Pub Quiz Tiebreaker Questions
Two teams on the same score at the end of the night, and everyone looking at the quizmaster. A good tiebreaker has a number for an answer that nobody will know exactly, so somebody always gets closer. Here are 20 that work, with the answers hidden underneath so you can try them first. They're all UK-friendly and none of them goes out of date.
20 tiebreaker questions and answers
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How many steps are there up to the belfry of the Elizabeth Tower, home of Big Ben?
Show the answer
334
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In what year did the London Underground open?
Show the answer
1863
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How tall is Mount Everest, in metres?
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8,849 metres
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How many UK number one singles did the Beatles have in the 1960s?
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17
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How many dots are there on a full double-six set of dominoes?
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168
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In what year was the first episode of Coronation Street shown?
Show the answer
1960
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How long is the River Thames, in miles?
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215 miles
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How many steps are there up to the viewing platform of the Monument in London?
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311
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In what year was the first Glastonbury Festival held?
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1970
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How tall is the Shard in London, to the nearest metre?
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310 metres
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How many years did the Hundred Years' War actually last?
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116 years (1337 to 1453)
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At 20°C, how fast does sound travel through air, in miles per hour, to the nearest ten?
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770 mph
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How tall is the London Eye, in metres?
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135 metres
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How high is Ben Nevis, in metres?
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1,345 metres
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In what year was the first Harry Potter book published?
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1997
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What is Wembley Stadium's seating capacity for football matches?
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90,000
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How long is Hadrian's Wall, in miles?
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73 miles
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How many pennies were there in a pound before decimalisation?
Show the answer
240
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In what year did Henry Cole send out the first commercially produced Christmas card?
Show the answer
1843
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How many yards over 26 miles is a marathon?
Show the answer
385 yards
How a tiebreaker works
Read the question out once, clearly, and give each tied team a slip of paper. They write down one number and hand it in, with no changing their minds once it's on the slip. The team closest to the right answer wins, whether they're over or under. Say that before you read the question, so nobody argues afterwards that they thought it was "closest without going over".
If both teams are exactly as close as each other, which happens more often than you'd think with years, just read out the next question. It's worth having three or four ready, not just one. Our free tiebreaker slips print ten to a page, with a line for the team name and one for the answer.
What makes a good tiebreaker question
The best ones are questions where everyone can make a sensible guess but nobody will know the exact answer. "What year did the London Underground open?" is ideal: most people know it's Victorian, so the guesses will be in the right area, but very few will say 1863. Heights, distances, dates and "how many" questions all work well.
Avoid anything with a tiny answer, like the number of hearts an octopus has, because there's a good chance both teams guess the same number. Avoid anything that changes, like populations or record totals, because someone will have looked it up more recently than you. And check your answer before the night. If you're quoting a height in metres, make sure it isn't the figure in feet.
50 printable tiebreaker question cards
If you'd rather not read questions off your phone, we've put 50 tiebreakers on printable cards, including the 20 above. There are ten cards to a page with the answer at the bottom of each, so you can cut them out and keep a stack with your quiz kit. They're a free PDF for everyone on our newsletter, along with our printable answer sheets and a free pack of at least five quizzes.
More for quiz night
For the rest of the quiz, we put free weekly pub quiz questions and answers from the week's news on the site every Sunday. There are also free pub quiz answer sheets to print, including a multiple choice sheet and a scoresheet for the quizmaster, and some tips on how to host a pub quiz. If you need whole rounds ready to go, our dingbats, TV quizzes and Christmas quizzes are all printable PDFs from our Etsy shop.