Actual Game Show Cheaters

Neither contestant actually broke any rules, but clickbait articles and videos online will act like they did anyway. That being said, there are quite a few people who DID cheat on game shows, so let’s take a look at five of them today. Some of these contestants broke the rules of the game itself, and some of them broke eligibility rules, meaning they weren’t supposed to be on their respective shows in the first place.

Charles Ingram, Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?

No list of game show cheaters would be complete without Charles Ingram. On September 9 and 10, 2001, he appeared as a contestant on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?, and he answered all his questions correctly to win the £1,000,000 top prize. His final question asked for the name of the number that consists of a 1 followed by 100 zeros, and he won the game with his answer of “googol.” However, Charles’ behavior during the game made the show’s staff suspect that something was awry.

The choices that Charles made on a handful of questions were quite unusual. The £32,000 question said, “Who had a hit UK album with ‘Born To Do It,’ released in 2000?” He used his 50/50 lifeline to eliminate two answers, which left him with A1 and Craig David. He believed that the answer was A1, and he had never heard of Craig David prior to seeing the question. Inexplicably, he decides to change course at the last minute. He chose David as his final answer, which was correct.

He went against his gut on the £500,000 question as well. This question read, “Baron Haussmann is best known for his planning of which city?” He immediately jumped to Berlin as his first guess, but eventually followed up by saying “there’s a chance it’s Paris,” with no further explanation of his thought process. He eventually settled on Paris, which was once again the right answer.

As it turns out, Charles was getting help from the audience. He would read out all the answer choices for a question, and listen for a response from the audience. Two other people would cough whenever they heard what they believed to be the right answer. Most of the coughs came from Tecwen Whittock, who would go on to be a contestant later that week. On the Craig David question, Charles’ wife Diana coughed at the right answer instead. She was a Millionaire contestant in her own right earlier in 2001.

In 2003, Charles, Diana, and Tecwen were taken to court over this game, and they were all found guilty of procuring the execution of a valuable security by deception. Charles and Diana received 18-month suspended sentences, and Tecwen received one for 12 months. Despite this fraud case, Charles has appeared on several game shows after Millionaire, namely The Weakest Link, The Games, and 19 Keys.

Jeff Kirby, Jeopardy!

Some game shows allow you to be a contestant more than once. On The Price Is Right, former contestants can play again, as long as it’s been 10 or more years since their last appearance. But Jeopardy! alumni are ineligible to reappear on the show unless they’re invited back.

Jeff Kirby managed to play regular season Jeopardy! two separate times though. His first appearance was on December 8, 1999, and he came back on October 12, 2009, despite the rule saying that he couldn’t. After his second game, fans of the show became suspicious. They looked back at Jeff’s 1999 appearance, and noticed that he wore the same tie as he did in 2009.

Two days after Jeff’s second game aired in syndication, the Jeopardy! producers made an official statement on the matter. After explaining the rule that contestants can only return to the show if they’re explicitly invited back, the statement said, “In our contestant booking and verification process, we relied on information provided to us by Mr. Kirby. He did not disclose that he had previously been on Jeopardy!. His having been on the show before made Mr. Kirby ineligible as a contestant and therefore ineligible to receive any prizes from the show.”

Both of Jeff’s appearances on Jeopardy! ended in a third place finish. In 1999 he lost to Amanda Folk, and in 2009 he lost to Terry Linwood. In 2002, Jeopardy! began giving out consolation prizes to non-winners: $2,000 for second place and $1,000 for third. After it was discovered that Jeff was ineligible in 2009, he was not given his $1,000 prize. Since Jeff didn’t finish ahead of either of his opponents, their prize money remained the same. Emma Span kept her $2,000 second place prize, and Terry Linwood kept the $33,901 he had won that day.

Trevor Montague, Fifteen To One

When Jeff Kirby returned to Jeopardy! in 2009, he competed under his legal name both times. But some contestants have played on a game show, then came back under a different moniker. One such case is Trevor Montague, who was a prolific contestant in the UK for some time. He took part in over 30 British shows, including Countdown, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, Mastermind, and The Weakest Link.

His most infamous appearances were on Fifteen to One. He went on the show in 1990, but got eliminated. Two years later, he returned under a different name. “Steve Romana” sported a gold earring, which Trevor didn’t wear during his original appearance. Like many other game shows, Fifteen to One does not allow contestants to return unless the show invites them back. At the time though, it wasn’t known that Trevor and Steve were actually the same person. As such, Trevor ended up reappearing in 1997, and became the grand final champion of series 19.

In fact, he also appeared on another quiz show at the exact same time. While Fifteen to One was airing their grand final on Channel 4, Montague simultaneously appeared on Today’s The Day on BBC2, which was also airing the final game of their tournament. Montague emerged victorious on both shows, but his previous appearances on Fifteen to One would soon be scrutinized.

The following year, a viewer was watching reruns of Fifteen to One on Challenge, and that’s when they noticed that Steve Romana was actually Trevor Montague in disguise. They reached out to Channel 4, and Trevor ended up being sued by the show’s production company, Regent Productions. This isn’t the only time he pulled the same stunt either. He competed on The Krypton Factor as Trevor Montague in 1988, and as Steve Romana in 1995.

Jeff Garlin, Celebrity Family Feud

In 2019, the casts of The Goldbergs and Black-ish squared off in an episode of Celebrity Family Feud. In the triple points round, the question was “When clowns get together, they probably compare the size of their what?” The top three answers went up on the board in quick succession (shoes, noses, and clown cars for those of you keeping score at home), but things started going haywire immediately afterwards.

When Steve Harvey asked Jeff Garlin for an answer, he and his teammates were seen talking it over, which is against the rules of Family Feud. Black-ish stars Anthony Anderson and Tracee Ellis Ross called him out for cheating, and did whatever this is in response.

Garlin admitted that he did indeed cheat by getting answers from his teammates, then insisted that he should be given a strike for it. Despite these shenanigans, the cast of Black-ish failed to steal the points, because they were unable to come up with the last answer on the board (horns). The Goldbergs team won the game as a result, but both teams went on to play Fast Money. Both bonus rounds ended in a loss, but each team was given $10,000 for their respective charities.

Adriana Abenia, Pasapalabra

The Alphabet Game was a BBC game show that aired in the mid-1990s. In 2000, a Spanish language adaptation called Pasapalabra premiered, and it’s been airing in Spain almost continuously ever since. Each team consists of a civilian contestant and two celebrity partners. One of the show’s rounds is called La pista musical, where players attempt to identify songs before their opponent.

Adriana Abenia is a TV presenter in Spain, and she appeared as a celebrity guest on Pasapalabra in 2014. During La pista musical, host Christian Galvez noticed that Abenia was trying to use Shazam on her phone to name each song. Despite the incident, Abenia’s appearance was received well by viewers. Galvez also responded positively, saying, “To be honest I think she deserves a special prize anyway, because in seven years of organizing this TV contest, nobody has ever done anything like this, and certainly not quite as brazenly.”