Blair at radio station 4ZZZ

Hello and welcome to the final part of my chat with Blair Martin, who won ‘The Lot’ on Temptation in 2007! When we left off last week, Blair and I were reflecting that over the years, we all change; that none of us are the same person now that we were ten or twenty years ago…

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BM: No, none of us. And over the last decade, I have become a leader in my community; I’ve become a mentor. One of the young announcers at 4ZZZ – who I’ve actually never met, I met him through a zoom call – does a program that’s all pre-recorded and it’s their digital station that I look after, and I’ve been mentoring him in that way. And his dad sent me a message recently because his son was applying for a regional community grant, and he wondered if I’d write a letter of recommendation. So I sat and wrote about 700 or 800 words and sent it off. And he was quite emotional about the way I phrased the letter. He said, “you have no idea what this means. And you have been so generous and we so appreciate you”, and I’ve gone, “Yeah, that’s what I’m here to do”. And if this is what I do for the next ten years, that’s what I do. If something else is meant to happen, then that will become apparent.

SH: Yeah, if you can pass on what you’ve learned, and do it in kind and enlightened way, that’s a pretty good thing to be doing. And also you learn from young people.

BM: I learn from young people all the time and I totally agree. I totally agree. But there’s also this other thing; I need to be an advocate for people of my age, but also my community, because in my community and age, we don’t have them. The people that may have been my mentors are very few in number. And my age group is perhaps not as heavily impacted by HIV/AIDS as the generation up from me; the people born in the 1950s, late 1940s. I was born in the early 60s, but yeah, we still suffered as well. And I am very aware of this. A couple of years ago, I hosted a podcast series that trained home carers, as now there are people who live with HIV/AIDS who are at an age where they have home carers. They asked me to do it because, yes, I’m a radio host. And where are the people advocating for people like myself, who are now over the age of 60? As an older gay man, I’m in a minority within a minority now. And so I’ll see where that goes, what that body of representation does. But I’m very aware that I have to do that.

SH: Of course, yes. And so would you say that the win on Temptation – Sorry, I keep going back to that.

BM: No, no, no, no. That’s the nature of our conversation.

SH: I was going to say that most people I’ve spoken to say, “I’m thankful for…” I know that with my winnings, we bought this house. Well, we didn’t actually buy all of this house, but a fair chunk of it.

BM: Yeah.

SH: And with your winnings, it sounds to me like you’ve travelled to all sorts of different –

BM: I totally agree. And there have been places I have been, I still remember quite distinctly, being beside Lake Geneva in September 2009. And just saying, “I am so grateful for this. Thank you for this opportunity to do this”. I did help other people a little bit along the way.; there were there were a couple of people who I assisted. One was David Bermingham – a dear, wonderful doyen of theatre and arts here in Brisbane who’s now sadly no longer with us. I thought I was helping him anonymously, but I gave myself away at an event I was doing to promote my business. I put this quote up on a screen… And it was the same quote I’d anonymously sent to David, along with some money to help him. And he said to me later, “So, it was you!”

SH: Well Blair, I’ve really enjoyed all the places our conversation has gone. Is there anything that’s sprung to mind that I haven’t thought to ask you about your Big Win and the impact it’s had over the last 19 years?

BM: I suppose the thing that’s still there is when people find out and then see me at a quiz night somewhere, they go, “Well, no wonder you’ve done well.” And I’m like, “Yeah, but, come on – that was 19 years ago!” And I’ve got a feeling it’s harder now in World Quizzing because there’s so much information from so many sources now in The Hot 100 that World Quizzing puts out every month. If I get 60 out of 100, I’m thinking, ‘oh, that’s not too bad’. A lot of it, though, is like training for a race. The more you do, the better you become. We all have different knowledge, we all have different things. I think you we should just rejoice in the fact that we’re above ground, we’re not in it.

SH: That we’re living and breathing!

BM: And for most people, you’re not living in a country or a city or a region where a drone is going to kill you tomorrow. And you are blessed because of that. So do something to make it possible that everyone can live like that. That’s your role in life.

SH: That is an inspirational thought to finish on. Thank you.

BM: And I also want to say that intelligence is having an open mind, not a vacant one.

SH: That’s good. I will quote you on that!

BM: Please do. Along with your job in life is – if you’re living a privileged existence, your job is to make sure everyone else is.

SH: Hear, hear. Wise words.

BM: It’s lovely to see you, Stephen. You really are a wonderful person. And you have a brilliant, brilliant career. And I admire you greatly.

SH: Oh, thank you so much, Blair – what a lovely thing to say! Thank you. I’ve really enjoyed chatting to you today.

BM: Well, anytime you need it, I’m around. Take care. Bye bye.

SH: See you. Bye bye.

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And on that lovely positive note, it only remains for me to thank Blair so much once again for so generously sharing his time and all his reflections. I really enjoyed our conversation, and may Blair’s final inspirational words carry us all onward and upward through 2026!

And I look forward to seeing you back here next time…

Blair’s big moment on ‘Temptation’ – June 11, 2007.

Hello and welcome to the penultimate instalment of my chat with two-time quiz show champ Blair Martin. Winning over $600,000 in cash and prizes is obviously a life-changing moment for anyone. Which begs the question…

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SH: Blair, can you imagine how your life would have been different if you hadn’t had your big win in 2007?

