Dad Baffled by Major Mistake He Discovered in Trivial Pursuit Game

An Oklahoma dad was left “irritated” after coming across what he felt was an obvious mistake in his family’s new Trivial Pursuit game.

Board games can play an important role in a young child’s educational development. A 2022 study published in the journal Early Years found that games like Monopoly, Othello and Chutes and Ladders can make younger children better at math. Researchers concluded that 3- to 9-year-olds in particular benefited from the format of number-based board games, which were found to help with counting and addition.

In this sense, Trivial Pursuit occupies a unique position as a board game that not only has the same math-based benefits but also encourages the learning and retention of general knowledge that can prove useful in adult life.

All of which makes the discovery by Ian Clarke of Oklahoma City more notable. Clarke told Newsweek he had just started playing a new “Family Edition” of Trivial Pursuit with his 10-year-old daughter, who “hadn’t played before,” when he landed on a yellow space, meaning he needed to answer a question about history.

The question on the card read: “What does the acronym NATO stand for?” Clarke said he answered “correctly” that it stood for North Atlantic Treaty Organization, only to be told by his daughter: “No, but you’re soooo close! One word away.”

Though he knew his answer was correct, Clarke said he “racked” his brain trying to think of what possible mistake had been printed on the card. His daughter eventually revealed that the answer in front of her read “North American Treaty Organization.”

Annoying at such a glaring error, Clarke shared screenshots of the mistake to Reddit under the handle u/idog73. “I was irritated by it, and I wanted other people to be irritated too,” he said.

“This is a ridiculous mistake that can’t be chalked up to a typo or autocorrect,” he went on. “The person that wrote that question had to believe that answer was correct, and that should be embarrassing to the publishers of the world’s premiere trivia game. If you can’t trust Trivial Pursuit with trivia, who can you trust?”

Clarke isn’t looking for an apology from Hasbro, the makers of Trivial Pursuit. “I guess it’d be nice to see them acknowledge the mistake and correct it publicly on social media,” he said.” I’m sure they’ve been made aware of it before now, but I imagine there’s not much that can be done.”

He added, jokingly: “I think a selection of board games given to my daughter and I as a thank-you for bringing the mistake to their attention would be appropriate.”

Responding to the mistake, Crystal Flynn, SVP Global Communications at Hasbro, told Newsweek: “While we try our best and aim for complete accuracy, errors can slip through. We appreciate it when our passionate fans bring these to our attention so that we can improve.”