Overview:
Inside Louisville’s viral money hunt, where the thrill of the chase collides with the realities of a city divided by wealth. Freelance writer Charlie Cy recounts his race for the cash—and what he learned from the man behind the game.
Several weeks ago, I was introduced to the Instagram account, “Find the Cash Louisville,” a relatively new but increasingly popular “local” social media business with over 111,000 followers devoted to money hunts.
Multiple times a week, an unknown individual (or individuals) films himself dropping various denominations of cash around town—typically in iconic locations—and then uploads the video to their page’s Instagram Story. Thereafter, money-hungry Louisvillians scramble to pinpoint the drop and race to be the first to snag the loot.
When my partner Lisa—who works in sports marketing—first showed me the account’s videos, we both agreed it was a fairly ingenious way to gain followers, build engagement and solicit brand partnerships. Undoubtedly, the goal of the business was to give away far less cash than it would reap in returns.
We also agreed that if the next drop was anywhere near us, and we were free, we’d get in on the action for shits and giggles and maybe a shot at some spare coin.
However, it was assumed that if one of us was going to be seriously racing for the cash, it was going to be me: the self-employed shameless freelance writer and working-class hustler with a flexible schedule, far from too proud to do various menial and unsavory odd jobs for some extra duckets.
During Labor Day weekend, that presumption proved true.
The Hunt
It was a lazy Saturday afternoon. Lisa was at the Cards’ L&N Football Stadium preparing for UofL’s season opener against EKU. I was at home in our third-story walkup in Old Louisville, relaxing on the couch, busy dog-sitting for friends when my Apple Watch dinged: a new cash drop was live!
I raced to my fake “finsta” troll account and studied the video. In the footage, a stack of green notes topped with a $100 bill was tucked in a white envelope at the base of a small tree’s roots beneath a metal grate outside the Speed Museum—just blocks away.
This is my shot! I thought.
Immediately, I jumped up. Threw on my shoes. Grabbed my wallet and keys. Yelled to the amber Vizsla staring up at me, “Chai, I’ll be right back.”
Out the door. Down the stairs. Through the back parking lot. Into the garage, I jumped into my car. Put it in reverse. And pulled into the alley . . .
But in that narrow abyss—where I’ve witnessed gruesome beatings, gunshots, harmless drifters rifling through garbage bins and serious criminals committing carjackings—I was cursed by the Gods.
A Buick the size of a blimp crept ahead of me, slow-poking its way down the alley between Third and Fourth. There was no way to bypass the boxy beast, flanked by the walls of carriage houses and garages in that tiny corridor once cobblestoned and trod by horses.
So, I chose the next best option: ride up on its ass, hoping to impart some sense of urgency. But the lallygagging driver, apparently out for a leisurely weekend drive, completely ignored my tailgating protestations, as he turtled up to the intersection at Hill Street and put on his left-hand turning signal—THE SAME WAY I WAS TURNING.
“Fuck!” I screamed.
After several precious seconds were lost, I considered laying on the horn, but thought better of it and instead bit my tongue and patiently waited.
Finally, the ball-busting Buick crawled out onto Hill as I sped behind it glued to its bumper, desperate to break free.
But by now, I figured my fate was sealed. The Speed was so close, yet it was on campus, which meant some pimple-faced dorm-lizard, footsteps away, was bound to beat me to the Benjamins.
At Hill and Third, though, I found a window of opportunity, cutting right into the turning lane, sidestepping the sloth-hooptie and several other cars idling at the stoplight.
Liberated, I gunned it down Third, hitting multiple green lights before blowing threw one red signal at Cardinal Boulevard, where I chewed over the thought, maybe there’s still a chance.
Swerving into a metered parking space across from the Speed, I leapt from the car. Left the door wide open. Darted across the median. Zigzagged through Third Street’s northbound oncoming traffic, dodging various maniacal Derby City drivers, before breaking into a full sprint over the northwestern museum lawn in dark pigmented, gold-studded boat shoes I’d purchased on credit to wear while sipping Aperol Spritzes on the Amalfi Coast the previous summer.
I’d not yet spied any sign of that would-be gloating penurious-freak waving newfound cash while being filmed by the cunning orchestrators of this dubious social experiment.
So for a moment, I felt a sense of Darwinian elation, almost cockiness, undaunted, like a lone gazelle racing across Louisville’s green Serengeti under a blue sky and late August sun.