BM: Yeah, absolutely; I know exactly what would have happened. I would have certainly not gone overseas in 2008. I certainly wouldn’t have visited Paris. I wouldn’t have visited Geneva. I wouldn’t have visited certain other parts. If things had honestly kept going the way they were, I would have finally got to visit Ireland, but that would have been through a work tour. But of course I didn’t know in 2007 that those things were going to happen. I would have eventually gone overseas, but would I have gone to Copenhagen and swum in the World Outgames of 2009? A lot of people talk about setting intentions, manifesting things or whatever. And in 2006, I saw video of my swimming club mates going to the Montreal Outgames and the Chicago Gay Games and I went, “Wow, I really want to do that!” Because that was my first year of becoming a swimming nut; 2006. I had black line fever; swimming really meant a lot to me. And I was going to the gym and all that sort of stuff. So yeah, midlife crisis, definitely. Maybe one of those events I would have got to… Or maybe none of them. I really do believe that what the Temptation win gave me wasn’t just so much the financial ability to do things like this; it also changed my mentality, to say “These things can happen! You can do this!”

SH: Yeah. Two things I’ve noticed in this series of chats with other big winners are: One, these are very happy memories, and two, we can surprise ourselves. There’s a great quote – from, I think, Thomas Edison – that says, “if we did all the things we were truly capable of, we would astound ourselves.”

BM: Yes. Yes. “If I push myself a bit further, remarkable things can happen.”

SH: Amazing, miraculous things can happen! And this is once-in-a-lifetime stuff we’re talking about here. The last person I spoke to was a young fellow called Alex Dusek, who won $307,000 on Million Dollar Minute when he was 26 years old. And he said, “I will take that to my grave. I will look back on that in times to come and just think, what an enormous, momentous, standing-at-the-top-of-the-mountain triumphant moment that was.”

BM: Yeah. Also, I must tell you I attended the World Masters Games in Sydney 16 years ago, and (Temptation host) Ed Phillips was the emcee of the opening ceremony in the Olympic Stadium!

SH: Cool!

BM: And that was my first year on Facebook, and I tagged Ed on Twitter, when Twitter used to be reasonable. And he came back and said to me “Why haven’t you put in your bio about your Temptation win?” So I reformatted my little bio to mention, “dual quiz show champ”

SH: Right, right. Because you should!

BM: I also had to put another tag in there in 2019, because I had a starring role for five minutes on Q+A. Virginia Trioli was guest-hosting a live program from the Brisbane Powerhouse and I asked a question about the toleration of racist views in various political parties. Anyway, I got tagged by people as “Epic Beard Man”.

SH: “Epic Beard Man”? Wow.

BM: Epic Beard Man. And I got people saying, “I want this man to narrate the story of my life”. “Can we get this man to do all of this stuff?” And then the trolls were on there too saying, “Oh, paid actor”. And I said, “I can tell you one thing – the ABC certainly haven’t paid me!” But I had to put that in. So I am still “Epic Beard Man” to some people. But back then, my beard was six years shorter than it is now. So what is this?

SH: “More Epic Beard Man”?

BM: Yeah.

SH: “Greater Epic Beard Man”? “Even More Epic Beard Man”? “World-Shatteringly Epic Beard Man”?

This is the beard we’re talking about.

BM: Something like that, yes. People say “you should shave it off”, and I say “No, no, no, no! Not when I can charge the fees that I can charge to be Santa Claus. Trust me”.

Santa!

And again, I think this is where I’ve got to; a stage in my life. I’m comfortable that I’m not as fit as I was. But I still do exercise. I walk a heck of a lot, occasionally go swimming. But my focus is different.

SH: Yeah.

BM: It really hurts, Stephen, when I hear my 89-year-old mother say “Well, just remember you’re over 60 now. You’re not as young as you used to be.”

SH: Getting shade from a nearly 90-year-old! But you’re not the same person you were in times gone by. And none of us are.

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And that concept pops up a lot in these chats with Big Winners; none of them are the same people they were when they won. But they all, without exception, look upon their Big Wins as very positive life-changing moments, as real Sliding Doors-type forks in the road. I know for a fact my life would have been vastly different if I hadn’t had my Big Win. And nowhere near as great as it has been so far (knock on wood)… I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – thank you, Temptation!

Join me back here next Tuesday, as I wrap up my four-part chat with Blair. See you then! 

‘Temptation’ host Ed Phillips shakes Blair’s hand after the Big Win in 2007.

Hello, and welcome back to my four-part interview with 2007 Temptation Grand Champion Blair Martin! When we left off last week, I’d just asked Blair if he now considered himself officially retired as a quiz show contestant…

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BM: I haven’t applied for any other quiz shows since then. However, one quiz show came asking me. It was The Chase. They asked me, would I test as a Chaser?

SH: Oh, right!

BM: And I’ve always felt that if I’d done better in my audition, which was just answering 20 questions over the phone…

SH: Oh, okay.

BM: … but it didn’t work. And then Beat the Chasers came and headhunted me, partly because I had drifted into serious quizzing.

SH: Okay.

