“HQ Trivia” Craze Grips Exeter, Students Win Money
The Academy Building bell rings nine times, echoing across campus as a group of students huddle in a circle, their phones glowing. The two-minute countdown reaches zero and the theme song plays. One million viewers are online, all vying for the ten thousand dollar prize. The only thing standing in their way—twelve trivia questions.
Every weekday at 3 and 9 p.m., and only at 9 p.m. on weekends, players of the gaming app “HQ Trivia” have a chance to win money. The game asks twelve trivia questions that must be answered correctly within ten seconds each. The questions increase in difficulty as the players answer them correctly. The winners split the prize money—which is usually $2000 per round—and receive cash transferred to their Paypal accounts.
Vine creators Rus Yusupov and Colin Kroll released the game at the end of 2017 and HQ has since gained widespread popularity. The app ranks #1 on the iTunes App Store with an average of 800,000 players participating per round. The Exeter community quickly picked up on this new trend, and before long, several students were playing “HQ Trivia” each afternoon and night, some even referring to it as a “dorm tradition.”
“HQ Trivia” is set up as a game show, with the host being actor Scott Rogowsky. The players can see how many others are tuned in throughout the game, how many people answer questions correctly or incorrectly and who wins the jackpot at the end.
Exonians encountered “HQ Trivia” in a variety of different ways. After her cousin told her about the game during Thanksgiving break, senior Anna Reaman downloaded the app. Upper Sarah Liberatore decided to play the game after seeing people tweet about it and recognizing it on a TV award-show about this year’s fads.
“My parents have been very disappointed with me up until this point, but since I found HQ, my parents are slightly less disappointed.”
Regardless of how students discovered the game, the main appeal for most is the experience, not the potential financial gain. “I play HQ for the sole purpose of having fun and answering fun trivia questions. If I’m lucky, I’ll get money, but I don’t do it just to get money,” prep Isa Matsubayashi said.
Reaman agreed with Matsubayashi, and said, “‘HQ Trivia’ is just really fun because it’s so interactive, and they have a live host that shows up on the screen.”
Quiz Bowl co-head and senior Nick Song said that he is glad for the opportunity to translate his passion into financial gain. “My parents have been very disappointed with me up until this point, but since I found HQ, my parents are slightly less disappointed,” Song said. “As the co-head of Quiz-Bowl, it feels great to be able to use my experience [in a way] that can actually create financial gain for myself.”
While prizes can range from $2,500 to $15,000, the chances of winning are relatively slim. Not only is the prize split among all the players that make it through the twelve rounds, but the money is not immediately available for withdrawal unless the winnings are larger than twenty dollars. “I think it is very unrealistic that I’m going to win enough money to be able to get it out of the PayPal account. I would need to win two times, which is statistically very unlikely,” prep JaQ Lai said.
Upper Natalie Love faced the problem that Lai described. Love has made it to the final round of “HQ Trivia” before, but was not able to withdraw because her winnings were so small. “I only won about five dollars but I couldn’t collect any of that money until I reached twenty,” Love said. On the day Love won, the jackpot was two thousand dollars, meaning she was one of nearly four hundred winners. Despite a compelling reward, the individual prize value for each winner decreased significantly because of the amount of winners.
With a monetary reward attached, some raise concerns that “HQ Trivia” goes against the Academy’s gambling policy. The E-Book states: “Gambling for money is prohibited.” However, most students playing “HQ Trivia” believe it is allowed by the school. “The definition of gambling is when you give something in return for something. But aside from your time and energy, you’re not giving anything up, you’re only getting something in return,” Reaman said. “That’s just the same thing as studying for a test. You study for a test, and the outcome is a good grade.”
Liberatore also thinks that “HQ Trivia” does not violate the gambling policy. In her opinion, if Abbot Casino doesn’t count as gambling, then neither should “HQ Trivia.” Liberatore said, “The problem with gambling is that you can lose money and get addicted to it. Theoretically somebody could gamble once at Abbot Casino and be addicted to the idea of putting in money and winning money. But with this app, you’re not putting anything at stake, so I don’t think that counts as gambling.”
Referring back to the original E-Book statement, Discipline Committee member and upper Euwie Park believes that the essence of the debate lies in the semantic of the phrasing. “I think the E-Book is giving a gray area by not strictly defining what it means by ‘gambling,’ and ‘HQ Trivia’ could potentially fall under this gray area that the E-Book is giving,” Park says. However, while she does believe that the vagueness of the term “gambling” allows room for interpretation, she also thinks that being a trivia game, one could claim that while winning is somewhat based on luck, the game is also based on a certain level of knowledge and skill.
Dean of Residential Life Arthur Cosgrove believes that the language of the E-Book statement is clear. “My understanding is that you are playing a game with a reward, and not gambling,” he said. “However, one might argue that students who are wagering significant amounts of time in order to try and win a reward are gambling.”
Prep Noah Lee maintained that the game was just that. “I play ‘HQ Trivia’ because it’s like being part of an inside joke, with all the different hosts and personalities,” he said. “‘HQ Trivia’ is not gambling, it’s more like a competition. People use their knowledge and intuition to play, not just luck.”