But that feeling abruptly shifted as several sedans screeched to a halt in the driveway, directly in front of the Speed.
“What the fuck were you thinking?” I cursed myself. “Why didn’t you park closer?”
From one car, a lanky, moon-faced, mop-headed adversary, bounded out of the vehicle, flashing a condescending grin, as he relished in the fact he had the upper hand, being ten meters ahead of me, before he sprung like a cheetah towards the trees planted along the Speed entrance.
Concurrently, a dark-skinned man jumped from the first car just as someone in the distance shouted, “they already found it!”
“Shit,” I sighed as I bent over and caught my breath–my heart pumping with adrenaline.
Each of us foolishly believed we were the first to arrive on the scene, and then as it became clear we weren’t, we began laughing amongst one another.
It was cathartic acknowledging how seconds prior we were cutthroat antagonists, and here we were now, failed fellows grinning together. For a brief moment, we shared in the crystalline proletarian camaraderie of defeat, before the men nodded and climbed back into their cars, just as another vehicle pulled up—a woman inside, wearing a pink bonnet on her dome, shot out and too began to search in vain.
As I walked back to my car, more competitors-turned-comrades swarmed, bug-eyed, peppering me with questions like desperate heroin junkies.
“Did you get the money?”
“Are you the Find the Cash guy?”
“How much was it?”
I fielded their queries, and we too giggled and communed momentarily, before bidding each other farewell, as I climbed back into my ride.
Looking out over the museum’s landscape (where I once attended a nauseating talk with the Hillbilly Elegy conman JD Vance, before he was an elected official), I watched with curiosity as more and more participants gravitated to the drop site as if they were compelled to descend on this precise location by some unseen dystopian hand.
Surveying the scene, I could not help but feel both a sense of brotherhood and a pang of manipulation—like being a pawn in a low-rent Squid Game. Not slaughtered, not forced, but exploited nonetheless.
“We were the marks, now weren’t we?” I thought. How many sadistic voyeurs would enjoy watching these videos of the hoi polloi feverishly scamper for chump change?
How much money was there to be made off our desperation?
Prelude to an Interview
That uneasy feeling stayed with me and compelled me to write this essay, pitch the idea to “Leo Weekly” and directly email Find the Cash Louisville to request an interview.
One of the two partners of the biz quickly replied, saying he was interested and could “hop on a call.” After some miscommunication, we finally spoke. He asked to remain anonymous, which I agreed to. Several details were also kept off the record—although one fact he’d asked to have redacted I’d already confirmed beforehand through my own due diligence: Louisville was not the only city with a “Find the Cash.”
A simple Google search revealed Find The Cash Indy, Find The Cash Philadelphia, Find The Cash ATL, Find The Cash Boston, Find the Cash New York, Find the Cash Houston and more.
The point being, before I ever heard the owner pronounce “Louisville” with a “ville” versus a “vulle” over the phone, I knew this was not a local mom-and-pop hustle but a corporate-minded carpetbagger pulling the strings.
Key facts from the interview:
1. The Louisville operation began three months ago.
2. They gained over 5000 followers immediately after first post.
3. They give away roughly $160 -$200 a week.
4. They record for 20 minutes post-drop.
5. They are on the hunt for sponsors.
Q&A
(edited for length and clarity)
Charlie Cy: What was the inspiration behind Find the Cash Louisville?
Find the Cash: I’m a Christian myself. Obviously, I believe in giving back. So, it stems from that. But I would say the inspiration came from other content creators who give away money. We tried to come up with a fun way to give back that is also fair. Because we can only do so much. So, we thought of this as a way to give back to the community in a way that anybody can win. It’s fair. There is no favoritism. It’s just being at the right place at the right time. And being quick enough and enthusiastic enough to go grab it.
Charlie Cy: Are you a Louisville native?
Find the Cash: No, I’m not. I’m originally from Georgia. Was in the Navy. Have bounced around quite a bit.
Charlie Cy: Any horror stories or surprises?
Find the Cash: No. It has been super positive. Everybody for the most part has a great time. Even if they don’t win. I think it’s the excitement of participating in an activity that has gone viral on social media. I think that aspect of it, people really enjoy just looking and participating. Unfortunately, there can only be one winner. People just like participating. All the vibes are good. No one has fought over it. We actually have had people split it. It’s a great social experiment. Because you get to see what people do in real time if given the opportunity to split some money with people they don’t know.