BM: It’s a very different world, and that’s how I first met Issa Schultz. Even when I met him, I thought, ‘aren’t you familiar’? And it was because he was on Sale of the Century, in the latter years of Sale, when he was still at high school! So we met through the Pan Pacific Masters Games, which were every two years, then became every year. And Quizzing Australia is the national body for quizzes associated with World Quizzing in London. And various famous names are part of all that. Anyone who has watched Eggheads or The Chase in the United Kingdom or the United States will know these absolute legends of quizzing. Anyhow, I got into serious quizzing, and won a couple of gold medals for quizzing over about three years. So my quizzing life has ended up in that world. People have said, “Why don’t you go on Hard Quiz?” And I’m like, ‘Well, that’d be fun, but I really don’t know what my special subject would be’, because a lot of them have already been used. Mastermind‘s the same. But if SBS isn’t going to pay for my airfares and accommodation, I ain’t coming. I don’t have an ongoing income stream in my life. And so I’m sorry, if you want me to be a contestant, you pay for it. So being a part of the serious quizzing thing has meant I picked up some Queensland quiz championships. Whenever Issa has not played – I must say it’s in the years when Issa doesn’t play – I’m the Queensland champion… So next year, I’m due again! And the internet gave us online quizzing through the pandemic. And I have spent the last five years being a part of this online quiz community.

SH: That’s great. You mentioned before about taking the opportunity after Temptation to travel and see the world…

BM: Yes.

SH: And did you did you also use the prize money for things other than travel?

BM: Because I did a lot of character work – which I still do now – I ended up developing about 36 different characters. So I invested in those. I have a beautiful Henry VIII outfit, because I did him for a little while in an improvised bawdy banquet style show, with King Henry VIII looking for his next wife… So I just ploughed that into the stuff that I thought was going to help develop me. But life doesn’t always go that way. And things didn’t always go the way I wanted. And in the last half dozen years, it hasn’t been as fantastic for me in that way. And I’m having to learn a different way of living. And I don’t know exactly what the next set of stages are.

SH: I see.

BM: But I certainly know at the moment, the months of October, November, December, I’m in high demand. I have created a very real (Santa Claus) character. And I have testimonials from parents saying how their child has responded. And they have said, “even I am questioning whether you’re real”!

SH: That’s great!

BM: It’s very much that Miracle on 34th Street thing; very much the Kris Kringle character saying, “As far as I’m concerned, I’m real”. Because I am using the skills that I have as an actor. I can have a conversation with anybody.

He looks very real to me!

SH: Yes.

BM: And I can make them believe. So I know at this part of my life – I’m 64 this year – this is a different stage of my life now. And I have different goals. Will I travel again overseas? Maybe. I got very fortunate between 2015 and 2018. Not that it was Temptation money, because there wasn’t much of it left by that point. But I have lanyards that tell me I’m a radio journalist! I don’t have a journalism degree, but the European Broadcasting Union and the Eurovision Song Contest believe that I’m a radio journalist.

SH: Hooray!

BM: So from 2015 to 2018, I went to four Eurovision Song Contests, as a radio journalist.

And I’m interviewing acts, and I’m going to wonderful parts of the world. I went to Vienna, Stockholm, Kiev and Lisbon. And all of those, maybe apart from Stockholm, were cities I didn’t think I’d ever get to. And to me, that’s a fantastic thing!

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Sure is! I love Eurovision, and actually attending the contest one year is most definitely on my bucket list… But Blair’s certainly beat me to it! Join us back here next week, when Blair outlines how his life would have been different if he’d never had his Big Win…

See you then!

Blair’s very definitive big winning moment on ‘Temptation’ in 2007… Look at those score margins!

Hello, Happy New Year, and welcome to my first multi-part interview for 2026! If you’re a regular visitor here, you’ll know that over the last few months, I’ve been reconnecting with some game show Big Winners, and asking what lasting impacts their Big Wins have had on their lives in the years since they happened. And today I’m happy to welcome 2007 Temptation Grand Champion Blair Martin, who walked away from the show with $603,002 of cash and prizes! 

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SH: Hello, Blair! How are you?

BM: I’m doing well.

SH: Thank you for making the time to do this.

BM: My pleasure. My pleasure.

SH: Now, the genesis of all this was my realization that it’s been 20 years since I had my win on Temptation…

BM: Yes, that’s right.

SH: … And I wrote a little blog post about what it meant to me in the longer term, and I thought, ‘I wonder how other people in this very rare situation feel about this?’

BM: It is a rare situation, it is.

SH: Yeah! And you won Temptation in 2007 – taking home $603,002 of cash and prizes – and I spoke to you for the site 11 years ago now, in 2015.

BM: Yes. When I didn’t have a beard, and I didn’t have long hair and all of that… and Zoom didn’t exist!

Blair Martin, in pre-Zoom (and pre-beard!) times…

… And the Blair Martin of today!

SH: No, that’s right. We did it by Skype!

BM: I remember Skype.

SH: RIP Skype.

BM: Yes, RIP Skype.

SH: And back then, obviously, your win was fresher… but now, in 2026, it’s 19 years ago!

BM: Yeah.

SH: So, I’m curious to learn what sort of lasting differences it’s made, if any, for you. But first, can you remind us of what immediate impact your Big Win made on your relationships at the time, in 2007? On friends, family, partner?

BM: Well, at the time I was single and I still am.

SH: Okay.

BM: Two years later, I met someone, and for a little while there in 2009, there were quite a few nasty comments – never said to me, I’ve always found that interesting, but to him – that he was only in it for the money.

