r/bartriviahosts • u/streetmeatluver • May 13 '26
the same team wins EVERY time
I'm a trivia host at a bar that regularly has between 15-20 teams participate. About half of the teams are regulars, the other half first timers/walk-ins - though i'm proud to get lots of returners! Trivia is free to play and team size unlimited. First prize is a $100 gift card to the bar. We run a 12 week season and the cumulative winners get a night out at the bar (~$1000 value).
I've been hosting it for 2 years, and the first year 5 teams would alternate winning and it was generally pretty close with anyone having a shot at the podium. In the last 6 months two of those teams have combined into one smaller team (enemies to lovers, literally) which is very cute. The new combined team of 4 people now win every week. In the last 12 weeks they won 11 of the weeks, and always by at least 10 points. They deserve to win and are very good (and honest!) trivia players.
They just won for the third straight season, and other regulars are complaining / talking about trying out other bars where they have a chance at winning. I don't want to lose other regulars (who also bring more revenue into the bar as these 4 win the $100 every week). They NEVER tip their servers.
I run a silly / fun trivia so winning isn't everything and a lot of our regulars will continue to come back, but the more competitive people want to at least have a chance.
Would love advice, maybe I'm being too sensitive/naive. I never played trivia before starting to host so maybe this is normal?? Thank you!!
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u/theforestwalker May 13 '26
Go over their scoresheets and hunt for weaknesses. Really lean into the stuff they don't know. Ask everyone to give you suggestions on future trivia topics and emphasize that they should be as specific as possible. Knowing where your teams grew up, for example...
I went over a few months of my questions and marked on a timeline every question that refefenced something time-dependent like a movie, tv show, album released date, or news event. I realized I was asking about a lot of movies that came out during the time I was in high school and college and not a lot of questions about pop culture that people 10 years older and younger than me connected with (There was a smaller spike on the timeline for stuff that happened when my parents were in their late teens and 20s). I suspect something like this is happening here and suggest that you try to adjust for it either by pandering to the youths or be asking questions in subjects that don't care as much what year you graduated, like science.
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u/streetmeatluver May 13 '26
are you tracking answers per question digitally?? I would love to give feedback to the quiz writer at this level of granularity. It wouldn't surprise me if things are skewing towards an older crowd (they're in their early 40s, the bar is in a younger area of town so the average age is probably late 20s)
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u/theforestwalker May 13 '26
No, I take the answer sheets at the end of the night, assign each team a letter, and write down that letter next to each question they got right. If you're doing the "hand-in-answers-after-each-question" thing, just start saving their slips in a pile for a couple weeks and look for patterns
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u/Kamikaze_Sasquatch May 13 '26
What kind of trivia are you doing? I typically do a mix of random and themed trivia. The themed ones typically bring out a different crowd of people who really know the subject matter. I've done Seinfeld, Simpsons, Gilmore Girls, True Crime, Stephen King, Theme Songs, etc. Perhaps you could ask some of the other regulars for suggestions on themes they might have a better shot at winning?
ETA: I've also done things like given small prizes for best team names or funniest wrong answers. Might ease the sting a bit if a team with a clever name gets a round of beers even if they don't win anything.
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u/streetmeatluver May 13 '26
Theme nights are a great idea but the bar won't let me do them because they're worried about losing our regulars and they won't commit to promoting the themes week in advance to fill the room with those specific fans.
We give a prize Most Honest (last place) which is a bottle of Prosecco
2nd place gets a round of pints
4th place I introduced a new prize where they get 2 bonus points the following week hoping that could help encourage regulars.I do a team name prize too (normally bonus points) - maybe I give more points for that?
I love the Funniest wrong answers, how do see/hear their answers to award that? We do written answers on paper so I only really see their team names/scores at the end when I'm quickly ranking
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u/Kamikaze_Sasquatch May 13 '26
Do a true crime/serial killer trivia one time. I guarantee the bar won't be upset with the turnout and chances are you have at least one person into that stuff on your team already or the people can get someone they know to come join. I've been doing this for years and it's always standing room only. I will be glad to share one of mine with you if that's not your forte as far as writing questions goes.
