Pat Gibson

Patrick Gibson (born 19 July 1961) is an Irish quizzer based in the United Kingdom. On 24 April 2004, he became the fifth contestant to win the £1m jackpot on the quiz show Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? and the fourth legitimate contestant to do so. He is a multiple world champion in quizzing and one of the world's most successful quiz players. He is best known for winning several quiz shows and being a panellist on Eggheads. He was born, raised and educated in Ireland but currently lives in the United Kingdom and competes as part of the England quiz team. As of 5 December 2018, Gibson was the No. 1 ranked quizzer in the world.

Early life and education Pat was born in Galway in 1961. He moved to Letterkenny, County Donegal in the early 1970s. He was educated at Scoil Colmcille and St Eunan's College in Letterkenny. Pat holds an engineering degree from University College Galway. He emigrated to the United Kingdom in the 1980s, where he trained as a COBOL computer programmer.

TV quiz shows Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?

On his one million pound question, he still had his 50:50 and phone a friend (he had used the Ask-the-Audience lifeline on the £64,000 question). The question was "Which of these is not one of the American Triple Crown horse races?" Gibson used the 50:50 first, where B. "Belmont Stakes" and D. "Preakness Stakes" disappeared. With A. "Arlington Million" and C. "Kentucky Derby", he then used his phone-a-friend option, phoning Mark Kerr (a highly ranked British quiz player and winner of TV's "Brainiest Estate Agent" title, as well as winner of £250,000 on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire ) who said he was 90% sure the answer was Arlington Million, which was Pat's original instinct. Gibson had acted as Kerr's phone-a-friend during his appearance on the show during the same series (15), broadcast weeks before Gibson's success. He correctly answered "Arlington Million" to win £1 million.

Mastermind In 2005 he was crowned champion of Mastermind: his specialist subjects included Father Ted, the books of Iain M. Banks and the films of Quentin Tarantino.

On 6 August 2010 he was crowned Mastermind Champion of Champions with a winning score of 36 points with no passes. Jesse Honey also scored 36 but had 2 passes.

Brain of Britain On 25 December 2006 he won the BBC Radio 4 quiz show Brain of Britain, In 2007 Gibson won the IQA World Quizzing Championship. In pairs competitions he partners Ian Bayley and they have won the British and European titles.

In 2010 Gibson won the IQA World Quizzing Championship achieving an all-time high score of 180/210, defeating both Kevin Ashman and Belgian Ronny Swiggers who tied at 169/210. Gibson retained the World Quizzing Championship title in 2011 with a score of 186/210, a 10-point margin over Kevin Ashman, and won again in 2013 with a score of 172/210.

Despite being originally from Ireland, Gibson competes for the England team.

Gibson has participated in various online quiz leagues and was the Season 1 champion of the Topic Slayer League (defeating Mario Fernando and Ayush Sharma in the finals), an international quiz competition based in Batanagar, West Bengal.

Domestic competition Pat plays in the Summer in the Orrell and District League for the Millstone team, and in the winter in the Ormskirk league for Collywobblers.