The 1% Club’s Tricky Digital Clock Question Left Viewers Counting Every Line — Could You Crack It in 30 Seconds?

A digital clock showing 10:05am looks completely ordinary — until The 1% Club gives you just 30 seconds to count something most people have probably never considered.

The deceptively simple puzzle appeared as a 20% question on Lee Mack’s ITV quiz and later left viewers online producing wildly different answers.

Some counted 19. Others reached 21 or 27. One person somehow ended up with seven.

The challenge was:

“A digital clock uses a maximum of seven lines per digit, which can be used to create any time. How many lines are lit at 10:05am?”

Could you work it out before the clock runs down?

The Question Looks Easier Than It Is

The 1% Club doesn’t rely primarily on traditional general knowledge.

Instead, 100 contestants face 15 questions based around logic, observation and reasoning, beginning with puzzles that 90% of the surveyed public could answer and becoming progressively harder until the notorious 1% question.

One mistake means elimination.

That format makes this particular puzzle especially dangerous.

Everyone knows what 10:05 looks like on a digital clock. The difficulty comes from forgetting about the time itself and concentrating entirely on the illuminated segments used to create each digit.

With only 30 seconds available, even counting them becomes surprisingly stressful.

Viewers Couldn’t Agree on the Answer

After a clip of the puzzle was shared on TikTok, viewers began attempting it themselves.

The answers were all over the place.

Some believed the total was 21. Others suggested 27. Another answer was just seven.

One viewer admitted they struggled long before reaching questions at this level, joking: “I can’t even get to the 70 percent question.”

Another debate developed around something even more fundamental: exactly how many lines make up the number 1?

“Why am I one of the few people that thinks 1 is made with 3 lines?” one viewer asked.

That confusion demonstrates precisely why the puzzle works.

You aren’t being asked to perform complicated mathematics. You’re being tested on whether you understand the seven-segment display described in the question and can count its illuminated lines accurately under pressure.

The Clock Is Running

Picture the display:

10:05

Each digit is constructed using some combination of the seven possible segments.

You need to count the illuminated segments making up 1, then 0, then another 0, and finally 5.

No calculator is necessary.

No obscure trivia is involved.

Just observation, logic and 30 seconds.

And that was enough to send plenty of viewers down the wrong path.

The Answer

For anyone still calculating, this is the point to stop reading.

The correct answer was:

19.

Under the seven-segment system used by the puzzle, the four digits require a combined total of 19 illuminated lines.

It was exactly the kind of question that explains why host Lee Mack believes The 1% Club works so well as a family quiz.

“Great contestants, loads of cash to win, and guaranteed ‘I can’t believe you couldn’t work that one out Dad!’ moments to cause family disputes — I love it,” he previously told The Sun.

Mack has also said he enjoys quizzes that are genuinely difficult because solving even a small number of challenging questions creates a much greater sense of achievement.

And 10:05 is a perfect example.

Four familiar digits. Seven possible lines per digit. Thirty seconds to count them correctly. The answer sounds obvious once it is explained — but with the timer running, 19 suddenly becomes much harder to find.