Scamapalooza 9 – An Angry Word About Puzzles with Magician David Kwong
David Kwong not only designs puzzles for the New York Times crossword, he also designs heists and illusions for movies like Now You See...
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The movie that every magician needs to watch
Can you guess what my favourite movie of all time is? The Prestige? Nope. The Illusionist? Not even close? Now You See Me? Don’t insult...
What do you call an Irishman offering home repairs door-to-door? A con artist.
That is, at least, according to Victorian Consumer Affairs Minister Marlene Kairouz who this week said that “If anybody knocks on your...
Episode 40 – Paper Moon with Sarah Baggs
It’s only a paper moon, sailing over a cardboard sea. And this week’s episode is only pop culture queen Sarah Baggs exploring the...
Episode 38 – I Love You FOCUS with Martin Dunlop
There are no two con artists films less alike than I Love You Phillip Morris and FOCUS. One is a true story, the other fiction. One is...
A Scam From The White Man’s Money House
Redditor Sal_Mugga (whose username is slang for money shared an extraordinary story of being scammed on the website this week. He fell...
Episode 35 – Now You Seem Mean 2 with Nick Mason
Nick Mason, from the Weekly Planet Podcast, returns to help me deal with my complex feelings about the 2016 film Now You See Me 2. The...
Now You See Me 2
As a magician, scam expert and crime writer, I have strong feelings about Louis Letterier’s 2013 magician heist Now You See Me. Check out...
How To Write Twists That Shout
I’ve written two books with twists: Fast & Loose and Chasing The Ace. One more and I’ll be committed to M Night Shyamalan Home For Plot...
Episode 26 – F Is For Fake with Simon Caterson
Orson Welles’ last project before the descending into a life of frozen pea commercials and voicing Transformers was F Is A Fake. The film...
Welcome To 2016
Scamapalooza returns this week with a miniepisode that, while it doesn’t have a guest, is packed full of news, stories and the tired...
5 Most Popular Scamapaloozas of 2015
After years of procrastinating, Paul Culliver from Mammoth Audio and I finally launched the podcast Scamapalooza in July. Since then,...
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...
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...
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 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 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,...
Four ways shopkeepers get short change
ACT I: A corner store in small town America. The con artist enters with the easy nonchelence of a man who probably knows how to spell...
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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