SH: Oh, no. I’m sorry to hear that.

BM: And I thought, ‘Well, I’m hardly dripping in millions!’ If you’re talking about keeping someone in an over-the-top lifestyle, well, no, never was. So that was one thing…

SH: Right.

BM: And for my family – which was my parents and my younger brother – not so much. I don’t think he really thought terribly much of it. But my parents said, “Oh, good. You’ll be fairly stable now”. But what I wanted to do was experience the things I had waited maybe 20 years of my life to do, which was to get out of Australia. At that point, I had only ever used my passport three times. But I didn’t really have any plans to go anywhere immediately after the win. But from May 2008, I was like, “I am going to go to the places I want to visit; to go and see and do the things I have always wanted to do.” So I did!

SH: How liberating! That’s great.

BM: And that happened for about two or three years. And I was doing this in a much older capacity than most people would. Most people would have travelled away from their country of birth at a very young age. I never did that. I didn’t have the ability or the opportunity to do that.

SH: Right. May I ask how old you were when you won Temptation?

BM: I would have been 44, not quite 45. So I had been through a bit of life experience before that. And I don’t know if this came up in our earlier conversation, but I’d had an emotional heartbreak. And after that, I made a lot of lifestyle changes, very sudden ones. And around that time, I was out to dinner with friends and one of them said, “I’m going up to Channel 9 tomorrow to audition for Temptation.“ And I said, “Oh, I’ve applied for that, but I haven’t been notified”. But I knew how these things work; you can just rock up, because they never check. And if you turn up and get through the test set of questions, then you get interviewed. And that was a bit of fun. I basically said, “I gate-crashed today”, and they said, “Oh, that’s fine.” So that was one of the things I did around that time: I told myself, “you are worthwhile, you actually have something”. And another one was doing the Story Bridge Adventure Climb, which began in 2005. And I thought, ‘Oh my God, I’m an agoraphobic, and it’s 86 metres from the top to the bottom! But I did it. I went, ‘No, I’ve got to do this,’ because as I said, I just thought ‘I’ve got to change’. And so I got on that climb. I did it. It was exhilarating. I’d changed the way I saw things. And then, nine months later, I’m on Temptation! So there was a series of things happening.

SH: You were reinventing yourself, by the sound of things.

BM: I did. Yeah.

SH: Earlier this afternoon, I watched your final episode of Temptation, and you even referred to the Story Bridge. You made a parallel with that climb and with your journey on Temptation; “just taking it one step at a time, one step at a time”.

BM: Yeah. I haven’t seen it for quite a long time, but to me, it was an experience that had to be lived. I wanted to get everything out of it. And my idea when I was on there was, ‘Yes, I’m me and I’m playing a game, but I’m also Blair Martin, the actor. And I’m also aware of what my role is here. I have a job to do.’

SH: Right. And you mentioned that your attitude was, ‘Oh well, I’m not going to be here again. I might as well suck the marrow out of it’. I’m curious; since Temptation, have you done much more quizzing? Or are you officially “retired” as a quiz show champion? I know I am.

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For Blair’s answer to this question – and many more! – be sure to revisit us here at HowToWinGameShows.com next Tuesday afternoon…

Until then, then!

Here’s an example of Alex being comfortable in the ‘Million Dollar Minute’ environment in 2014… Although I’m fairly sure that’s just a cardboard cut-out of host Simon Reeve, and not the genuine article.

Hello and welcome to the final part of my chat with big game show winner Alex Dusek! When we left off last week, we were talking about the theory that actors tend to do well on game shows because they’re comfortable being in the spotlight…

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SH: But you also seemed to be very comfortable on your appearances on Million Dollar Minute. You didn’t seem to be intimidated, you seemed to lean into it and really enjoy it.

AD: I would often think back to that because I’m an awkward person. In person, I don’t really know what to say to people, but then when I was in front of camera, I felt very comfortable. And I don’t know why that was. I really enjoyed being on camera and it relaxed me in a way. And I remember in the green room, there were lots of intelligent people that were really good with the questions that I remembered from the testing, but then they’d get to the studio and they didn’t really handle the lights or didn’t handle the moment.

SH: Now Alex, we ‘re coming to the end of our time together, but I’ve loved chatting to you today. And I’m noticing that throughout these stories one of the common themes is that there are just such happy memories. And like you say, it’s a life highlight, isn’t it? I mean, this doesn’t happen every day.

AD: No, you’ve really got to remember that you’re in a very exclusive club of being able to do this. For me, I sometimes forget about it… And then I remember, “Oh, wait – I was on Million Dollar Minute 10 years ago! That great thing happened!” And then you sort of forget it for a few months, and it does just keep coming back. It’s a gift that keeps on giving.

Alex these days.

And there were certainly little lucky things along the way. When getting on the show, I was lucky in that I came in when the previous episode, the Carryover Champ had just either lost or taken the money. So I came in as one of three fresh people. So that was lucky. And then I remember the first taping that I went to, I didn’t get picked.

I was just in the green room all day, and there was a lady at the end who’d been on Sale of the Century, and she was giving me advice; “if you get a question wrong, it’s like catching a ball. If you drop it, don’t worry, just catch the next ball. Just stay very objective about it”.

And then the next time I came back for a potential to be picked for the show, I was a lot more settled. I was a lot more relaxed.

