The chance to win fame and fortune -- or at least enough to pay off a few bills -- has lured thousands of Americans to vie for spots on TV game shows over the years.

But game show contestants often don't realize one big catch: If they win, so does the tax man. Here's a look at some past contestants who discovered that winning wasn't all it's cracked up to be.

You don't always get what you win

Julie Jackson, now 22, put her price-guessing skills to good use and won the chance to appear as a contestant on a May 2007 episode of "The Price Is Right." The Phoenix resident won roughly $10,000 in prizes -- a seven-day trip to Austria and a set of golf clubs.

But just because Jackson won these things doesn't mean she received all of them. She got the trip to Austria but was given cash in lieu of the golf clubs after being told the clubs weren't available.

• How to get on a game show

Chad Foreman, 37, of Fayetteville, W.Va., had a similar experience on the same show. After winning a trip to Brazil, a recliner, video games and other prizes, he got a surprise backstage.

"They said, 'We are offering you cash instead of this prize,' at the end of the show when I sat in this room signing paperwork. They told me they weren't giving me the video game systems and games or the movie tickets for a year. They were giving me the cash value of those prizes instead," Foreman says. "So I got the cash, which totaled about $4,000."

Phone calls to the show and to its production company, FremantleMedia, seeking an explanation were not returned.

You won't collect anytime soon

If you hope to get on a game show to "save the farm," you'll be disappointed. That's because winners say it can take weeks -- even months -- to collect prizes.

In August 2010, Danielle Matlin, a 20-year-old college student in Los Angeles and contestant on "Let's Make a Deal," waited six months to collect a meager $300 cash prize. "I could not receive my money until the show was aired. Once aired, they had 90 days to send me the money."

At least earning the money was easy.

Matlin says all she had to do was play a word game with two other contestants. "We had to think quickly and name things of the category the hosts listed without repeating anything. I was pretty focused and didn't repeat anything. Luckily, the other contestants did, making me the last one standing."

Sonja Fisher, 42, who was on "Catch 21" in November 2010, says she had to wait about eight weeks to receive the $2,000 she won.

You may want to decline some prizes

Contestants should be prepared to pay taxes on every prize, even coupons and vouchers. If you win a year of housecleaning services or six personal training sessions, expect to be taxed.

When he was a broke college student living in California in 1987, Thom Singer, now 45, won $20,000 in cash along with a trip for two to Brazil, a sailboat and a stereo on "The $25,000 Pyramid." He also scored several "parting gifts."

"They taxed everything I won, including all the parting gifts, like a really ugly watch, coupons for a year's worth of cough syrup, a case of Otter Pops, etc.," Singer says. "I should have declined all the parting gifts, as most were dumb and went unused."

Unfortunately for Foreman, he found out too late that he could have declined the parting gifts. That's information he could have used to save on his taxes.

You need a financial plan -- fast

Singer says that if he could do it over, he would take the money and use it as the down payment for a house or condo instead of blowing it. "Winning $20,000 as a college student meant I had some 'free money.' I was young and traveled on the money," he says.

By the time his money ran out, Singer says, he had become accustomed to a life of excess. And to maintain his lifestyle, he looked to plastic.

"I had become used to such things that I ended up running up my credit cards to keep the lifestyle. I had never carried debt in college before the windfall," Singer says.

"It's tempting to splurge once you receive that check," says Steven J. Elliott, a senior tax manager at Elliot Horowitz in New York. "That's why it's smart to have a solid financial plan that includes how you're going to use and invest the money before receiving the check."

That plan also should spell out how you'll pay Uncle Sam, because he's going to have his hand out.