ABC Will Pay Lucky 13 Players Over $460K After Production Bankruptcy

ABC is making sure Lucky 13 game show contestants get paid what they were promised.

Multiple outlets reported on Wednesday, February 5, that ABC is in negotiations to pay more than $460,000 to those who were promised prize money after participating in the game show. Despite ABC having no legal obligation to get involved, ABC stepped in after its U.K. producer, Studio 1, declared bankruptcy.

Studio 1’s CEO Adrian Woolfe addressed the news in a statement to Deadline, saying, “We are in the process of taking proactive protective steps to restructure the Studio 1 business and to unlock and protect the value of the now-proven Lucky 13 IP. Rather than it being a direct commission, the unique commercial model on which the debut series was launched in the U.S. was underpinned by advertising revenues which given well-publicized market conditions regrettably, but unavoidably, fell acutely short of forecasts.”

According to Deadline, several contractors have yet to receive payment for their work, in addition to the 13 contestants who participated in the game show not being paid their winnings yet.

Lucky 13, which premiered in July 2024, was hosted by Shaquille O’Neal and Gina Rodriguez. Us Weekly has reached out to ABC and reps for O’Neal and Rodriguez for comment.

Lucky 13 was a high-stakes game show that tested contestants’ knowledge with 13 true-or-false trivia questions. The twist? Each contestant competing for the grand prize of $1 million had to accurately predict how successfully they answered the questions. (Deadline reported that the contestants were awarded prizes totaling $461,500, with the biggest being $125,000 and the smallest being $3,750.)

Rodriguez, 40, previously spoke to Us about getting to host and be an executive producer on the show.

“I was first asked to join this project by Shaquille. I mean, who says no to Shaquille O’Neal? Not I! But I was like, ‘This is definitely very different for me.’ It was nothing I was actually ever really interested in before Shaquille O’Neal approached me,” she admitted in August 2024. “But I had to figure out how it was going to make sense for me because I had never really hosted before. … For me, I was excited to give people money. So it was coming from that perspective of how do I fit into this? Oh, I want people to walk away happy and with money.”

The transition from acting to hosting was not without its challenges.

“It was vastly different from making a TV show. You are in front of a live audience,” Rodriguez noted. “It’s like there are 200 strangers that don’t know the industry that are kind of getting a sneak peek into the skeletal process of making anything really artistic in front of the camera. It can be a little nerve-wracking.”

Rodriguez also pointed out how “nonstop” the filming process was, adding, “I am standing for 12 hours in heels and my feet are broken. When you’re doing a TV show, there’s a lot of downtime. You set up a shot, shoot it and then you can go work on lines or you can relax or decompress. With this, you are on from the start throughout the whole day in front of a bunch of strangers. and you do not stop. It’s like the train is out of the station and you’re holding on for dear life.”

At the time, Rodriguez praised O’Neal, 52, for his support. “What I say is improv. Most of what me and Shaq get to do is improv. I definitely come from a comedic background so I’m able to insert that into it, which is really fun and liberating. I don’t feel too restricted by a script,” Rodriguez shared with Us. “So much of the show is me and Shaq being us or having fun and being able to bring in both of our comedic chops.”

Lucky 13 was canceled in November 2024.