THE iPhone is killing pub trivia, with cheats looking up answers on the popular internet-enabled mobile.
"It's become the bane of my existence," quizmaster Wayne Shapiro, owner of Sydney's Trivia Madness, said.
If Mr Shapiro sees light coming from under a table, that's when he thinks he has a cheat. But rather than confront them, he will make a general announcement.
"The whole room will go 'Ooh' - even the person I suspect of cheating," Mr Shapiro, who runs six pub trivia events across Sydney, said.
It's become so bad at one venue in Paddington he now makes the announcement before the quiz starts: "I have to try to appeal to their sense of decency."
Complete Trivia owner Ian Francis said it was hard for a host to spot and stop cheats.
It was easier to rely on "trivia tragics" - people who attend up to five quiz nights a week. "They police the crowd better than the hosts will ever be able to," Mr Francis said. "They point it out to the host and go and say 'No cheating'."
Mr Francis is mystified that people use phones to look up answers.
Lauren Keep, 18, of Chippendale, said no one cheated at her local, the Berkeley Hotel.
"But I've seen people do it at other pubs," she said. "Why would you want to win when you know you've been cheating?"
