A Family Found a Hidden Genie’s Lamp—and Walked Away With $200,000 in Treasure
As part of an online Treasure Games effort, a family from Colorado discovered a “wish lamp” after deciphering clues in a poem that yielded them a $200,000 prize.
Television producer and entrepreneur Dirk Gibson launched Treasure Games in 2024 to share wealth in an innovative way.
The first wish lamp, discovered in Texas in May, was worth $1.2 million.
It would be understandable if most people’s first wish upon discovering a genie’s lamp was to stumble upon some some extra funds. But that’s largely a fantasy.
Not for a family in Colorado. After deciphering a riddle-filled poem, they unlocked the clues to capture a hidden “wish lamp” that netted them $200,000 from Treasure Games founder Dirk Gibson, a television producer and entrepreneur.
But this game wasn’t for TV. Treasure Games is a startup treasure-hunting platform Gibson started to “spread wealth and create a platform that can leverage good in the world,” Gibson said according to Medium. The game, which previously doled out $1.2 million to a New Mexico couple who found the first wish lamp planted by the game in Texas in May, is all about bringing people together in a unique way to capture wealth.
The Colorado wish lamp sure brought the Martinez family from Fort Collins together. Fernie Martinez was searching for a treasure-hunting game online earlier this year when he stumbled upon Treasure Games, described by Fox 21 as a skill-based geocaching event that awards everyday people with prize money.
Wish Lamps is the first game from the company, dropping 10 genie-style lamps into different regions across the United States. Players can come from anywhere, and each region’s treasure could be worth a different value. The Texas find gave the winner the option of $1 million in cash or three wishes worth up to $1.2 million. The Colorado lamp was worth a $200,000 check and had been sitting near a utility box behind the well-known, castle-looking King’s Chef Diner since February.
The Martinez family needed four trips from their home near Fort Collins to Colorado Springs before they finally came away with the prize. “My heart jumped in my throat,” Martinez told KRDO about seeing the lamp and a stamp that reads “property of TGS” on it. “So, when I saw that, I can’t even describe the feeling.”
The poetic clues had the family searching Colorado Springs for the first time on Memorial Day. “It was all an adventure,” Martinez said. “Even if we didn’t find it, we had a great time.”
Weeks later, the family believed the clues led them into downtown Colorado Springs. They believed they were narrowing in on the prize. The castle-styled diner sealed it. “My daughter spotted it,” Martinez said, “and when she spotted it, that got me [thinking]. I went home. I started doing research on it.”
He took a day off work on June 12, drove down and started walking around the diner, closed at that time. Then he saw the lamp on the side of the building near a utility box.
It had sat there since February, with diner owner Gary Geiser saying that people had walked right past the lamp for months. “My excitement was kinda building but I couldn’t tell anybody,” he told KRDO.
Gibson said that when he saw the castle, he thought it fit the the game’s vibes of positivity, adventure, and fun. That’s when he arranged with the owner to plant the lamp there.
Treasure Games activates different wish lamps in the 10 regions at varying points in the calendar. The competition is only open to subscribers of the game, but they don’t have to be from the region to win. Gibson told KRDO about 2,000 people were playing as of July 15 and a wish lamp in the Florida, Georgia, and Carolinas region was recently activated, worth plenty more than the one in Colorado. And time to find it is ticking away.
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