girl’s bicycle, and a lifetime supply of Dinty-Moore Beef Stew. I gave the popcorn popper as a Christmas present and sold the bicycle. When the beef stew arrived it was one case of 12 cans. After trying the first can I realized that the other 11 would indeed last me a lifetime,” explained one “winner.”
“My aunt won a Shelby Mustang on The Price is Right back in the ’70s or ’80s. She couldn’t afford the taxes to actually keep the car, so she had to sell it. Still better than nothing, [I] suppose!,” posted a redditor.
And then there was this confession: “I won a trip for two to Maui on Wheel of Fortune. I’m a redditor, so I don’t have a girlfriend and therefore took my brother. Imagine a hotel pool with a sea of honeymooners, diamond rings newly glistening in the tropical sunlight, then out of nowhere come two fat, squelching idiots, pina coladas in chubby hands, splashing and wrestling, having contests to see who could jump farther off the diving board without spilling their drink, judging each other not only on spillage but also distance and style. It was a fantastic trip.”
Remind