And if I’d been picked that day, it might’ve all panned out differently. I do remember that the whole time on that show, I was always looking for who the person was who was going to be the real threat. And every episode, you’d be in the green room, two new people would come in and you’d think, is this the time? Is this the one? Is this them? And it didn’t ever seem to be them… until finally when I was departing and I went to the green room to grab my bag, they brought two people in and there was one guy in a salmon shirt. He shook my hand and was very agreeable. And that turned out to be Pierre Sutcliffe, who was excellent and ended up being a $500,000 winner. And he was the one; he was the threat that I had have been looking for the whole time. So I missed him by an episode.

SH: It sounds like all sorts of things just fell into place for you and all contributed to that wonderful win! And on that note, our time’s running short, so I might just wrap it up there. Thank you so much, Alex!

AD: 100%. Thank you so much. It’s been a pleasure.

SH: Cheers, Alex. No thank you! Bye.

AD: Bye.

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Once again, I’d like to thank Alex for his time, and for sharing all his memories – and all his updates – with me. It really was a sensational win that he had back in 2014, and it couldn’t have happened to a nicer bloke.

I’ll be seeing you again soon, for the next one of these checking-in-with-game-show-big-winners-after-quite-a-while-to-see-what-long-lasting-differences-their-win-has-made-to-their-lives interviews.

Until then, then!

Hello! When we left off last week, Alex was telling me that he regularly competed in pub trivia nights around the time of his very big – and very public – game show win on Million Dollar Minute…

==============================================================SH: Did you win every week?

AD: We won a fair bit. I have to say we probably won half the time, but we also weren’t the biggest team in numbers. So we did lose too. We were trying to qualify for some end-of-season regional thing. And we got pipped at the end by a team of very smart, I think teachers or librarians. So I was very happy that they got the win.

SH: That’s good. Not long after my Temptation win, I got to know Martin Flood, who won a million dollars on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? He would invite me to trivia nights with his pals. And it started to get a bit uncomfortable because other teams would see Martin and me walk in and they knew our credentials. And so we got some really dirty looks and at one stage, even the trivia quiz master was having trouble pronouncing a word. So he brought it down to me and Martin to get the correct pronunciation! So yeah, we weren’t exactly inconspicuous or incognito. So after a while, I felt a bit awkward about that. Do you live in the unit that you bought with your winnings?

AD: I do, yeah. And as a result, I do think of Million Dollar Minute pretty regularly and think, ‘thank you – thank you for helping me get a footing in life’.

SH: Yeah, a roof over your head! Fantastic. What has your Big Win enabled you to do over the last 11 years that you wouldn’t have been able to do otherwise?

This is the Big Win we’re talking about (from ‘Million Dollar Minute’, in 2014).

AD: Well, I’d love to say “travel the world” or something crazy, but I just wasn’t the type of person to do that. I did want to take my family on a trip, something big to mark the milestone… But they’re pretty much like me. They’re just like staying at home, chilling. So that didn’t eventuate, but the intentions were there.

SH: Yeah, but you’re similar to Russell Cheek, who’s an actor, who won Sale of the Century. I’m not sure what age he was when he won, but he was able to buy – with his winnings in 1992 – a unit in Bondi. And he still lives there 32 years later.

AD: Is there a correlation between people being very creative and being on quiz shows? Because for some of the names you’ve mentioned, and yourself, it does seem to be a bit of a common denominator, of of acting and the creative pursuits.

SH: Yes, I think there definitely is. There’s Matt Parkinson, comedian and actor, Russell Cheek’s an actor, Blair Martin, (who I’m speaking to next) is an actor, and there’s me… I think actors are good at learning things and memorising things. And not in any way fazed by the studio and bright lights. They – that is, we – are not just comfortable in front of people and comfortable with public speaking and being under scrutiny; we bloody love it! Time and time again, when I was on the show, the people either side of me were really out of their element in a TV studio, and I think that might’ve given me a very slight edge because I was very familiar with TV studios and the routine of making television.

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And that’s where we’ll leave it today – join us back here next week, when we’ll wrap it all up on a positive note! Until next Tuesday!

Alex Dusek these days.

Hello and welcome to Part Three of my chat with Alex Dusek. When we left off last week, I’d just asked Alex if, after his big win on Million Dollar Minute in 2014, he “retired” from being a game show contestant…

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AD: I did, I did. Afterwards, I had this strong feeling that I’d been lucky enough to do something really amazing and that I’d climbed that mountain and that I doing it again would be too much; other people should have their shots. That’s how I felt.

There was a desire to, if a good show came along, to go on it purely because our lives are short and you don’t get these opportunities often. And if an interesting thing comes on, you want to test yourself, you want to participate. So I would see things like Mastermind, and think, ‘should I apply?’ Or even The Chase – that can be quite thrilling at the end, but that’s more of a team-based one. I remember talking to Andrew Skarbek, the big winner of Million Dollar Minute, because we caught up a few times. And he was surprised when I said that I didn’t want to do any more. But later on, he came to the same conclusion; that he’d had such a great experience that nothing could really top it.

