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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 19 – Sleights of Mind with Stephen Macknik and Susana Martinez-Conde
The word neuromagic sounds like an obscure subgenre of cyberpunk fantasy novels. In reality, it’s a branch of neuroscience dedicate to...
Comedy Magicians and Comical Con Artists
Every year, my home town of Melbourne is descended upon by an army of comedians in town for the Melbourne International Comedy Festival....
Episode 18 – Keeping The Bastards Dishonest with Dee Madigan
Dee Madigan is an advertising creative and political campaigner who spends her days selling politicians to the public and her nights...
How To Learn A Working Magician’s Real Secrets
I’m a working stiff. Really I am. I make a big part of my living as what we magicians call ‘a worker.’ Every weekend I’m invited to be 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 15 – Out Of Your Mind with Art Maines
On Scamapalooza I spend a lot of time talking about how people get scammed but very little time asking why? What is it that makes some...
Episode 14 – Snipe Hunts with Laura Davis
The snipe hunt, the art of sending a sucker to find something that doesn’t exist, is a grand and noble tradition. Jerks the world over...
How To Lie About Lie Detectors
According to a recent study by Dr. Winston Zeddermore of Nixon University, 1.3% of the population are perfect liars, deceivers so adept...
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...
Episode 12 – The Magic Castle with Magician Rob Zabrecky
Rob Zabrecky was once the leader singer of indie rock band Possum Dixon. Now he’s a magician on the board of trustees of The Magic Castle...
Episode 11 – Just A Little Prick with Mark Crislip MD
In 1998, Andrew Wakefield fooled the world into believing that the MMR Vaccine causes autism. Almost two decades later and his scam is...
Episode 10 – Now You Seem Mean with Nick Mason
Nicholas has a love/hate relationship with the 2013 magician heist movie film Now You See Me. On the one hand, it is a con artist heist...
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 8 – A Fool and A Thief with Simon Pampena
Melbourne Stand up mathematician Simon Pampena specialises in explaining complex math to simple minds. In this episode, Nicholas tries to...
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,...
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.
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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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