Man Wins $10,000 On Nampa Playground

Four days ago, New Yorker Kristian House listened to a podcast about treasure hunts with large cash prizes up for grabs. One of these is called the Great U.S. Treasure Hunt. Clues were initially published in October in an ebook available on Amazon. Upon hearing that there were still prizes left to be won, House purchased a copy and started going to decipher clues.

Puzzles aren't exactly new to Kristian. He is the guy that creates crossword puzzles for the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and more. It took him less than two days to determine that by using the first letter of words that appeared twice in one sentence, he could find the exact location of one of the items worth $10,000.

His formula resulted in "Trislide, Nampa Lions, Hermes Badge." He started Google searching for possible meanings when he found a tri-slide at Lion's Park in Nampa. Without wasting any time, he booked a flight from New York to Boise and drove to Nampa. Upon arriving at Lion's Park and seeing the tri-slide, he waited for the park to clear out to avoid looking like a "creepy guy" around all of the kids playing. He reached behind the slide to find Hermes Badge taped to the back of the slide.

After reporting his find to hunt officials, he was officially declared the winner of the third prize. There is still one more $10,000 prize out there. According to the organizers, it's located east of the Mississippi and south of the 40th parallel.

The two other prizes were found in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and North Las Vegas, Nevada.  Read the entire story HERE.