But from the other point of view, if you’ve got this speed or knowledge, it’s sort of a waste if you don’t use it. So I do try and keep myself sharp, still watch a lot of docos, but I certainly couldn’t sustain the same sort of training that I was doing at that time. And then you look at the pros on The Chase, like Brydon Coverdale, and the amount of stuff they’d be reading daily to keep sharp, it would just be so much! But I’m sort of on the lookout; in the next five, 10, 20 years, if something came along, I’d love to revisit; to see if I’m still as sharp as before and to have that thrill again.

But I was certainly very happy to have that opportunity and just to be in retirement.

But to touch back on what you were saying about relationships, I did feel sometimes that people would look at you a little bit differently; “Oh Alex, he won that, he’s really smart” or “he’s really fast” or that sort of thing. It does change your “brand” a little bit. And some people might be a little bit envious. I remember a few people saying, “oh, was it luck?”

People like to ask about it because it was such an unusual thing and it’s really an exciting thing to learn how the show works. Like that you record five episodes a day and how long it takes; like two hours to record a half an hour. So little insights like that, people really love to know about.

And as a guy who was 27 who had won that money, that was a rare thing, but I wasn’t really working at the time. So it didn’t really compensate for not having a job and not being like a real solid citizen.

SH: What do you mean by that? “It didn’t compensate for not being a solid citizen”? Can you explain that?

AD: Yeah, so if I was going on a date at the time and I was saying, “I’ve studied film, I’m doing a bit of part-time work”, I think people know you’re not really going somewhere solid; your career’s a bit shaky. But then if you say, “I’ve won this money on a game show”, that’s quite cool to hear, but it didn’t really help people to look at me that favourably. I think it was like, “oh, he’s a bit lost, he’s a bit sort of unsure of where his future’s going” sort of thing, which makes sense.

SH: Yeah, that’s interesting. Can I ask you – and there’s no obligation to answer this question if it makes you uncomfortable – but I am curious to know what you did with the $307,000.

AD: Yeah, so being a very cautious person, when I won it, I put it in a term deposit account. I actually didn’t want to think about what to do because I’d just started this film degree and I was really looking to get somewhere and to have a solid footing, career-wise. I really just wanted to knuckle down to some work and so I thought ‘I’ll just put this aside, and I’ll think about this in a year’.

SH: Really? That’s very self-disciplined.

AD: Yeah, well, thank you. But I’ve got a lot of friends and family who lived life in a more fun way. So I remember thinking like, “oh, what could have I done if I was a bit more outgoing?” But yeah, I put most of it into the purchase of a unit four years later, in 2018. And I know that I bought a second-hand car and I know that I bought my parents a new Mac computer. I don’t really know what like a third of it went to, but most of it was into that unit deposit. I think 200 of the 300 was into that. And then I did put money away for that film idea, but that didn’t come to fruition. I remember there was one cool thing. We did a trivia every Tuesday in Brighton at the Marine Hotel. And we’ve been doing that pretty regularly.

And it was around the same time that I was on the show. So one week I ordered champagne bottles for all the tables just randomly. That was really cool. You don’t get to do that very often, but it was a nice way celebrate!

SH: Yeah. That’s very nice. And after your win, did you keep going to the trivia nights? And how did they view you?

AD: I did. Yeah. I didn’t want to change the routine and yeah, it was nice. You got a few pats on the back and people looked at you with a smile – yeah, it was good.

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And on that positive note, we’ll leave it there for this week. Join us here next Tuesday for the penultimate instalment, where Alex and I discuss the things his big win has enabled him to do, that he wouldn’t have been able to do otherwise… See you then!

Before his Big Win, Alex was a supermarket shelf stacker… then, at the time of his Big Win, he was a film student (and, well, also a Game Show Winner, obvs)… But how about now?

Hello, and welcome to the second part of my interview with 2014 game show winner Alex Dusek, where it’s time to get down to business…

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SH: So just back to your winning $307,000 on Million Dollar Minute in 2014… How did it change your life between then and now? And how would your life have been if you hadn’t won it?

AD: Very good question.

SH: Thank you.

AD: To answer the first part, it changed my life in a big way because I’d just started that film degree in 2014, and I was a 27-year-old still trying to figure out what I was going to do in the world. It’s pretty crazy, in retrospect, that it came along. And I’d be interested to see what other people think about this, but it really just felt like the planets aligned. Like one minute you applied and a few weeks later, you’re in a green room with all these other contestants. And it’s very real. Once you’re there with other people who are pretty similar, you think, “Oh, am I going to be that good? Am I going to get on there and just find the bar’s quite high and I’m not going to win anything?” But winning gives you that sense of accomplishment. It’s something that I look back on and you’re able to translate a skill that you have that’s a bit of a niche thing into something really tangible and really cool.

I’ve got the episode saved somewhere. So that’ll be great to look back on at certain points in life. I think it gave me that confidence that I had done something because I was only 27. And I think at that age, you want to be into a career. And I was not really settled and hadn’t really worked a lot… So it gives you that financial stability that I didn’t really have.

And I think it’s a once-in-a-lifetime thing that you get to do. And it’s a real privilege to do it; you would just never be able to do that in other circumstances. And obviously there’s prize money on the line.

There are other things people get to do, getting married, having kids, like really momentous things, but on a purely personal level, it’s an amazing thing to get to do, to compete against others and to have that elation, that fun! It’s all on the line and in a minute, it’s all going to be determined whether it’s going to be good or bad, or up or down. It’s a touchstone that I look back on and think, ‘Gee, I was really lucky to get to do that!’

