After successfully auditioning in person at the Los Angeles studio, Larson performed on May 19, 1984, and beat the show so dramatically, he was accused by executives of CBS, the network on which Press Your Luck aired, of cheating.

A recurring subject of interest and inspiration, the event has been revisited in two documentaries by the Game Show Network, a Spanish-language graphic novel, and the 2024 film The Luckiest Man in America, starring Paul Walter Hauser as Larson.

The Big Board was a ring of 18 light-up squares that rapidly illuminated in a seemingly random sequence until a contestant pressed their button to stop the lights.

[7][5] By 1983, he was twice divorced and living at the home of his girlfriend, Teresa Dinwitty; she would later say of her "boyfriend and common-law husband, 'He always thought he was smarter than everybody else,' and that he had a 'constant yearning for knowledge.

[4] Larson's penchant for "always running some little scam or another" began at an early age, secretly selling marked-up candy bars to other middle-school students.

[9] He was arrested by Ohio law enforcement thrice between 1969 and 1982 for receiving and concealing stolen goods, larceny by trick, and petty theft.

[10] By 1983, he worked repairing air conditioning systems,[11][10] drove a Mister Softee-branded ice cream truck,[12] and spent the rest of his time studying a wall of twelve televisions and looking for get-rich-quick schemes.

Hyping himself as an appealing contestant, he told interviewers about being unemployed, his bus ride to Hollywood out of love for the show, being unable to afford a birthday gift for his six-year-old daughter, and buying his dress shirt at a thrift store down the street for $0.65 (equivalent to $1.91 in 2023).

In his first 15 spins, Larson occasionally missed his safe squares of four and eight, but was successful in avoiding Whammies, earning cash and prizes of $29,351 (equivalent to $86,079 in 2023).

That ended the game,[8] and after 47 spins of the Big Board, Michael Larson had won cash and prizes (including a sailboat and all-inclusive vacations to Kauai and The Bahamas) totaling $110,237 (equivalent to $323,296 in 2023).

[15] Some at CBS had wanted to quash the episode entirely, and afterwards made the ultimatum that it never be aired again, even including that requirement with their broadcast syndication contracts.

[10] To prevent anyone from repeating Larson's success,[8] the Big Board was programmed with 27 additional light patterns,[3] and CBS set a $75,000 ceiling for contestants' winnings.

[16] Larson later contacted Press Your Luck's contestant coordinator and issued an unanswered challenge: "I know you've added patterns to the board, but I bet I can beat you again.

[4] In his 2004 book Life as a Loser, Will Leitch credited the Press Your Luck scandal with inspiring his own appearance on Win Ben Stein's Money.

[12] He immediately spent some of his winnings buying lavish gifts for his daughter's sixth birthday (the day before the episode filmed);[4] more was invested in a Ponzi scheme involving real estate.

[9] After working as an assistant manager at Wal-Mart, Larson sold shares in a fraudulent multi-level marketing scheme; in 1995 he was charged for taking $1.8 million (equivalent to about $3.6M in 2023) from 14,000 investors.

"[8] In 2003, Variety opined that "[n]either the scandal nor Larson ever hit critical mass a la [the MIT Blackjack Team] and Charles Van Doren".

"[20] In 2011, Damn Interesting opined that despite the 1984 win having been called a cheat, a scam, or a scandal, "his impressive performance on Press Your Luck may be one of the only honest days of work that Michael Larson ever did.