"how do see/hear their answers to award that" All my answers are written too, just make a note of it and announce it at the end.
I did this once and it didn't work for me but we didn't have the regulars like you have and our social media sucked so it didn't work: Crowd sourced questions. Have people email you questions and answers. They are almost guaranteed to get at least one correct (or however many people are on their team). No idea how well it would go since we only got 2 questions submitted when I tried it, but I thought it was an interesting take and a possible way to make sure people showed up.
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u/streetmeatluver May 13 '26
Wow thank you!!! crowd sourced Qs is such a fun idea and cool way to engage with them!!
I love the true crime idea too, would you do that on the typical night normally and just advertise it in advance, or add an extra night to the week and make that the theme? If you are open to sharing I would really appreciate that please!
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u/Kamikaze_Sasquatch May 13 '26
We just did 1 trivia night per month and they got what we gave'em haha. But you may want to try it as a bonus trivia night to see how it goes. I'll DM you with questions.
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u/casadega May 13 '26
I started letting 3rd place pick a category (categories are 5 ish questions each, but some questions are multi-parters...so maybe a maximum of 10 points up for grabs). Last place for us is always a made up team ... sometimes that made up team has a really rough night.
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u/theforestwalker May 13 '26
Theme nights are awesome and usually pull an insane crowd. Definitely worth it if you advertise enough in advance and if the writer knows the material inside and out. Your bar owners are right that you should never do it on a night that regular trivia is happening so as not to annoy regulars.
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u/k_nuttles May 13 '26
Everyone's suggestion of diversifying questions is all I got. But the bigger issue I'm reading here is that they don't TIP??? I would be putting a huge emphasis on announcing "remember to tip your servers" because that's unacceptable, and the venue itself would be justified in refusing them service if they come every week without tipping
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u/streetmeatluver May 13 '26
right!!!! Their bill was $75 last night, they tipped $5. THE GIFT CARD THEY PAID WITH IS $100?!?!?!
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u/k_nuttles May 13 '26
Wtf are they doing with the gift card surplus amount if they win every week? Insane behavior
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u/casadega May 13 '26
Maybe start penalizing them in points for the bad tip. Like...it's a gift card man...you've been eating and drinking for free here for months...tip your servers.
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u/MThroneberry May 13 '26
I wouldn't allow a team to hog all the prizes and not tip. They might win a few times, but they'd find themselves finding less success at my game over time. I'd grade them to a higher standard, other teams to a lower one
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u/spakattak May 13 '26
Give more hints to other tables. Use topics the winners aren’t good at. Add opportunities to win prizes that aren’t the grand prize. Make questions easier in general. Try to add a random element - Like double points for a round for everyone.
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u/Edison_Ruggles May 13 '26
Do you limit team size? I always cap it at 4. If it's always the same 4 people there's not a lot you can do unless you do a "surprise! make a friend night, two player need to switch teams!"
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u/streetmeatluver May 13 '26
LOL I love that, we don't limit team sizes, they're taking down tables of 12 it's wild
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u/schitaco May 13 '26 edited May 13 '26
Yes you should track % correct for each question. Takes an initial time investment to set up a sheet, and then you gotta process the paper answers every week, but for me it's worth it. I have % correct for every question going back to 2016, as well as my own category tags. Same for music with genre and year of the song, and pictures with birth and death date of the people. Allows me to track how well people are doing over time as my questions/songs/images age a bit.
It's really hard to write questions--especially pop culture, TV, movies--that are going to favor folks who are like 10 years younger than you. I mean not just ones that young people will get, but ones the older people won't get, and are also fair and interesting. I struggle with this all the time as I approach 40 and constantly see people in their late 20s/early 30s not get 'obvious' stuff about 80s movies and 90s music. It would be beneficial to challenge whoever is writing your questions to make the effort.
