Throwback Brainteaser: How The 1% Club Champ Tazmin Won £96,000 on a 10-Second Reverse Letter Puzzle
Looking back at the very beginning of ITV’s hit primetime gameshow The 1% Club, one of the show’s most iconic victories occurred during its 2022 series premiere, where finalist Tazmin Brown cracked the deciding 1% question in just 10 seconds to take home a life-changing £96,000 jackpot.
Hosted by Lee Mack, the program eschews typical trivia in favor of logic, lateral thinking, and spatial deduction, beginning with 100 contestants before whittling the field down to a handful of high-stakes finalists.
The Launch Episode Final: Three Contenders, 30 Seconds
In the debut episode of the franchise, 100 hopefuls were narrowed to three finalists—Cameron, Tazmin, and Paul—competing for the £96,000 prize pot.
Lee Mack presented the trio with the ultimate challenge under a strict 30-second countdown:
The Question:“What are the next two letters in this sequence?”The Letter Sequence:T N E C R E P E
When time expired, the finalists revealed their selections:
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Cameron: N – T
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Paul: T – E
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Tazmin: N – O
The Solution: A Hidden Show Reference
The puzzle relied on reversing the direction of reading rather than calculating alphabetical intervals:
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Reversing the Sequence: When read backwards from right to left, the prompt reveals the beginning of a phrase:
E - P - E - R - C - E - N - Tspells out “PERCENT”. -
Completing the Phrase: Preceding “PERCENT” is the word “ONE” (
O - N - E). -
The Final Two Letters: Reading backwards to spell “ONE PERCENT”, the sequence requires an N followed by an O:
T - N - E - C - R - E - P - E - [N] - [O](Backwards: O – N – E – P – E – R – C – E – N – T)
Tazmin locked in “N-O” with 20 seconds to spare, securing the entire £96,000 payout.
High-Stakes Records: From Rollovers to £100,000 Sweeps
The show’s memorable wins have expanded significantly across subsequent seasons and special tournament editions:
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Michelle’s Record-Breaking £194,000 Win: During a special “Rollover” week—where daily finalists returned to compound the total prize fund—contestant Michelle clinched the show’s highest-ever payout against opponent Nathaniel. She solved an alphanumerical cipher based on the name “Heidi Abbi Bedhead” and a mock bank card sequence (
8594 9122 9254 ????), correctly identifying that the letters corresponded to numbers in the alphabet ($H=8, E=5, A=1, D=4$) to deduce the final digits: 8514. -
Lucie Alcock’s £100,000 Sweep: In a regular-format episode, contestant Lucie Alcock made history by claiming the full £100,000 jackpot without any splits or deductions, as every single player had burned their £1,000 pass during earlier rounds—a clean sweep previously achieved only by former footballer Clarke Carlisle on a Soccer Aid celebrity special.
The 1% Club airs on ITV1 and is available to stream on ITVX.
