William G. Stewart as producer originally only intended to present the pilot episode until a permanent host could be found if the show was taken up by one of the networks.

The 15 contestants stood in a semicircle, each behind a lectern with a number from 1 to 15 (a similar layout was used by the later game show The Weakest Link).

Were this to happen, the contingency plan would have been to replay the first round, although Stewart once jokingly said that he would give a talk on the Parthenon Marbles to fill the time.

As in Round 1, questions were asked to contestants in numerical order in turn, with one life lost for an incorrect response.

In theory, it could continue indefinitely if not enough wrong answers were given to narrow the field to three, until the pool of available questions was exhausted.

A maximum of 40 questions were asked in this round, with 10 points awarded for each correct answer and one life lost on each miss.

From Series 11 onward, contestants who lost in Round 3 were also invited to return if their score would have been high enough to earn a place on the Finals Board.

The 15 highest-scoring winners and their totals during any given series were displayed in a table referred to at different times as the Finals Board or Leaderboard.

The board was cleared at the beginning of each new series, and the winners of the first 15 episodes were automatically entered onto it in descending order by score.

Many players would win one of the daily shows but would not achieve a high enough score to appear on the high-score board for a place in the Grand Final.

However, in 2000, the rule was altered to allow players who had previously played a while earlier and had not got as far as the Grand Final to apply to be on the show again.

Prizes were occasionally valued at several million pounds by archaeologists, and were presented to the winning contestant by the regular voice-over artist, Laura Calland (who married Stewart in 1997).

In series 1 to 3 the original voice-over was Anthony Hyde, although he was never seen on screen, and in the early days William G. Stewart presented the prize himself in the Grand Final.

It was one of only four ties in the show's history, such a result being possible only when two contestants finished the final level on points and lives remaining.

No provision had been made for a tie-breaker, so Stewart offered to buy a prize of equal value for the two winners.

The other two contestants in that final, Martin Penny and Alison Shand, were invited back for the next series even though they had not won, a very rare exception to the rule preventing losers from competing on the show again.

As with the time Bill McKaig managed his 433 score, the other two contestants in the final, Don Street and Eric Matthews, were allowed to try again.

Worse, she was told by William G. Stewart, as one of his common phrases when a high score had been achieved, "I'll see you in the Grand Final."

The rules of the series also state that a losing contestant who achieves a score that would otherwise have offered a place in a Grand Final, is given a second chance.

The second, Alan Gibbs, achieved a winning score of 202 when he returned a year later in series 32, but failed to make the Grand Final after his name was displaced from the board with three episodes remaining.

A viewer who was watching a repeat of the series on Challenge TV, noticed similarities in appearance between Montague and "Steve Romana" and contacted Channel 4.

Lives were not used until the final round; instead, contestants began with 100 points, scoring 10 for a correct answer and losing 5 for a miss.

In August 2013, the Daily Mirror reported that Fifteen to One was to make a special comeback on Channel 4, on 20 September 2013, as part of a weekend devoted to the 1980s.

[6] A TV source said: "Everyone remembers Fifteen To One and who knows what could happen if the audience is big enough or it creates a stir on Twitter.

The special was originally watched by 1.64 million viewers, ranking ninth in the channel's top 10 programmes that week.

[11] Andy Tucker won the 10th and last-ever revival edition of Fifteen to One which originally aired on 28 June 2019, with a score of 213.

Additionally, each episode winner receives a trophy, regardless of whether their score is high enough to post on the Leaderboard or reach the Grand Final.

Because contestants have three chances to reach the final, there are increased opportunities for the host to chat and learn more details about them as the game progresses.

Sometimes, Fifteen to One alongside Countdown was not shown when Channel 4 broadcast either the Cheltenham Festival or an England Test match: that is why there were fewer episodes in some series.

However, when the 2001 Cheltenham Festival was cancelled, due to foot-and-mouth outbreak, Channel 4 did not show any Fifteen to One repeats.