it's September 9th 2001 British host Chris tant welcomes eight contestants to Who Wants To Be A Millionaire they're all eager to get rich but to sit on the hot seat you have to win fastest finger first put these words in the order they occur in the title of the Agatha Christy [Music] Thriller Nile on death the the correct answer is death on the Nile all these were correct most of them nearly all of them uh who was fastest Charles Ingram in three 3.97 that's so fast great major Charles Ingram has been a contestant twice before now he finally gets his chance confidently he takes his place but this confidence doesn't last long Ingram is often unsure of his answers after just seven out of 15 questions he merely has one of his three Jokers left but somehow he manages to to answer correctly again and again and then the time has come just one more correct answer separates him from1 million a number one followed by 100 Zer is known by what name Google Megatron gigabit nanomol I don't think I've heard of a Google but seconds later even though he never heard of a Google he completely changes his guess I really do think it's a Google the tension in the studio is almost unbearable you just won 1 million only two people managed to achieve that before him an incredible run Against All Odds maybe too incredible in fact major Charles Ingram cheated he is quite possibly the biggest fraud who has ever been on television he and his accomplices have been tried and convicted their Heist has been publicized and fictionalized yet to this day they maintain their innocence we didn't do it we really didn't cheat 20 years later there are still a lot of open questions and behind Ingram's case lurks an even weirder Story one of an underground organization that systematically exploit the show for years how did they do it Fern while Ingram is celebrating his victory in front of the camera there's turmoil behind the scenes the showrunners are sused out a sound technician already called their CEO Paul Smith while Ingram was still answering questions Smith told him to keep the show going Ingram receives a check with his winnings from tant but the check is retained by celador the company behind the show for 8 days for processing in the meantime Smith and the technicians look back at their material Ingram often seemed to have no clue really how did this guy after being left with one Joker at £4,000 snatched a million the probability of just guessing a 1 in four seven times in a row plus a 1 and two is 0.003% no way right they look at his speech pattern when thinking about his answers Craig David I just can't I don't think I I've never heard of Craig David to be honest there's something interesting happening here no matter the question Ingram goes through all four possible answers often chronologically repeatedly emal is a cheese from which country it could be France I suppose then again it could be Italy so um or maybe it's the Netherlands that's sort of how the question Works Jo no I that in itself might still be quite normal behavior it seems fairly rational to go one by one if you're not sure but then who was the second husband of Jacqueline Kennedy Adnan kogi Ronald Reagan Aristotle anassis Rupert Murdoch okay um I'm not certain I would have thought I would have thought that it would be Aristotle anasis why wait someone coughed just now at the correct option Aristotle anasis Aristotle anasis was indeed married to Kennedy huh and then it happens again but the reason I think it's Cricket is and again I think it was Hine the studio obviously has cameras and mics for the candidate and the show host but it also has cameras and mics pointed at the audience for reaction show shot the technicians start looking at what's happening in the crowd while Ingram is reading out the options who is coughing and always at the right time which American platform was founded in 2012 and is known for its creative and interactive online lessons a biscuit B bilingual C bicycle D brilliant you already know it brilliant is a great way to learn new skills across a variety of subjects like math programming and art artificial intelligence you can choose between thousands of interactive lessons without ever feeling bored or overwhelmed you can customize your content to fit your needs and work through the exercises at your own pace for example there's a course on statistical fundamentals so if you'd like to know how likely it is to win a million on the show purely by guessing or if all these coughs could be random that might be a good starting point if that's not your cup of tea there's a vast library of other stuff and new lessons are added every month to try everything brilliant has to offer free for a full 30 days visit brilliant.org Fern or click on the link in the description you'll also get 20% off an annual premium subscription last night on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire Who Wants To Be A Millionaire was a sensation in the UK at the time the show was just 4 years old and at its height about 19 million people tuned in a third of the entire population people were obsessed with it that was also the case with Charles Ingram and his wife Diana her brother Adrien poll had been on the show four times before on the hot seat once and won 32,000 a few months later she managed to get on the hot seat and won £32,000 as well I remember talking to her in the bar afterwards and I said great congratul she said only 32 