People who try their luck on game shows usually walk away disappointed, their pockets filled with nothing but missed opportunities and lost prizes. But from time to time, a clever individual will figure out how to game the system. Most of them do it in secret, but in 2008, a middle-aged man named Terry Kneiss did it in broad daylight. In fact, he seemingly pulled off the impossible in front of a televised audience of millions.
Terry's triumph
Terry Kniess' moment of truth came on an otherwise ordinary episode of The Price Is Right in 2008. Terry and his wife, Linda, cheered with the rest of the studio audience when he was selected to be part of Contestants' Row.
He was smiling — but it wasn't just for the cameras.
An ace predictor
See, Terry felt like a The Price Is Right ringer. He'd been mastering the art of analysis his entire life, actually.
He began his career as a Nevada TV meteorologist and quickly set himself apart from other weathermen by making startlingly accurate forecasts.
A bright future
Terry was so good, in fact, that he quickly moved to better, higher-earning jobs, and he eventually found himself in Atlanta. He then earned two Southeast Regional Emmy Awards in the early '90s... before homesickness caught up to him and his wife.
They shuffled back to Nevada, and Terry applied his skills to a different industry.
Busting cheaters
Back in Vegas, Terry landed a job in casino surveillance. Using his genius for pattern recognition, it was his job to watch the entire casino floor for cheats and card counters.
And wouldn't you know it, even the pros couldn't get past him.
Turning heel
He learned all the ways tricksters tried to exploit loopholes in casino games. And Terry became hooked.
He figured out how to count cards, and his skills quickly surpassed those of lifelong gamblers. Soon enough, Terry became one of them.
Evolving into a gambler
Clearly, Terry never made his fortune at the casinos. But he did play, and he believed he had what it took to beat the house.
In 2008, though, a personal tragedy forced Terry and Linda to refocus their minds.
The Price Is Right obsession
Terry actually became obsessed with The Price Is Right right after his family's dog died. He and Linda were so upset by the event that they found themselves adrift.
So, if they were ever going to move on from their grief, they figured they needed a purpose. And that purpose soon became studying The Price Is Right.
A shared passion
Yes, the couple developed into armchair The Price Is Right pros. They aimed to appear on the show after they had tirelessly memorized the patterns and prices of various items.
The couple taped the show in the morning and studied it later at night.
His key observation
Over a four-month period, Terry and Linda determined that the game show used the same prizes over and over again — at the same prices.
They figured out the patterns inside and out, and both swooned at the thought of actually competing themselves.
Look for the patterns
They wouldn't be cheating, necessarily. They'd be taking an approach similar to Michael Larson, who had memorized the prize sequence of Press Your Luck in 1984.
In fact, Larson had figured out which flashing squares were always safe — and won over $100,000.
Waiting for their time
In September 2008, Terry and Linda arrived to Television City and waited to be admitted into The Price Is Right studio.
They had no control over whether they'd be randomly called down to play, of course — but announcer Rich Fields eventually did call out Terry's name.
The Big Green Egg
Terry quickly got off to a winning start, too. He faced the challenge of guessing the price of a very familiar product: the Big Green Egg.
Yep, Terry wowed everyone by listing the exact retail price of $1,175.
Drew's suspicion
The audience cheered, of course, and even host Drew Carey seemed to be on Terry's side. He liked it when people won, and in this taping, everybody seemed to be doing well.
Little did he know that people were getting nervous behind the scenes as Terry advanced to the final Showcase.
Number cruncher
Terry faced a sterner test here. His Showcase package included a camper, a pool table, and a karaoke machine.
His sharp mind quickly added the value of those up to $23,000. Then, for fun, he added on 743 — his and Linda's PIN number.
Right on the money
Astonishingly, Terry was exactly right. He had achieved a feat that most people thought was impossible.
But before it could be announced to the live studio audience, Drew Carey cut to a commercial break... and the producers brought the episode to a halt. They smelled a rat.
A possible conspiracy
A producer came to talk with Carey and spelled out the situation. "I thought somebody had cheated us, and I thought the whole show was over. I thought they were going to shut us down, and I thought I was going to be out of a job," Carey told Esquire in 2010.
"But that's not what happened," Carey explained. Why? "There was that guy, in the audience. Ted."
The game show villain
The guy Carey was referring to was Ted Slauson. Slauson emerged in the late 1980s as the most formidable The Price Is Right contestant ever. He only appeared as a contestant on the show once, in 1992, and then only won $1,000.
But he showed up in the audience for dozens of tapings and shouted out correct answers to the contestants — which is well within the rules of the game.
The Rise of Ted
In 2002 The Price Is Right changed its contestant-eligibility rules, and Slauson was once again allowed to attend tapings. In May of that year, he even helped a contestant named Brandon win a Ducane gas grill and a car.
Brandon gave him kudos from Contestant's Row, and the cameras captured his smiling face. Slauson began to be known as a The Price Is Right expert.
Ted's shadow
And Slauson was in attendance that fateful day when Terry won the Showcase. In fact, Terry and Linda had sat next to Slauson in the audience before Terry got called down to compete.
So Slauson undoubtedly would have been in Terry's corner. Was it possible that Ted had made secret hand signals to Terry as he played his game?
Hand Signals or Cooperation?
Terry later denied ever meeting this game show ace. He asserts that he won by his own merit. "I have no regrets," Terry told Esquire, "but there have been times I've wondered, What have I done?" He wished that he'd placed a bid of $23,700 instead of being right on the money.
"If there's one thing I've learned through all this," he explained, "it's that there's such a thing as being too perfect." But Slauson tells a different story.
Ted's Point of View
Slauson poked holes in Kniess' story, according to Esquire. He said nobody has ever used a three-digit PIN. He said the Big Green Egg was only a prize on the show before Terry and Linda started studying them.
