DEVELOPING: “trivia cheating* scandal!”

*Allegedly

Thanks to Phil for passing on this gobsmacking scandal, “trivia cheating scandal! People play trivia on an app at Red Bear Brewing Company on Wednesdays. Yeah, people cheat. It happens.”, shared by Jacob Rubashkin last night:

“Desperately need a DC beat reporter to dig into the trivia cheating scandal currently rocking Red Bear Brewing — where it was heavily implied that reigning champions (who have won four straight weeks) were caught cheating, including by using a Shazam-enabled Apple Watch.

Usually they put up a photo of the reigning champs before the game starts. Today, instead of a picture of the two-person team that’s dominated for the past month, everyone was treated to a very stern warning about cheating and a threat about potential bans moving forward.

During the music round tomight: “Should we have you submit your Shazam history?”

Update: it was the reigning champs, and they were using Shazam on an Apple Watch to cheat in the music round. There were also “allegations of Googling.” They’ve been banned.

The trivia is phone-based so the potential to cheat is always there but folks are usually good about it.

Also I’m sure the other trivias people are suggesting are fine but this whole episode is no knock against Red Bear on Wednesdays. It’s a lot of fun, super competitive (42 teams tonight), the questions are a good mix with no politics, and the bar and food is good.

I do, however, think my team’s fourth-place finish last week should be retroactively upgraded to a podium spot, like they do in the Olympics when the Russians get caught doping.”

Updates as more info is learned/released.