VIDEO: Altamont Man Wins Big on “Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?”

VIDEO UNDER STORY

Steve Mislich, an Altamont High School graduate and current Senior at Greenville College was a recent contestant on “Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?”. 

Steve auditioned for the show back in June, on a recent trip to New York. He's the son of Jason and Melisa Mislich, also of Altamont, IL. Steve’s girlfriend Katie came to NYC with him and sat in the Millionaire audience as his on-air companion for the show.

Steve is a senior at Greenville College, pursuing a degree in Math and Computer Science. He plans to pursue his doctorate after graduating in 2013. His ultimate goal is to work for NASA. Not only is Steve a great student, he can solve a Rubik’s cube in 2 minutes and once memorized the first 300 digits of Pi. He is an avid chess player and owns over 25 chess books. He once played against the U.S. chess champion who’s ranked 5th in the world. Steve said that if he won big on Millionaire, he would travel to the Middle East and practice his Arabic. He’d also see his girlfriend more frequently (they currently live 600 miles apart!) and take her on a cruise.

He made it all the way up to the $100,000 question, but unfortunately provided an incorrect answer. He was still able to leave the show with $25,000 in winnings after successfully navigating his way through the first round of the game (questions 1-10) and went on to round #2 (questions 11-14) with an accumulated Millionaire Bank of $63,600 and one lifeline left (“Ask The Audience”).

Photo courtesy Disney-ABC

Once a contestant makes it into round #2 of Millionaire (best described as “Classic Millionaire”), they only have four more questions to answer. Unlike the first round of the game, questions in round #2 become progressively more difficult and the monetary value attached to the question is no longer shuffled and hidden. If a contestant decides to not take a guess and walk away from the game in round #2, they are able to take home their entire accumulated Millionaire Bank. If a contestant incorrectly answers a question in round #2, they fall back to $25,000 in winnings.

The question that Steve missed was probably something most of us wouldn't have guessed. For $100,000, the question was, "A man of many talents, actor Charlie Sheen was issued a patent in 2001 for a handheld apparatus that dispenses what?"

A: Condoms
B: Chapstick
C: Cologne
D: Breath mints

Steve went to his Lifeline for this question, and the audience poll was A=52% B=9% C=5% D=34%.

Steve went with the advice of the audience and guessed the answer to be “A.” Unfortunately the correct answer was “B", Chapstick. Steve left the show with $25,000 in winnings.

Photo courtesy Disney-ABC

Steve says even though he didn't win a million dollars, he's incredibly happy to have gone on the show, saying "Just go out there, even if the odds of being successful are so small, just try it, what's the worst the could happen? Don't stay at home, go out there and go do things...and see what could happen."

That's advice that certainly paid off for him.

Video: Steven Mislich talks with our Greg Sapp

There's also a clip of Steven on "Millionaire" after the interview. Video clip courtesy Disney-ABC.