He said he helped other contestants win on that day — but he had been cut out of the episode when it was finally shown to the public.
Ted Believed He Had the Answers
In a 2018 Houston Chronicle article, Slauson clarified that he added up all of the prizes in Terry's final Showcase in his head to arrive at a total of $23,743. He said he did the mental math twice, just to be sure, then gave the answer to Linda, who was sitting next to him.
There was a documentary on the subject in 2017 called Perfect Bid: The Contestant Who Knew Too Much. But Terry insisted there was another explanation.
Were They Both Right?
Terry argued that when he looked into the audience — when some people claim he was looking at Slauson — he was actually looking at his wife. “Maybe we’re both right,” he told the Houston Chronicle.
“Maybe he called out the price, I guessed correctly and, boom, both of us got the same number.” Whatever the real story, Terry eventually got his prizes — and The Price Is Right cracked down on its prize packages.
The shady duo
Pretty quickly, though, fans started making comparisons to another infamous game show scandal. In 2001, married couple Charles and Diana Ingram were in tremendous debt. That's perhaps why, months prior to Charles' appearance on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?, Diana had actually appeared on the UK show herself — and successfully won £32,000.
This fact alone wouldn't raise too many eyebrows — but, not unlike Terry, Charles had a few skeletons in his closet that would soon be exposed to the world.
Sky-high expectations
Originally, it seems, the plan was not to cheat. When the couple arrived on set, they were reportedly confident in Charles' potential.
However, after the first few rounds, it would have become obvious that their expectations were a bit too high.
Early stumbles
Charles nearly bombed the first few questions. In fact, he crawled his way to £4,000 — using up two of his lifelines in the process.
And by the time filming wrapped for the day, it must have become apparent to the Ingrams that they needed a plan.
Finding a ringer
After day one of filming, it seems that Diana went to work to find a solution. She apparently found it in the form of Tecwen Whittock.
Tecwen was a college lecturer whom Diana had apparently met while he was doing the rounds at various quiz shows. That seemingly made him perfect.
The professor arrives
It seems that Tecwen had studied the kinds of offbeat questions Millionaire was known for and was hoping to be a contestant himself.
Together, then, the three allegedly devised a way to slip the correct answers to Charles without being discovered.
Strange behavior
When Charles showed up on set the following day, Millionaire host Chris Tarrant informed Charles that the production team didn't think he'd be around much longer.
So what happened next no doubt baffled Tarrant and the watching crew behind the scenes.
The big act
According to their alleged plan, Charles was meant to follow a very specific series of actions. After the host read the question, Charles was supposed to read out the answers one at a time.
Next, Tecwen would apparently use a secret, cheap tactic to reveal the answer.
The secret signal
The alleged play called for Tecwen to send Charles a signal when he read the correct answer aloud. Simple, right?
Except that the signal that was apparently chosen was not exactly subtle.
Coughing up the truth
In fact, a sound technician immediately noticed that each time Charles read aloud the correct answer, a mysterious audience member could be heard coughing up a storm. This audience member was Tecwen.
Yet there was someone else coughing out there as well.
Nearing victory
Yes, people have argued that Diana was also trying to feed Charles answers with her coughing.
But no matter what was happening in the audience, there's no doubt that Charles was displaying some very erratic quiz-show behavior in front of the cameras.
Clowning around
Case in point: the answer to the question, "Who had a hit U.K. album with Born to Do It, released in 2000?" is Craig David.
But Charles' first response was, "I've never heard of Craig David," and his second was that he "thinks it's A1." So when Charles ended up choosing Craig David, the host was understandably curious.
Diana in disbelief
It was quite the turnaround from where Charles seemed to be only moments before. But when Tarrant quizzed Charles on his U-turn, Charles simply said that "most of [his] guesses are wrong."
And that wasn't the only time Charles seemed to be, well, all over the place.
Winning it all
At various points in the show, Charles says, "I don't know what that [answer] is," "I'm sure it's not that," and "I've never heard of that."
Yet after making another "unexpected" change of heart on his final answer, Charles finally hit the jackpot.
Their victory lap
Right after his historic win, Charles seems almost relaxed — unlike most guests in the hot seat. He immediately covered the smile on his face, as did his wife, who was then asked to join him on stage.
Inevitably, though, the trio would later end up reliving the event in a courtroom.
Answering to justice
Immediately after winning, Charles saw his £1,000,000 prize suspended. The Millionaire producers also investigated the couple — and took their case to the authorities.
And after a four-week trial in April 2003, the trio of Millionaire contestants was found guilty of deception. Many may have expected their sentences to be harsher, though.
Facing the consequences
The Ingrams and Tecwen were all given suspended prison sentences and a hefty fine. But their appearance on Millionaire was not the last anybody saw of Charles and Diana Ingram.
In fact, the "Coughing Major" arguably saw his notoriety skyrocket.
Reality stars
Charles was asked to appear on a slew of reality shows, including Hell's Kitchen and Wife Swap, where Diana once again made a TV appearance. This convinced many that the duo cheated simply to attract media attention.
Nevertheless, the couple maintains their innocence to this day. Now, a TV show might just help or hinder their case.
Life imitates art
The miniseries called Quiz centers around the entire Ingram controversy. In the three-part story, the jury hear the evidence and find there is more to the story than they may have thought.
And on the last day of the show’s airing, the real Ingrams announced they were fighting to overturn their guilty verdicts.
Coincidental coughing
According to a statement from the Ingrams' lawyers, “There are some really weird anomalies" in the recordings that prove the coughing was all just a coincidence. But as far as the world is concerned, Charles and Diana are still guilty.
That’s the final answer... so far.