The 1% Club viewers baffled by tricky hidden-code question — can you crack it?

Only four contestants made it to the final round of The 1% Club, but the last question proved too difficult for half of them — and viewers at home were left trying to work out the hidden code for themselves.

Hosted by Lee Mack, the ITV quiz show challenges 100 contestants with increasingly difficult questions based on logic and reasoning rather than general knowledge. The final question is designed to be so challenging that, on average, only 1% of the UK population is expected to answer it correctly.

Can you crack the secret code?

In Saturday’s episode, just four contestants reached the stage where they could attempt the final question and compete for a share of the jackpot.

Their challenge involved an old diary written in a secret code. The question explained:

“Peter has recently found his old diary that he’d written in secret code but he can’t remember how to decipher what he wrote.

“Can you crack the code to find out what the underlined word is?

WH89 I GR1W UP I WA92 21 B8 A 5L1RI72.”

Two contestants failed to work it out, while two others successfully cracked the code.

The successful players, Maisy and Jasmine, were rewarded with £46,500 each, leaving the pair visibly delighted by their achievement.

Lee Mack then revealed the decoded sentence:

“When I grow up I want to be a florist.”

The trick was that Peter had replaced letters with digits whenever possible, using a number whose name begins with the same letter. Once that pattern was spotted, the seemingly impossible message became much easier to decipher.

Maisy and Jasmine were overcome with joy after discovering they had got the answer right, while Maisy could barely believe she had managed to crack the puzzle.

Another 1% Club question divided viewers

The code puzzle wasn’t the only recent The 1% Club question to spark confusion among viewers.

In another episode, contestants were asked:

“Without reordering any letters, how many animals appear in the sequence below?”

The sequence was:

PHEASANTORTOISEALION

Viewers quickly began debating the answer on social media, particularly over whether an ant should count as an animal.

Lee Mack eventually revealed that the intended answer was six: pheasant, sealion, ant, seal, tortoise and lion.

However, some viewers strongly disagreed with the wording of the question.

One viewer complained: “An ant is NOT an animal! Outrage!”

Another argued that a pheasant is a bird, an ant is an insect, while seal, sealion, tortoise and lion are animals, suggesting the answer should be two. They added that if the question had asked how many “creatures” appeared, six would have made more sense.

Others echoed the same objection, writing that an ant is an insect rather than an animal.

But there were also plenty of viewers who pointed out that insects are, in fact, animals, with one responding: “Yes an ant is an animal. All insects are.”

Britain’s easiest quiz shows

Despite its reputation for challenging questions, The 1% Club was actually ranked relatively low when viewers were asked which quiz shows they would find easiest to win.

The results were:

• Tipping Point – 21%
• The Chase – 10%
• Pointless – 7%
• Ant and Dec’s Limitless Win – 7%
• The Weakest Link – 7%
• The 1% Club – 6%
• Mastermind – 5%
• Beat the Chasers – 3%
• Tenable – 3%
• Only Connect – 2%
• None of these – 29%

The 1% Club airs on ITV1 and is available to stream on ITVX.