I wonder how many wrong answers they get ...

[XmisterIS]

I tend to watch the tellybox in the morning with breakfast, and they always feature money making scams competitions with questions like "What colour is the sky? Is it [a] red, blue, or [c] next tuesday." I wonder how many people excitedly phone up and blurt out the wrong answer ...

 

[ianrauk]

Blue

 

[Mad Doug Biker]

Next Tuesday!!

 

[Beebo]

A few years ago the Gambling Commission tried to stop these easy quiz questions and make the answers harder, as they felt that by having such easy question there was no skill involved and this type of quiz was effectively an illegal lottery. I dont think it has worked.

For their part the TV companies claim they are just trying to appeal to the Lowest Common Denominator widest audience! They must make huge profits of they wouldn't do it.

I remember a comedy sketch about this where the question related to racing car drivers, the answers were something like a) Mrs Thatcher, b) Nigel Mansell, c) Vera Duckworth. The presenter asked for anwers on a post card to The Nigel Mansell Competion, PO BOX 123, Broadcasting House. London. But that was back in the day before premium phone line scams.

 

[ColinJ]

A few years ago the Gambling Commission tried to stop these easy quiz questions and make the answers harder, as they felt that by having such easy question there was no skill involved and this type of quiz was effectively an illegal lottery. I dont think it has worked.

What a coincidence - I was discussing that with someone last night! They asked why those competitions have blindingly obvious questions and that was what I told them - they want everybody to enter so they make the questions really easy, and they only have questions so they can claim that the competitions are not lotteries. I said that I was amazed that a test case hadn't been brought to put a stop to the practice.

The problem as I see it is how do you legally define 'skill'? You could have questions which are very difficult for some people but easy for others. I played a game of Trivial Pursuit last night and people were amazed that I knew that Hoss, Joe and Adam had the surname Cartwright, but they hadn't sat and watched scores of episodes of Bonanza with their parents!

 

[davefb]

What a coincidence - I was discussing that with someone last night! They asked why those competitions have blindingly obvious questions and that was what I told them - they want everybody to enter so they make the questions really easy, and they only have questions so they can claim that the competitions are not lotteries. I said that I was amazed that a test case hadn't been brought to put a stop to the practice.

The problem as I see it is how do you legally define 'skill'? You could have questions which are very difficult for some people but easy for others. I played a game of Trivial Pursuit last night and people were amazed that I knew that Hoss, Joe and Adam had the surname Cartwright, but they hadn't sat and watched scores of episodes of Bonanza with their parents!

itv probably said to off-whatever 'well , 60% of answers are wrong' . it is mainly daytime tv remember...

fwiw, goto itv.com and for the sake of your email address, you can enter most of the contests for free..... though they dont normally repeat the answers, so you have to remember which a-b-c it was

 

[Mad Doug Biker]

RED!

 

[dan_bo]

BLUE