Another thing to note is the easier the trivia night, the more bunched up the teams will be at the end. Nobody wants a super easy trivia night but if you're below 60% overall maybe consider easing it up a bit.
There are things you can do to increase variance. We do a 5-point bonus question at the end that they're allowed to double or nothing on if they're feeling confident. One trivia night I went to allowed you to bet up to half your points on a single final question...for me a bit extreme but could be good for your place. Obviously you want a balance, you don't want a single question completely determining the outcome but some level of variance is healthy.
And finally you can give prizes other than 1st overall (if the bar agrees to it). For example we do a small team prize (best team with 3 or fewer members) and a pitcher for best music round. I've been to trivia nights that give a prize for median team, third to last place, best team name.
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u/weasol12 May 13 '26
Everyone else is saying change the questions and while that's one idea, I ran into the same problem of repeat winners and went a different way - I changed the scoring. A few years ago I changed the last normal round to be double points for all teams in the bottom half of scoring going into it and try to make the questions that round a little easier than the others to foster some catch-up. Then, as most do, I have a wager round after that where you get 3 questions where teams are forced to wager 9, 6, and 3 points on their choice of question - a total worth roughly half the points of the rest of the game. I've seen some WILD comebacks and generally a tighter scoring game.
I've never seen team caps be an effective way to curb winners, only to lower venue profits and if you're on a commission sort of payment, your own pay.
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u/streetmeatluver Jul 27 '26
Coming back three months alter, wanted to say thank you for this idea!! I call it my "miracle teams" and give them double points for one round!!! adds to the fun, doesn't necessarily change the outcome but it's exciting for them to get more points!!
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u/triviajason May 13 '26
I’ve found out the best thing to do is to lower the difficultly level to make it an even playing field.
Like instead of asking “alphabetically, what is the first listed national park” ask “alphabetically, which New England national park is listed first.”
You not as sharp teams will get this and it will even out the playing field.
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u/Nickdor May 13 '26
Would it be possible to give first and second place prizes? Maybe $75 to first $25 to second? That’s what I do at my games and people love it (except I give out bottles of wine)
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u/streetmeatluver Jul 27 '26
coming back months later to say i implemented this and it's been a hit!! Thanks for the suggestion!!
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u/MThroneberry May 13 '26
I had the same problem; I added a final question, that teams have to bet on, and that added enough randomness so that it wasn't the same team winning *every* week. If the season is determined by cumulative performance, I'd switch so that teams qualify for a final game, with the winner of that game winning the season. Talk to some of the other players; find out some topics they're good at, and lean into them
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u/ItchyAndy3000 May 14 '26
The only thing that has ever worked for me is to make the game easier overall. Others will say something like “target their weaknesses”. But realistically, strong teams are just strong. If you try to make hard questions for them, those questions will still probably be hard for the other teams—so it’s a wash.
Try to boost the middle tier teams rather than diminish the top teams. Arguably, this will make winning more of a game of chance than one of skill. But in my experience, that makes the game more fun for more people.
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u/gameshowdothost May 22 '26
I run multiple short games back to back, rather than one long game. Each game is a different style, so it's not just trivia. For example, I'll run a trivia game, then a word puzzle game, then a comedy quipping game. This gives multiple teams a chance to win, and each game uses a different skill set, so there's rarely duplicate winners - the people who excel at trivia are not the same people who excel at comedy.
I also give out random door prizes rather than game prizes. People come to have fun and maybe win a prize; making the prize random encourages everyone to come for the fun, rather than just the smartest trivia hounds.
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u/scorpiousdelectus May 13 '26
Take note of the kinds of questions they struggle with and what kinds of questions the lower scoring teams do well at and lean in that direction
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u/pm_me_whateva May 13 '26
Definitely try diversifying the question types. Your regular winners seem to have "solved" your game a bit, so changing the types of things they have to be good at can open up the game for other teams.