Illinois Instant Riches (later known as Illinois' Luckiest) was a lottery game show airing in the state of Illinois, as well as nationally on Chicago-based Superstation WGN-TV. The show was hosted by former MTV VJ Mark Goodman, with Linda Kollmeyer (who still remains with the station doing lottery drawings) as his co-host and Bill Barber as announcer.
The show was produced by Mark Goodson Productions (later Jonathan Goodson Productions), and premiered on July 9, 1994. The show was renamed Illinois' Luckiest in 1998 and aired until 2000.
For contestants to appear on the show, they must have bought an Illinois Instant Riches/Illinois' Luckiest scratch-off ticket from an Illinois Lottery retailer. If they uncover three TVs, then the ticket is sent in to the given address.
Players were randomly chosen from those tickets to be in the show's contestant pool, but only a certain number of them would be selected to play an on-stage game.
Several of the games on this show were transported to and from some other lottery game shows, most notable, Flamingo Fortune (Florida), Bonus Bonanza (Massachusetts), and NY Wired (New York); the differences are mentioned in this article. Elements from these games also carried over to the current quarterly-based Michigan Lottery game show Make Me Rich.
Read more about Illinois Instant Riches: Rules (Illinois Instant Riches), Bonus Games, Rules (Illinois' Luckiest)
Famous quotes containing the words illinois, instant and/or riches:
“An Illinois woman has invented a portable house which can be carried about in a cart or expressed to the seashore. It has also folding furniture and a complete camping outfit.”
—Lydia Hoyt Farmer (1842–1903)
“There is no instant of time when one creature is not being devoured by another. Over all these numerous races of animals man is placed, and his destructive hand spares nothing that lives. He kills to obtain food and he kills to clothe himself; he kills to adorn himself; he kills in order to attack and he kills to defend himself; he kills to instruct himself and he kills to amuse himself; he kills to kill. Proud and terrible king, he wants everything and nothing resists him.”
—Joseph De Maistre (1753–1821)
“Poor and content is rich, and rich enough,
But riches fineless is as poor as winter
To him that ever fears he shall be poor.
Good God, the souls of all my tribe defend
From jealousy!”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)