Nationwide — Vanesa McCaskell, an African American mom and army veteran, recently made history on The Price Is Right after winning nearly $240,000 during a Mother’s Day episode. She set a new record for the largest single pricing-game win in the show’s long-running history.
She took home $227,500 in cash plus a mother-daughter trip to Morocco after playing “The Lion’s Share” during the May 8 episode. Her total prize value reached $240,150, topping the previous record of $210,000 set in 2016.
Before the win, McCaskell said she was already grateful just to be on stage. “I was just so excited to even be in the position to play the game, let alone win,” McCaskell told USA Today.
A longtime fan of the show, McCaskell said she felt a strong sense of intuition during the game. She described hearing a “softest voice” guiding her choices as she picked five winning balls. The moment felt even more personal when the final two numbers revealed matched her daughter’s birthday.
McCaskell called the prize “life-changing” and said she plans to handle it carefully. She also shared that she wants to do something special for her mother first, in line with the Mother’s Day episode theme.
Even though the episode aired in May, it was actually filmed in December. McCaskell said keeping the outcome secret for months was difficult, especially when people kept asking if she had won.
“It was torture,” she said. “I was practicing my poker face so I didn’t crack when people asked me what happened. They’d say, ‘Did you win?’ and I’d say, ‘No.’ It was really, really tough to hold that.”
The Lion’s Share is one of the newest pricing games on the show. Contestants guess the prices of grocery items to earn up to five balls, each drawn from a hopper filled with cash prizes, trips, and losing outcomes. The game also marks the first custom-branded pricing game in the show’s history, developed this season.