A Palo Alto High School alumna won big on an episode of the CBS channel game show “Let’s Make a Deal” that aired last Wednesday.
Molly Mackris, a Paly graduate of the Class of 2015 and a current student at Chapman University, took home a new Kawasaki motorcycle worth $7,399 after trading it for a $4,485 game room which included a shuffleboard, foosball table and television set.
An avid fan her entire life, Mackris began watching “Let’s Make a Deal” as a child and was finally given the chance to be part of the audience in June of this year. In the game show, audience members make deals with the show’s host. The host offers contestants something of value, such as cash, and contestants must choose whether to keep the object or trade it for a mystery item.
“Most of my friends and family were pretty shocked when they found out I was on the show, mostly because I hadn’t mentioned it before,” Mackris said. “The show taped in June, but I wasn’t allowed to tell anyone that I was a contestant until the show aired.”
In the beginning of the show, Mackris avoided purchasing a zonk; an object with little value to the buyer. She later turned down another unknown item, revealed to be a trip to the Caribbean island St. Lucia.
“I actually don’t regret missing out on the trip to St. Lucia,” Mackris said. “It would have been a cool experience but if I had won the trip I still probably would have traded it for the big deal of the day at the end of the show and would have ended up with the motorcycle anyway.”
Finally, she purchased a game room which she later traded for a “big deal” mystery item. While Mackris won a motorcycle and avoided the meager prize of $2,160, she lost out on a Chevy Sonic Sedan worth $25,879.
Mackris plans on selling the motorcycle.
“Those who know me know that I’m the farthest thing from a ‘biker chick,’ so I got a lot of people asking me if I was actually going to ride it or not,” she said.
Despite not receiving the grand prize, Mackris says she enjoyed the experience.
“I would absolutely love to be on ‘Let’s Make A Deal’ again, even if I was just in the audience,” Mackris said. “The energy in the studio that day was unlike anything I had experienced before and by the time we left that day we all felt like one big family.”