and I said to her it's a huge amount of money she went yes but I should have done more I should have beaten my brother and all this mind you it is incredibly difficult to get a spot on this show thousands if not millions of people try the selection process is brutal but this family managed to get in over and over again they knew the system inside out and how to play it Adrian even had a mockup fastest finger first console at home he and Diana wanted to publish a book with tips on how to get on the show but as it turns out they were not the only ones who knew the system and some were a lot better at exploiting it Who Wants To Be A Millionaire is not broadcast life and has a set runtime so when Charles finally gets his shot filming stops for the day after the 4,000 question and I remember us saying God that poor bloody major you know he's he's got as much chance of getting the 32,000 you know is going to the Moon in a rocket I mean there was just no way this guy could could possibly go much further ambitious Diana is frustrated with Charles that would make sense because Charles is a smart man he holds University degrees in engineering and management and will later be accepted by Mena that evening as the couple was on their way home on the M4 their frustrations likely intensify as they dwell on the opportunity for immense wealth slipping away right from under their grasp they will not let that happen Diana and Charles call tewin Wok he's a Welch College lecturer and fellow game show Enthusiast Adrien and Diana have been training twiin and helping him to get on a show he's supposed to be a candidate tomorrow so he will be in the studio Charles Diana and twiin are on the phone for 5 minutes they supposedly devise a very simple yet effective plan Charles reads out the answers whoever knows the answer cuffs when it comes up have you got a strategy um well I have actually I have got a strategy I was a bit um defensive on the last show you know I sort of started talking myself out of um out of answers that frankly I should have known and did know know um so this time I'm going on the Counterattack this Counterattack obviously works though he repeatedly says he has no idea or never heard of certain options he goes on to 180 pivot seconds later Craig David I just can't I don't think I've never heard of Craig David to be honest I've just never heard of Craig David So now I'll go Craig David yeah you just won 32,000 I don't think it's Paris I think it's Berlin I'm going to go for Paris he thought it was Berlin Berlin Berlin you changed your mind to Paris that brought you 500,000 I don't think I've heard of a Google I don't actually know what a Google is but I really do think it's a Google you just won 1 million back behind the scenes a total of 192 cuffs have been recorded by the microphones in the studio a lot of them when a correct answer was mentioned Paul Smith is conf then this can't be a coincidence and calls the police later he makes another call Mr Ingram we didn't meet I'm the managing director of celador right um I think I should just get straight to the point and effectively say what is a pre-prepared statement here I have to tell you that we have suspicions from viewing the recording of last Monday's uh program and subsequently studying the tapes carefully that there were irregularities during the Tipping of the show in in which you participated oh good lord no because of that I have to tell you that these suspicions have been referred to the police right and thus re for not for the moment will be airing the program or indeed authorizing payment of the check right yeah well I mean you know I completely refute that obviously um good Lord I'm go all right well thanks for letting me know okay thank you cheers bye 1 and a half years later the case went to trial it quickly turned into a tabl light Frenzy the story of major fraud was just too Sensational in the end all three defendants were found guilty two documentaries were made the ingrams never accepted the verdict we didn't cheat on that show there was no plan to cheat on that show I won that money perfectly honestly and fairly and squarely and while I was sitting there in the center of the studio I did not notice any coughing at all I was entirely unaware of it as for the victims I've heard a lot of people say that this is a a victimless crime well actually there are victims the three defendants were the victims we should not have been found guilty on the evidence that was presented in court we were found guilty on a very good story why did you cough then Diana I I think I needed to clear my throat the Cuffs were just coincidental according to them wituk suffered from a persistent cough all his life the coughing footage presented in the court had been edited by celador to accentuate the Cuffs also why would three intelligent people not come up with a smarter way to cheat at least code the Cuffs if the answer is C cuff on D and so on wit who supposedly cuffed 19 times to hint at the correct answers flopped when he was in the hot seat why was he so all knowing when supposedly helping Charles and why would he join such a scheme how could he have made sure he actually got his share of the money and perhaps most importantly was coughing in the audience even audible on stage people cough like mad everybody's coughing in the studio cuz they sort of enclosed whatever I had no idea there was so much noise in the studio that night it