Charlie Cy: What about the potential critiques about this being an almost Squid Game-esque [type competition], where people are so desperate to get to the money . . . Louisville is a poor city. I took part in one of these games and really enjoyed it, but I looked around and saw people who looked really, well, desperate. You may disagree with the term “desperate”? What do you say to that?
Find the Cash: I do disagree. My viewpoint. I’ll speak on my expertise in Louisville . . . [section off record]. We could put five dollars in a piece of plexiglass somewhere out in Louisville and people would still show up. So, the way that we look at it, just because it’s a game that involves money, doesn’t mean people are desperate for money. And at the end of the day, it’s $60. It’s not going to move the needle for anybody. Right? If it does, you probably shouldn’t [he changes his train of thought from “shouldn’t” to “can’t”], can’t drive there to play. So, the way we look at it, and what we’ve seen is that people may be very adamant about getting it but that doesn’t mean that they’re broke or poor or that type of thing. What it is, people want to win. Who doesn’t want to win?
You’re seeing people excited at the potential of winning. I’ll tell you; it’s not an easy game to win. When you have 111,000 people all trying to do the same thing. It’s very difficult to win. I think people just want to win. I don’t think people are desperate for the 60 bucks. I think that’s a naïve way to look about it.
Charlie Cy: I’ll tell you personally–to play devil’s advocate–I live on a very lean budget as a freelance writer, and I’ll take every 60 bucks that I can get. So that’s the counter argument.
Find the Cash: I think that speaking as a majority, I think that a majority of people who participate don’t really need 60 bucks that much and you’re going to have outliers and you’re going to have that one person who maybe that 60 bucks would’ve gave him some gas money and they really needed it, but that’s just life, you know.
Charlie Cy: Do you interact much with the winners after?
Find the Cash: No, we don’t. We do everything from a distance. We don’t interact with the winners. We record everything from a distance. It’s a social experiment at the end of the day. What we do is hide money. We don’t tell anybody to come get it. We don’t tell them where it’s at. We don’t tell them when we’re doing it. We just hide the money. Whoever shows up and whatever they do, that is the social experiment. So, we capture it all on camera and post it the next day for everybody to see.
Charlie Cy: Does Instagram pay for engagement?
Find the Cash: No, they don’t. Instagram stopped paying people for views a few years ago. We make zero dollars from Instagram or Facebook or any social media platform as far as views are concerned. The hope would be in Louisville to acquire sponsors. Obviously, if we get sponsors, we can give away more. We can give away money that maybe would actually move the needle for somebody. Like $500 or $1000. I think $1000 would move the needle for a lot of people. Me included . . .
If there are any brands out there who would want to sponsor what we do and give away more, that would be ideal and that’s kind of the goal and that’s where we are hoping to go with it. We have reached out to a couple of law firms and gotten some answers. We have an audience of 111,000 local Louisville people, so anybody who wants to advertise on a digital billboard, being on Instagram, and getting in front of basically all of Louisville, feel free to contact us.
Charlie Cy: What about age demographics. It seems like it’s a younger crowd. Is that accurate? Inaccurate?
Find the Cash: I wouldn’t say so. If you check our analytics on Instagram, our main follower demographic is 25 to 35. So, it’s a lot of families. It’s more of a family activity. You would think it would be a bunch of college kids but it’s really not. It’s a lot of families. It’s a lot of single mothers. We see a lot. Single dads.
Closing Thoughts
Two things stood out.
First, when the owner of Find the Cash led with being “a Christian” who just wanted to “give back to the community,” I nearly sharted myself from internal laughter.
There’s no bigger business or con in America than Christianity. Meanwhile, conflating true charitable giving–which requires no cameras–with flashy algorithmic spectacle to entice sponsors, is peak capitalist branding.
Second, his insistence that “at the end of the day, it’s $60,” and that this small amount of money is “not going to move the needle for anybody,” and moreover, these competitors aren’t “desperate”—they just want to “win”—told me how little he knows about this city.
I got the sense, Louisville wasn’t a community to be served. It was merely another market to corner. And yet, in those fleeting moments after the hunt, when we strangers laughed together at our collective loss, I caught a glimpse of something real: the possibility of community forged not by cash, but by the absurdity of chasing it.
This article appears in Sep 1-30, 2025.