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Episode 23 – The Sun and The Moon with Matthew Goodman
On 25 August, 1835, The Sun newspaper printed a series of hoax articles claiming they’d found life on the moon including man-bats, two...
Episode 22 – Piff The Magic Dragon with John Van Der Put
Of all the magicians I’ve met, Piff The Magic Dragon is the most unique. After all, he’s a dragon who has appeared on Las Vegas casino...
Episode 21 – The Sting with Matthew Specktor
There are two types of con artist movies: those made before The Sting and those made after The Sting. The 1973 George Roy Hill film won...
Episode 20 – Sucker with Lawrence Leung
On a cold wet Scottish night over five years ago at Edinburgh Fringe Festival, I had a quiet drink with comedian Lawrence Leung in a...
Episode 17 – The Cottingley Fairies with Sarah Baggs
In 1920, five photographs took the world by storm. Taken by two young girls, Elsie Wright and Francis Griffith, the photos appeared to...
The Great Bullet Scam
There’s a new scam on the rise in Phillipine’s airports. It’s an extortion racket that sees victims threatened with jail time if they...
Episode 16 – Scam School with Brian Brushwood
Brian Brushwood is the ultimate drinking buddy. A king of bar magic, propositional wagers and short cons. Since 2008, Brian has been...
7 Con Artist Movies You’ve Never Seen
For every Focus or Matchstick Men there is a smaller, subtler con artist flick that never found it’s audience. These small scale pics...
Episode 13 – The Man Who Lost Himself with Robyn Annear
The Tichborne Claimant was either a 19th century lord, long thought missing at sea or a butcher from Wagga spinning an elaborate lie to...
Where To Learn The Three Disk Monte
Three Disk Monte is one of the most popular street scams and confidence games in the world. And yet, little had been written about this...
8 Ways To Hack A Slot Machine
There’s a moment in Ocean’s 13, the most fun but also most nonsensical of the Oceans movies, where a slot machine* is programmed to pay...
Episode 7 – Nightmare Alley with Simon Caterson
Melbourne Author Simon Caterson shares Nicholas’ love of film noir. In this episode Simon explores the great con artist film noir,...
Scamming Door To Door
I was asked in a radio interview last week what the best way for the public to protect themselves against door to door scammers was. My...
The day the numbers racket didn’t add up
In the opening act of George C. Hill’s needlessly complex but extraordinarily fun 1973 caper, The Sting, the two heroes are comparing...
Playing Fast and Loose
“Play fast and loose with faith? so jest with heaven, Make such unconstant children of ourselves.” -King John (Act 3, Scene 1) In 1595,...
Here you'll find resources for teaching and promoting critical thinking, scam protection, and deception education. Many are linked to his school incursions while others are just for fun.
Make sure you subscribe to Nicholas's podcast. Scamapalooza. He interviews psychologists, authors, and researchers about why people are so easy to fool.
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