Alex Jacob, of Jeopardy fame, has called out HQ Trivia for allegedly not paying up on the $20,000 he won playing the mobile game recently.
Battle royales and Pokémon GO aren't the only things that have caused something of a boom in the gaming industry over the past few years. The rise of mobile trivia games has also caused quite a stir. If you haven't played one, they are basically apps that go live two or three times a day, and you answer questions along with thousands of other users for the chance to win money.
Honestly, we were obsessed with them for a while, but it seems as if the hype surrounding them is now well and truly beginning to die down. Looking back, they really did feel as if they could have been the basis for an episode of Black Mirror. The most popular of the many apps that have popularized the trend is HQ Trivia, but the industry leader has been receiving some bad press as of late.
The latest blow has come in the form of HQ Trivia reportedly refusing to pay up a significant amount of money to one of its winners. Alex Jacob claims to have won $20,000 using the app and posted evidence of such on Twitter back in June when he won the money. Almost a month later, Jacob returned to Twitter to reveal that he is yet to see a penny of those winnings.
If you recognize the name, it's because the HQ Trivia winner was also victorious on Jeopardy, winning $400,000 during his run on the game show. Despite tagging HQ Trivia in his tweet highlighting the lack of payment, we are assuming he still hasn't heard anything back. Jacob also wrote that he will remove the tweet once he gets paid or if there has been some sort of misunderstanding.
HQ Trivia does state that players should expect to be paid prize money anywhere up to 90 days after winning it. However, it also states that "99% of players have been able to cash out within 48 hours of winning a game." Either Jacob is a part of that unlucky 1%, or HQ Trivia is in more trouble than it is willing to let on and can't afford to cough up the dough.