And then second part of the question, how would my life have been if I hadn’t gone on the show? I have thought about that. And I think my life would have been just as fine. You would just never know, like you would never know that you could’ve done it or that you would have won…

I was always a bit of a shy person. So I felt uncomfortable a bit with all the people asking about it because it’s an awkward thing to talk about when you’ve won something. So that part is a bit tricky, but my dad always really liked it and he would like to talk about it.

SH: That leads into my next question, which was how did it impact on your relationships, both at the time, and in the intervening years?

AD: I was certainly glad to talk about it because I love game shows, and people were generally very interested. I’d love to talk about the mechanics of how it worked. And people were so surprised when you would tell them there’s no studio audience! And was that the same for you?

SH: No, there was a studio audience, but I remember when I interviewed you 11 years ago, I asked you about that because Million Dollar Minute did a very convincing job of making you believe there’s a studio audience. Of course, it’s all recorded. Have you done any more quizzing since Million Dollar Minute? I remember that you did loads of study for it, lots of newspaper quizzes and I think you got your family to drill you on stuff before you went on. But after your Big Win, did you “retire”?

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So… DID Alex retire? WAS that the end of his game show career? Or did he go on loads more shows after Million Dollar Minute? To find out, join us back here next Tuesday afternoon. See you then!

Alex Dusek, VERY shortly after winning over $300,000 on ‘Million Dollar Minute’ in 2014! (Look closely and you can still see the flitter drop falling).

Hello and welcome to the next interview in my series of checking-in-with-game-show-big-winners-after-quite-a-while-to-see-what-long-lasting-differences-their-win-has-made-to-their-lives.

Catchy name, eh?

And today sees the first instalment of my catch-up interview with Alex Dusek, who won $307,000 on Million Dollar Minute back in 2014. Back then, I interviewed Alex not long after his win, when it was all very fresh… So I was really keen to check in again and see what the lasting effects were for him. So I did. And here’s the first instalment of the resulting chat. Enjoy!

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SH: Hello Alex! Thank you so much for agreeing to this little chat today.

AD: Oh, no problem at all.

SH: Since I recently realised that it was 20 years since my Big Win, I’ve been speaking to –

AD: Wow, 20 years?

SH: Yeah. And because I did a little post about the difference it’s made to me in the years since then, I started to wonder how others feel. So I’ve spoken to Russell Cheek who won Sale in 1992, and Matt Parkinson who won Sale in 1993, and I’m also going to speak to Blair Martin, who won Temptation in 2007. It’s just checking in, a fair way down the track, to see where they’re at. So I thought I would reach out and talk to you as well.

AD: Love to be included. That’s really great. Excellent.

SH: I did look back through the last time we spoke, 11 years ago. You were 26 years old, and you’d recently won $307,000 on Million Dollar Minute.

AD: Yeah, we had a really good long chat.

SH: Yes, it ended up being seven instalments on HowToWinGameShows.com. And so… How have you been for the last 11 years?

AD: Really, really good. It’s been up and down. I think when we spoke, I was at the beginning of a film degree at SAE in South Melbourne. And then I was trying to get work in that field, and doing freelance work. And then it was part-time work, then full-time videography… And then it was feeling like I hadn’t really found something that suited me that well. And it was a career change to data analysis. So yeah, all roads have led to there. But I feel like I’m a much wiser 38-year-old human being compared to back then.

SH: Yeah, because there was quite a bit of talk in the interview about your passion for film and the inspiration of Patrick Hughes, a Melbourne person who went on to direct some big films. And back then, you were thinking about putting your winnings towards a film project of your own. Did that end up happening?

AD: No, no, that didn’t, in the end. I certainly had the money there and it was like, ‘well, this will be something in the future’. And I was always steeling myself mentally, emotionally to keep at it in the film world, and try and write something and try and do something. But in the long run, I realized that I was really just trying to keep up an idea of myself. I wanted to be this writer or director. It was a romantic idea and it was nice, but it wasn’t really that practical of what I probably was good at and should be doing.

So that led to this career change, it probably changed a little bit. Like I was always into horse racing and stats, so I started doing a podcast around horse racing form analysis. So that was a creative project that is a bit of a different lens. And there was some ideas for sketch comedy that I had, but I didn’t really stick at that.

And I’ve still got ideas to write something, but I’ve never really followed through on it. So it was sort of just dreams that change tack a little bit.

SH: Yeah, for sure. And I think that’s smart. Like sometimes people just get this notion in their head that they have to go down this path… And I remember a line from Mel Brooks’s The Producers, where Bialystok says to Bloom, very emphatically “NEVER PUT YOUR OWN MONEY IN THE SHOW!” So in a way, I’m glad to hear that you didn’t do that. I hope you did something sensible with it. (Not that your film wouldn’t have been sensible, but it’s a very high-risk thing)… It’s good that you knew yourself so well at such a young age, that’s really good. And what’s the podcast called?

AD: It’s called Form King. And it’s a little half-hour show each week, where I just preview the weekend’s races. I try and talk a little bit about what might happen, try to look at some racing form. I find that it’s out of all the betting options that you’ve got, whether it be sports or politics, racing’s quite complex. You’ve got track conditions, whether it’s wet or it’s dry. You’ve got distances changing, jockeys changing. The form obviously changes every week with every different line-up of horses. You could have a race of five horses or 20. Tracks obviously change. There’s just all these variables, so it’s a constant re-balancing. And I find it very fun to try and analyse how it’s going to change, where there are opportunities to make money, or something might win or a favourite might go down. I do question whether with that analytical sort of thinking, why don’t I just look at something more practical like shares rather than horse racing, which is at the end of the day, very fickle.

