Top 4 busted quiz cheaters
There are many wonderful things to say about us humans, however as with everything it’s not always perfect, and one of the best ways to illustrate this is with the continued presence of cheaters in pretty much every walk of life.
To be honest we’re not big fans of cheaters over at Winzum, as we believe in transparency, honesty and genuine friendship before anything else, however at the same time you cannot say that learning about busted cheaters isn’t interesting (and satisfied when they get caught, eh?).
With that in mind we started having a little research to see what some of the biggest busted quiz cheaters have been. We think these guys should have read our article exploring some tips & tricks to for quiz success [tips & tricks to maximise], maybe they wouldn’t have been caught cheating then…
Michael Larson and Press Your Luck
An ice-cream van driver who goes by the name Michael Larson had so much time in 1980s that he managed to spot a fatal weakness in the way the TV quiz show Press Your Luck worked, and managed to exploit the famous US program out of $110,237!
Mr Larson noticed that what first appeared like a random spin bonus round was not actually random at all, instead being a simple repeating sequence of 5 different outcomes. Boy did he go to town on it, however every single last dollar of his winnings was then stolen not long after – funny how life works, eh?
Herb Stempel and Twenty One
Some people just love entering quizzes to an almost freakish degree, and this is exactly what Herb Stampel would gladly describe himself all the way back in 1956.
In all honesty Herb didn’t really cheat here, but he was so good at answering trivia questions that he remained a quiz show called Twenty One undefeated for 6 weeks in a row! Unfortunately the producers made him step down after this period, but not before Herb Stampel bagged himself a $140,00 fortune.
Charles Ingram and Who Wants To Be A Millionaire
Some people might be able to remember this one, as it made headline news back in 2001 when a man called Charles Ingram arrived on the popular Who Wants To Be A Millionaire with a cunning plan to cheat his way to the jackpot.
He would read out all the potential quiz answers, and his loving wife sat in the audience would sound the alarm via a cough every time he read the right one out. As you might imagine this was quite obvious, and Charles Ingram didn’t even make it to the end of the show before the producers clocked on.
Adriana Abenia and Pasapalabra
In 2014 a Spanish model called Adriana Abenia pulled off an audacious stunt and cheated in a pretty blatant way during a song quiz segment of the popular Hispanic quiz show Pasapalabra.
The model got every single answer right to the surprise of the audience, however it was later found that she had been looking at the iPhone app Shazam under the table!