Tony Fillingham walked away with £2,700 on Tipping Point and says there is one fact about the show people never guess
A TV regular who has appeared in a number of major game shows has revealed the secrets from behind the scenes of ITV’s Tipping Point. Quiz show and TV regular Tony Fillingham, 51, from Cheshire, has become a familiar face on the small screen over the years. He’s racked up an impressive list of appearances, taking part in popular daytime favourites such as Tipping Point – where he bagged £2,700 – and Tenable, where he and his team walked away with a huge £45,000 jackpot.
Outside the quiz show circuit, Tony has also been seen on Emmerdale, Extreme Diet Hotel, and Steph and Dom’s One Star to Five Star. He even teamed up with Kate Garraway for Channel 5’s never-aired gameshow 5 Second Stars, where he secured an incredible £23,000 prize. Unfortunately, because the show was pulled before broadcast, Tony never saw a penny of those winnings.
Tonyo yold OLBG.com what it’s really like to be on Tipping Potins – and the one secret most people don’t guess. He said: ” It’s not like other shows. For example, I was team captain on Tenable, and from getting accepted to actually filming, there was a good four or five weeks — maybe more.
“So what I did for Tenable was get the lads together every Tuesday. I told them, “Go find 10 top 10s” — like the 10 biggest US states, or the 10 longest rivers — whatever. We’d meet up at someone’s house and test each other, trying to recreate the game as best we could.
“And it paid off. One of the rounds we practised — the biggest US states — came up on the actual show, and one of the lads nailed it. He got 8 out of 10, so that was £10,000 in the bank. That prep made a difference”.
He added: ” With Tipping Point, they record your intro, then you go straight into the game. When someone’s eliminated after Round One, they leave, the crew comes in, rejigs the set — moves a podium, shifts things about — and a few minutes later, you’re back on.
“It’s all super quick, very real-time”.
And he said there’s one thing viewers would never guess happens behind the scenes of Tipping Point, adding: “It’s not even that it’s behind the scenes — it’s just something I never expected. The biggest shock for me was the actual machine you drop the coins into.
“They took us over to meet the independent adjudicator — this older woman with white gloves. Turns out, when you press the drop button on the show, it’s not connected to anything. Nothing at all. That button is a decoy.
“There’s a woman standing behind the machine, wearing those gloves, watching you. When you press the button, she’s the one who actually drops the coin. It blew my mind! I always thought it was an automated machine, but nope. Total surprise”.
He added: “Y ou don’t control the timing. It’s all down to her. Sometimes I’d hit the button and think, ‘Why hasn’t she dropped it yet?’ You’re basically at her mercy.
“When I got to the end, the jackpot counter was bang in the middle of Drop Zone 4. If it had been a machine, I’d have taken the trade for three extra counters. But I didn’t trust the manual drop; it’s out of your hands.
“I get rinsed on X/ Twitter every time my episode airs for not taking the trade. But my wife warned me not to gamble. And the whole reason I went on the show was to get my daughter a car. I had enough to do that and pay the insurance. The thought of coming home empty-handed after losing it – I couldn’t stomach it.
“They make you play on anyway, and funnily enough, I did knock the jackpot counter over after that. So I could’ve walked away with £10,000 instead of £2,700. For me, the £2,700 was 100% worth it. That was the whole point: to buy my daughter a car and sort her insurance. She just started uni, and to me, that money means a lot. I’m a taxi driver, it’s not life-changing, but it’s significant.
“It was also an incredible experience. I’d definitely recommend it to anyone who thinks they can give it a go. Oh, and by the way – you keep everything you win. Completely tax-free. Also, if you knock over a prize counter, you win random extras. Ben Shephard even said to us, ‘The prizes aren’t great, but can you pretend to be excited?’
“I won ‘Picnic at the Proms,’ which turned out to be a concert on damp grass at Warwick Castle, no actual picnic included.”