Sixteen contestants saw their hopes disappear in a single round of The 1% Club after a deceptively simple-looking dice puzzle caused one of the episode’s biggest mass eliminations.

With only 30 seconds to find every possible combination, the players had to work out how several visible dice faces could be added together to reach the same total. For 16 of them, the 30% question proved a step too far.

And the pressure only intensified later, when the competition eventually came down to three finalists chasing a £96,000 jackpot.

16 Players Fall at the 30% Question

Hosted by Lee Mack, the ITV game show is built around logic and reasoning rather than traditional general knowledge. Contestants begin together before increasingly difficult questions gradually reduce the field.

On this occasion, the trouble came at the 30% stage.

Mack showed contestants an image featuring dice faces numbered from one through five, with six absent, before presenting the challenge:

“Using only the faces of the dice you can see and each of them just once, how many different ways can you add them together to make a total of ten?”

The wording was important. Contestants could use only the numbers visible in the image, and each number could be used no more than once within a combination.

They were given 30 seconds to calculate how many different possibilities existed.

When time expired, the scale of the damage became clear: 16 contestants had submitted an incorrect response and were eliminated.

Lee Mack Reveals the Three Possible Combinations

Mack then walked the remaining contestants and viewers through the solution.

The correct answer was three.

One way to reach 10 was to combine 5, 4 and 1:

5 + 4 + 1 = 10

A second combination used 5, 3 and 2:

5 + 3 + 2 = 10

The final possibility left out the 5 entirely and instead used all four remaining numbers:

4 + 3 + 2 + 1 = 10

Those were the only three valid combinations using the available dice faces under the rules of the question.

It was enough to eliminate a sizeable group long before the game reached its most difficult stage.

Cameron Goes All the Way for £96,000

While 16 players were unable to survive the 30% question, one contestant eventually made it through every obstacle that followed.

Cameron reached the final stage alongside two other players, with a £96,000 jackpot on the line.

All three faced the decisive 1% question, which involved a four-digit PIN number.

Under the pressure of the finale, Cameron’s two fellow finalists gave incorrect answers. Cameron, however, successfully solved the puzzle.

His correct response made him the episode’s only jackpot winner, allowing him to walk away with the entire £96,000 prize.

From a 30% dice puzzle that eliminated 16 people at once to a final question that defeated two of the last three contestants, the episode once again showed how quickly fortunes can change on The 1% Club.