The Man Who Got No Whammies

September 25, 2015 6:17 AM

Larson had made a fool of CBS: He'd spun the show's board 47 times. He’d won more than any other daytime game show contestant in history. And he’d done so by finding an inherent flaw in television’s most “technologically impressive” game board.
posted by veedubya (19 comments total)

Previously on MetaFilter -- this FPP links to an excellent documentary about the Larson incident, narrated by the late Peter Tomarken himself
posted by briank at 6:23 AM on September 25, 2015 [7 favorites]

Interestingly, the Press Your Luck remake did an episode that pit the original losers from the Michael Larsen episode up against James Larsen, Michael's brother.

James won.
posted by SansPoint at 6:59 AM on September 25, 2015 [5 favorites]

And that's why it's called "pseudo-random". Though, in this case the pattern was spectacularly short.

Computers do not do true random unless they have some pretty specific hardware (or know how to go out and find some, which is a newish source these days).
posted by clvrmnky at 7:05 AM on September 25, 2015 [2 favorites]

The episode makes for some pretty riveting viewing. Everyone else starts out thinking that Larson is clearly insane, then it slowly dawns on them that something weird is going on, and you can see it happen. And Larson does a really good job of pretending with every round that "oh what the hell, I'm just going to go for it!"
posted by Ragged Richard at 7:09 AM on September 25, 2015

And this is probably why most game shows, if you think about it, are sort of "timeboxed." There's only so far a contestant can go, only so many rounds to the set, and the play ends for that episode. They can always come back as a returning champion in the next "episode." If they haven't been beaten up in the parking lot and sent home...
posted by randomkeystrike at 7:27 AM on September 25, 2015 [1 favorite]

Larson's the kind of guy where you read his complete history and go "wha?"
posted by Melismata at 7:28 AM on September 25, 2015

Computers do not do true random unless they have some pretty specific hardware

Anyone who uses an app to listen to music knows this already.

I wish this movie had come to fruition....
posted by Lucinda at 7:36 AM on September 25, 2015

This. Is fascinating. (please don't miss the this american life episode linked in the article)

I like game show scams/oddities. I have a weird respect for people who crack these systems when, you know, it's a pretty harmless system they're hacking and nobody really gets hurt. I followed the whole Charles Ingram scandal on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire. It wasn't a particularly complicated or smart cheat but it was still amazing to watch the whole thing unfold.

I started reading about some others, too. Khaled El-Katateny on Millionare Hot Seat, which wasn't technically cheating but it was pretty clever. Also not cheating, but Kerry Dee Ketchum, the fugitive on Super Password. Who went on a game show. Because?

I actually started looking into these back when there was an FPP on a show that I can't find now, but it was about what is now probably my favorite game show moment ever, from the show Golden Balls (har har har). I think I like these things most when you can really see the psychology at play. Please watch it, it's amazing. There's even a radiolab episode about it, or rather, about classic prisoner's dilemma scenarios. Game theory is so cool.
posted by nogoodverybad at 7:36 AM on September 25, 2015 [23 favorites]

Computers do not do true random unless they have some pretty specific hardware

On the other hand, a properly seeded cryptographically secure pseudo-random number generator produces output that is indistinguishable from true randomness by any feasible test not involving prior knowledge of the seed; that's the point of the "cryptographically secure" qualification.
posted by flabdablet at 8:01 AM on September 25, 2015 [10 favorites]

See also: The tale of the exactly correct Showcase 'guess'. (previously)
posted by AzraelBrown at 8:24 AM on September 25, 2015 [6 favorites]

Great story.
posted by theora55 at 8:32 AM on September 25, 2015

Computers do not do true random unless they have some pretty specific hardware

Anyone who uses an app to listen to music knows this already.

Yeah music apps' "random" functions skew heavily toward hip hop "skits"/interludes and that one song in your library you bought for a specific purpose and have no desire to listen to.
posted by Hoopo at 9:45 AM on September 25, 2015 [10 favorites]

As a child, the only reason I watched this show was to see the goofy little Whammy animations. (I religiously watched The Tracey Ullman Show for a similar reason.) If I had seen this episode back then, I would have hated this guy for denying me the cartoon antics I craved.
posted by Atom Eyes at 9:55 AM on September 25, 2015 [8 favorites]

Computers don't do true randomness, but modern hardware and implementations get close enough that it should take millions of years of spins to detect a bias, much less an advantage that can be humanly gamed. It's surprising to me that game designers didn't consult with a slot-machine maker of the time, who probably would have spotted the loophole.
posted by CBrachyrhynchos at 9:56 AM on September 25, 2015 [2 favorites]

It's surprising to me that game designers didn't consult with a slot-machine maker of the time, who probably would have spotted the loophole.

Perhaps, but this seems like 20/20 hindsight to me. Very few people had computers in the early 1980s, and even VCRs were a luxury item until later in the decade. To me, it's not surprising that it was exploited, but also not surprising at all that people didn't think to make it harder to exploit. The good guys don't generally see these things until the bad guys do.

Besides, people still get one over on modern gaming machines now and then.
posted by tonycpsu at 11:00 AM on September 25, 2015 [1 favorite]

You definitely don't want true random on your playlist. That would mean the same song ccould come up again and again.
posted by hellphish at 2:31 PM on September 25, 2015

Well you might want true randomness but you don't want a uniform distribution.
posted by Elementary Penguin at 3:38 PM on September 25, 2015 [1 favorite]

You definitely don't want true random on your playlist. That would mean the same song ccould come up again and again.

Instead of the same ten songs coming around over and over and over.
posted by elizilla at 3:39 PM on September 25, 2015 [1 favorite]

Easily the best home-sick-from-school programming ever.
posted by Ghidorah at 6:01 PM on September 25, 2015 [5 favorites]