# How does HQ Trivia stay in business?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-hq-trivia-stay-in-business/964813>\
**Category:** The Game Room\
**Created:** [May 21, 2022, 12:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-hq-trivia-stay-in-business/964813 "2022-05-21T00:16:20Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![DaveRaver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/daveraver/32/1078_2.png) [@DaveRaver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DaveRaver)\
**Post date:** [May 21, 2022, 12:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-hq-trivia-stay-in-business/964813/1 "2022-05-21T00:16:20Z")

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HQ Trivia is an app that features a weekly live trivia quiz. If you answer all 12 questions correctly (each has 3 choices to choose from) you win a few dollars that transfer to your PayPal account. Every Thursday at 9pm Eastern time, they give away $1,500 split between the winners. Without any advertising or promotions during recent games, how do they come up with the money to give away, and why do they do it?

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**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\
**Post date:** [May 21, 2022, 3:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-hq-trivia-stay-in-business/964813/2 "2022-05-21T03:06:06Z")

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Just a guess, but maybe they are collecting data on users and selling that.

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**Author:** ![ThatCanadianGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/5f8ce5/32.png) [@ThatCanadianGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThatCanadianGuy)\
**Post date:** [May 21, 2022, 11:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-hq-trivia-stay-in-business/964813/3 "2022-05-21T11:59:50Z")

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I bet there’s in-game ads. They generate money from this.

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**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\
**Post date:** [May 24, 2022, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-hq-trivia-stay-in-business/964813/4 "2022-05-24T14:40:39Z")

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It’s a shadow of its former self. Used to be every night they’d have 2 sometimes 3 games- Trivia, Words, and Sports. I don’t expect it to be around much longer but I do enjoy it once in a while. They also sell things like extra lives but really even if you do win it’s only a buck or two so it makes little sense to buy them.

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**Author:** ![Frosted\_Glass](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/frosted_glass/32/3926_2.png) [@Frosted\_Glass](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frosted_Glass)\
**Post date:** [June 11, 2022, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-hq-trivia-stay-in-business/964813/5 "2022-06-11T14:22:17Z")

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The Ringer has a pretty interesting 8 episode podcast about the history (and sort of rebirth) of HQ Trivia:

> **[Boom/Bust: The Rise and Fall of HQ Trivia - The Ringer](https://www.theringer.com/boom-bust-podcast)**
>
> Boom/Bust: The Rise and Fall of HQ Trivia on The Ringer