Last night’s (25 January) episode of The 1% Club saw two contestants split a £96,000 prize pot between them while a third finalist sadly went away with nothing.

The trio of Wayne, Courtney and Sam had reached the final thanks to their quizzical intellect and all three decided to play for the question that would determine whether they’d take the standard £10,000 prize pot or risk it all for the much larger reward.

Having chosen to risk everything they were given the following question on the ITV show, and if you want to play along at home here it is:

“How many dots (i.e. ‘.’) – including any used in punctuation and letters… – are used in writing this question?”

That’s it, you’ve got 30 seconds to count the dots and see if you could have taken home a chunk of £96,000.

Sadly for Courtney in the episode, it was a case of two out of three as they got the wrong answer while Wayne and Sam both guessed correctly.

Does this seem difficult to you? (ITV)

As 1% Club host Lee Mack explained, the answer to this particular question is 17 as if you count up all of the dots that’s the number you’ll get.

You might slip up by missing the first dot in the question by being so eager to count the two punctuation dots in ‘i.e.’ that you miss the one sitting atop the letter, or you might think it’s a case of job done once you’ve finished the final word and skip the dot beneath the question mark.

Whatever it was that did it for Courtney they fell at the final hurdle, though a bunch of The 1% Club viewers were quite confident that this was an easy final question, declaring so from the safety of their sofas.

Some viewers called it the ‘easiest 1% question ever’ while others said that it ought to have been ‘the 90% question’, though one suspects it’s a much more difficult thing to crack when you’ve got the timer bearing down on you and the stress of that prize pot.

The answer is 17, did you get it? (ITV)

In the end, Wayne and Sam got the question right and walked away with £48,000 each.

Of course for all of the people confidently declaring they’d got this one right there were a whole load of others who made it clear by their reactions that they’d have gone the way of Courtney.

A lot of others said they got ’16’ as an answer as they just missed one out somewhere, with the first and final dots appearing in the question giving people the most trouble.

Then there were some people who thought the answer was ‘two’ as they reckoned that they might be asked to work out how many dots are used in writing ‘this question’, since The 1% Club often involves a bit of trickery in its questions.

The hardest 1% Club questions ever

That one too easy for you? Here’s a list of some of the hardest ever questions contestants on The 1% Club have faced:

What is the first number that when spelled out has its letters in alphabetical order? Answer here.

If January equals 717, March equals 5315 and June equals 4624, then what does August equal? Answer here.

Lee was driving when he noticed his milometer read 16961 and was the same backwards and forwards. What will the next mileage be that also reads the same backwards and forwards? Answer here.

Into, Therefore, Evaluate, Benign. All of the words have something in common. Can you work out what it is? Answer here.

A bat and a ball cost £1.10 in total. The bat costs £1 more than the ball. How much does the ball cost? Answer here.