was like a mad host people were screaming they were cheering the 2014 book bad show casts a lot of doubts on the trial similarly did the show quiz but playing The Devil's Advocate wouldn't wht's chronic illness also be a brilliant cover if he was just a man who coughed constantly who would suspect these coughs to be hints simple yes but also brilliantly hiding in plain sight more generally How likely is it that 19 significant cuffs the reason I think are just a coincidence Liam Shaw made a fascinating statistical analysis to answer this very question and I remembered the case from when I was a child and I was very interested in the statistics of the unlikeliness of the coughing coming after the correct answers so I wanted to investigate that for myself and so I just attempted to do that because it was lock down and I couldn't leave the house so I found a way to entertain myself basically the chance for wk's 19 cuffs to be coincidential within the time frame the show was filmed is incredibly low if these were his only cuffs and say that half of all of those 192 coughs were techin whk then in the statistical trials that I ran I found that the probability of getting at least 19 coughs would be about 8% this ignores the fact that Diana likely two CU that significant moments the analysis I did was just for fun and it's quite silly but what it convinced me of is that there's no real dispute about the fact that there is some sort of association between coughs and correct answers looking at Shaw's math the Cuffs were probably not random but this clearly was a case of trial by media according to the New York Times the actual trial should have been a lot more extensive and critical they are not sure if there would have been enough evidence to prove guilt and just as the ingrams were in the spotlight another group quietly gamed the show for years Petty Spooner was the first person to appear on multiple versions of the show he won $250,000 in Australia £250,000 in the UK and €1,000 in Ireland he knew how to get on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire and made no secret of it well in England uh 7 million people found in the worked out the population is a lot smaller and given that most people wait until they' watched the program before phoning in so I made my calls in one evening 215 in one evening yeah I'm pretty boring BL his runs were Eyes Cold focused with confident decisive answers the last convict's transported from Britain arrived in freem manle in which year 1868 a 1848 B 1858 C 1868 D 187 8 I'll play in a lock in C 1868 he had to go before he even came up didn't all right let's lock it in Petty you won a quarter of a million dollars he dropped out of college and lived off of Pop quizzes before going professional after bombing on the Irish version Spooner met Keith bergus bergus had helped people to get on the show for a fee they teamed up to take that business to the next level Burger and Spooner built an underground Syndicate called the Consortium they provided a service to reliably get people on the show and to maximize their winnings step one get the call they would spend thousands of pounds and a lot of hours dialing the show's premium rate registration lines once through they played recordings of their clients leaving messages with their name and number step two stall once the client got a call back from the show producers they would answer that he or she wasn't home at the moment a member of the Consortium would then raise to the client's home to help with step three get close potential contestants had to answer a closest two question on the phone say how tall is Big Ben 96 m is correct but 93 or 100 will do Spooner figured out that these questions were always pulled from the office for National statistics database and that they were asked in rotation step four make fingers fast reminiscent of the Ingram's Consortium clients would practice on modeled buzzers step five fake a friend okay this is for sure the craziest part once a client was on the hot seat and used the phone a friend Joker the Consortium would reroute this call to a safe house a neutral person called The Voice would pick up on a phone with a silent mute button in the room loads of facts laid out on the floor Petty Keith a guy named John a pop culture expert poppy at a computer with Google open and crack the brickie whoever the that was the Consortium secured 200 spots on the show from 2002 to 2007 55 clients made it to the hot seat winning 44.2 million that's 26% of all the money won on the show during that period they only stopped because the producers didn't give people Second Chances anymore if they weren't home so step two fell apart 25% of the winnings went to Keith bergus and Patty Spooner they published a book about their operation in 2021 none of what they did was illegal it had no consequences for them Spooner even met Paul Smith in 2020 explaining to him how they did it back in 2003 while the Consortium collected cash the lives of Charles Diana and twiin were destroyed the ingrams faced constant harassment and humiliation in public their cat was shot dead with an air gun they had bags of vomit thrown at their home Windows broken their three daughters have been bullied at school Charles resigned from the Army the family went bankrupt whok resigned from his lecturer job and perhaps most absurd of all he had to trademark his name to stop a company from naming cuff medicine after him
