Question about Toni’s “win” in 3 Strikes

[goodboy16]

I found a clip on YouTube of contestant Toni winning a Porsche in 3 Strikes in 1992. Even though I’ve seen it countless times before, I decided to read the comments and one stood out to me.

I have seen this exact same episode in reading a news article that they refused to give her the Porsche at the end of the show when eveyone left do to the cheating.... she tried to sue them in court and lost when they showed the judge the footage.....

This is the first I’ve heard anything about any type of legal action regarding this incident. I could find no articles in any online archives to corroborate this, but a few different users also left similar comments saying they remember the lawsuit got some decent media coverage at the time.

I never for one second believed that it was a coincidence that the show suddenly stopped using the game’s five-digit format and made the strike chips white immediately after Toni’s episode. You can very clearly see her pull a chip part way out of the bag and glance at it before suddenly reaching back in and pulling out (surprise!) the 9.

Does anyone know anything about this alleged lawsuit? Did it even happen at all?

[mechamind]

I'm in doubt. If it did happen though, I'd like to see a scan of the news article if one can be found, as it might be interesting to read.

[moneygamelover]

One interesting thing about this playing is that Bob knew in the moment about the cheating. At the end of the playing you can kinda of haer Bob saying "phony."

[pricefan18]

One interesting thing about this playing is that Bob knew in the moment about the cheating. At the end of the playing you can kinda of haer Bob saying "phony."

Are you talking about when Toni is running to the car and Bob is picked up suddenly after a bit of air with just the theme playing? If so, he was saying Toni, not phony. It just sounded like phony because he was in mid-sentence at the time. The editing was interesting too I have to say on the win, seemed like they cut something Bob said for some reason. It was weird how they cut his mic for some of the win part.

[JayC]

I'm in doubt. If it did happen though, I'd like to see a scan of the news article if one can be found, as it might be interesting to read.

Searching on the California Digital Newspaper Collection https://cdnc.ucr.edu/ didn't bring up anything when I searched Toni and Price is Right.

[priac]

I mentioned this before, but I was in the audience for this taping.
Of course, from the audience you couldn't see her peeking.  If you notice the tape, Bob is looking down at the bag (not at her face) at the exact moment she peaked.   By the time he looked back up at her face, she was already looking away, already having seen she was about to pull the strike.  Then she reaches in and exchanges the tiles. 

Also, Toni won $11,000 on the wheel and then showcase.  I think it was $79k total.  Really an exciting show to see live.

I'd love to know also if there was a lawsuit.  I haven't heard of one.

[ThatDonGuy]

The quote says that "they refused to give her the Porsche at the end of the show." Obviously, if they thought she was cheating, they would have said something at the end of the show (something like, "The nth contestant on stage was found to violate the rules of the show and will not receive the announced prizes"), if not withhold the episode from airing entirely. Besides, a lawsuit like that is definitely the kind of thing that would have made the news.

[Mr. Weatherman]

If there was a lawsuit, there would almost certainly be a record of it somewhere online.  If not, then it should be public record at the very least — maybe not the result if there was some sort of private settlement, but I would think the case itself would be public and FOIA-able.

I’m thinking no such lawsuit exists.

[PIR85]

Roger addressed this incident on Facebook.  No such prize revocation occurred. 

https://www.facebook.com/538567054/posts/593928570737543?s=1607724930&sfns=mo

[JayC]

I figured it had to be more for budgetary reasons because of the Porsche rather than not playing it to prevent further cheating or mulling changes/retirement that they didn't play the game the rest of the season. I imagine Golden Road wasn't played much the rest of that season either. Reading Roger's posts detailing the history of the game's prize and rule changes was definitely interesting.

My take on the video is that it does look suspicious that she appeared to have a chip in her hand, drop it, and then take the other chip, but I also didn't think it was possible for her to definitely see what chip she was holding before pulling it.

[tpiradam]

Budgetary reasons would certainly make a great deal of sense. On record the top three winners of season 20 all happened in January/February.

[TPIRighteous]

Don't believe everything you read... especially not in the YouTube comments section.