The 1% Club number puzzle wipes out 17 contestants in just 30 seconds

A seemingly straightforward numbers puzzle proved anything but easy on The 1% Club, with 17 contestants eliminated by a single 70% question.

Hosted by Lee Mack, the ITV game show challenged players to find one missing number from a range running from 1 to 61. They had just 30 seconds to spot it and secure their place in the next round.

With contestants ultimately hoping to compete for a share of a £100,000 jackpot, the pressure was already high. But for 17 players, the countdown ended without the correct answer.

Can you spot the missing number?

The question was simple:

“Here is a range of numbers from 1 to 61. What is the missing number?”

The numbers were displayed together on screen in a variety of bright colours, creating a visually busy puzzle that contestants had to scan quickly.

Thirty seconds later, 17 players had failed to identify the missing number and were knocked out.

Lee Mack acknowledged the scale of the elimination, saying: “That was quite a lot of you, we have lost 17 there.”

The correct answer was then revealed as 29.

The giveaway was hiding in plain sight: the sequence moved directly from 28 to 30, with 29 nowhere to be found.

The 17 eliminations also had an impact on the prize fund, with £1,000 added for each player knocked out, according to the show’s format. A similar numbers question had previously caught out a large group of contestants, showing just how easily an apparently simple puzzle can become difficult when the clock is running.

Another question had already eliminated 32 players

The latest mass elimination came after another The 1% Club question had sent 32 contestants out of the competition.

That earlier puzzle asked:

“Which of these would it be impossible to do?”

Players were given three choices: marry your cousin’s cousin, marry your brother’s widow, or marry your widow’s sister.

The correct answer was the final option. The logic was that if someone has a widow, they must already be dead, making it impossible for them to marry their widow’s sister.

The question demonstrated the kind of trick wording that has become a hallmark of The 1% Club: rather than relying on specialist knowledge, contestants have to read the question carefully and avoid being distracted by seemingly complicated details.

For the 17 players caught out by the numbers puzzle, however, the challenge was even more basic — spotting one number missing from an otherwise complete run.

And with only 30 seconds to find it, that tiny omission proved enough to end their game.