People are crying conspiracy after the same guy keeps winning money on HQ Trivia
Is he a genius, or is there something fishy?
You’ve probably tried, failed at and been hugely frustrated by HQ Trivia by now.
The free quiz app with cash prizes is fiendishly difficult, to the point that the one member of the ShortList team who claims to have won money on it is surely lying.
Last night’s bumper edition, presented by none other than Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson, gave out $300,000 in prize money. Thar’s a fair whack more than the pocket change given out in the regular games.
But is it possible to make good money by swotting up and answering all 12 questions correctly on a regular basis? It certainly looks that way.
We’ve seen plenty of winners on the global and UK version, and enough games have been played that some of the same names are cropping up over and over again.
Could they just be really good at quizzing? No, according to some people there’s a conspiracy afoot.
Scott Menke, from the United States, regularly crops up among the list of winners and describes himself on Twitter as being “Somewhere on the all-time HQ Trivia leaderboard”.
So, why are so many people so suspicious? Well, it has a bit to do with the fact that his profile picture on the app is a photo of him with HQ presenter Scott Rogowsky.
Is it an inside job? Is Menke somehow at an advantage due to his relationship with Rogowsky? That’s what some have suggested, but he has provided a perfectly reasonable explanations to silence the HQ truthers.
Menke set up a Q&A on Twitter overnight to answer anything HQ fans had to throw at him, and, to be fair, he is an expert at regularly providing the right answer.
He admitted to Googling his way to some correct answers – though that must require some very quick typing fingers – but also revealed he has been on quiz shows such as Jeopardy! and Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? in the past, giving him a good base knowledge.
As for that profile photo? He has since changed it to a picture of himself without Rogowsky in shot, but has reiterated his earlier claims about having met the presenter just once (and completely randomly).
Will that be enough to end the conspiracy chat? Only time will tell.
(Images: Getty)