You can do all the analysis in the world and come to some really great conclusion, but if that horse just isn’t feeling well on the day and doesn’t want to run, it all comes to nothing! So on the podcast, I try to intersperse just those weekly episodes with a few interviews.

One time I interviewed a strapper just to get a more practical understanding of horse racing, because I understand it through the lens of a form guy, but I’m not a person who really understands much about the sport itself. And I want to get a professor on – someone who actually studied gambling – to understand why people are drawn to this, because I’ve always been into it.

SH: I have a friend who is exactly like that. And he’s a keen punter, but a really informed and educated punter. I’m going to recommend your podcast to him – I think that’d be just his thing.

AD: Thank you, that’s awesome.

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Join us back here next Tuesday for the second part of the interview, in which Alex details exactly HOW the big win changed his life, and speculates on how things might have been different if it had never happened… See you then!

Russell, in his one man show ‘Who Am I?’

Hello and welcome to the final part of my chat with Russell Cheek! When we left off last week, Russell was describing the genesis of his one-man show Who Am I?, and he mentioned that, in addition to having Steve Abbott direct it, he also involved Warren Coleman in the creative process…

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SH: Now, Warren’s also a quiz show winner, isn’t he? Wasn’t he on Sale of the Century?

RC: He won three nights on Sale of the Century, which went very well.

SH: Right.

RC: But then he made the rookie error of picking the new cars off the board at the end of the show. You know, when you pick up the twin cards that turn around. He picked the cars on his third night of the show. And in the commercial break, when he’s standing up with Glenn at the end of the show, Warren actually physically touched the Nissan Patrol wagon that was on display. And he went, “Oh, this is suddenly very real…”

SH: “And it’s mine!”

RC: He said, “I don’t think I’m going to come back next week”. So he took the cars and left the show. Funnily enough, I’ve never forgotten Matt Parkinson‘s performance on the show, because Matt picked the two cars on the very first night of the show.

SH: Oh, that’s interesting.

RC: On his very first performance, he picked the two cars off the board, but he decided to continue on. And I thought that was a real snapshot of Matt’s character. The fact that he won those cars on the first night and still decided to continue on… and then he went on to win the whole thing. It was a coup!

SH: That’s really nailing your colours to the mast, isn’t it?

RC: Yeah, that’s right. He could have been hoist on his own petard, but he nailed his colours to the mast.

SH: For sure.

RC: Any other ship metaphors we can think of?

SH: He… didn’t walk the plank? I don’t know…

RC: As the figurehead on the prow, he kept his nose out of the water.

SH: That’s right. And afterwards at the party, he got three sheets to the wind.

RC: Exactly. That’s right.

SH: So in your one-man show Who Am I?, did you talk much about the effects of your Big Win?

RC: Oh, yes. I talked about my parents… My mum had died many years earlier, but I talk in the show about how proud she would have been of me, and how proud my father was of me. He’s since died as well, but he was so proud. I used to visit him at his place on Lake Macquarie, and we used to often do walks around the lake. And one night he said, “Russ, you’ve done so well and it’s so great that you’ve won the show”. And he loved the fact that I was in The Castanet Club and he said, “Russ, you’ve done great in your life because you have taken risks”. And he said, “I never took any risks, but I’m so proud of you for taking the risks and for coming out on top”. And that meant such an incredible amount to me. I can’t remember if I say that in the show, by the way!

SH: Will you be doing the show again any time soon?

RC: I still want to come back and do this show. COVID sort of killed it off for me, but I’ve got a chance of going to the Edinburgh Festival next year. So I’m going to try to take that chance. Because I’ve been so encouraged by people! You know, I can never remember who saw the show and who didn’t, but I keep running into people who did see the show and say, “It was so wonderful. You must bring it back…” So, who am I to disappoint them, Stephen?

SH: Yes. Who are you?

RC: Who am I, indeed? Yes. Who Am I?

SH: Hey Russ, our time’s about up, but I just want to thank you so much again for doing this!

RC: My pleasure. Give my love to Judi and Lily, please.

SH: Will do. Will do. Thanks so much again.

RC: You’re very welcome. All the best, Stephen. Take care.

SH: Thanks Russ, all the best!

RC: Bye, mate.

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And there you have it. Once again, my heartfelt thanks to Russell for taking us down Memory Lane, and revealing all the long-term effects his Big Win had for him. If you’re contemplating auditioning for a game show, I hope you can see how truly life-changing it can be… sometimes for decades to come! So, if you’re thinking about applying for your favourite game show, but you’re currently hesitating… I can heartily, heartily advise you to GO FOR IT! (And I’m sure Russell would say the same).

I’ll see you back here next week, but in the meantime, for those of you in Melbourne / Australia, I’ll be popping up on David Astle’s evening show (6:45 – 10:00 PM) on 774 ABC Melbourne tonight, for one of our monthly chats. They’re always great fun, so please consider tuning in if you can!

https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/melbourne-evenings

Cheers,

Stephen.