Actual success, successful failure, and unsuccessful epic failure

On game shows, success denotes winning a lot of money and/or other prizes, whereas failure denotes losing horribly and winning little or no money or prizes. If the failure is particularly bad, the internet often declares it to be an epic fail (grammatically incorrect noun), epic failure (grammatically correct noun), or to have fail(ed) epically (grammatically correct verb), which, in internet slang, is when something goes horribly wrong, and could have been prevented if the person who committed the failure had just done the right thing. On Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? specifically, losing horribly can mean one of two things, but before failure can be defined, success must be defined first.
 * On Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, success is generally defined as a contestant winning the monetary amount of question 10 (usually worth 32,000 units of the local currency) or greater and not subsequently losing the vast majority of his/her winnings on a much higher-level question, whereas failure can be defined in one of two ways:
 * A Type 1 failure is when a contestant gives a wrong answer to one of the first 5 questions and leaves with absolutely nothing at all (see Wrong answer before first safe level).
 * A Type 2 failure is when a contestant gives a wrong answer to one of the last 2 questions and suffers a devastating, if not catastrophic, loss of prize money (usually 218,000 units of the local currency on question 14, and 468,000 units on question 15); in addition, losing on the 15th and final question results in the dreaded Million pound lose cue.

It should be noted that losing horribly in either manner is considered to be extremely humiliating, and in the age of the modern day internet, any contestant who loses horribly in either manner is guaranteed to be uploaded to YouTube, where they will be harassed and cyberbullied mercilessly and endlessly by online users.

See Category:Empty-handed for a list of contestants who went away with nothing. See Category:Final question fail for a list of contestants who lost on the final question.

Causes of failure
There are two root causes of failure:
 * Cause #1: No room for error - It only takes one wrong answer to terminate the contestant's game. The show gives the contestants Lifelines in order to prevent them from committing an error, but once they commit an error, that's it; it's all over.
 * Cause #2: All-or-nothing, high-stakes, high-risk gambling format - if a contestant gives a wrong answer, not only are they out of the game, but they also lose all of their winnings. As they progress through the game, the higher the stakes rise, and the higher the risks rise, with the losses becoming increasingly severe if they give a wrong answer the later they progress through the game. Below is a rating index for the severity of losses for the last 5 questions, using the classic UK amounts:
 * Question 11: £64,000 - No loss; the contestant stays at £32,000
 * Question 12: £125,000 - Some loss; the contestant loses £32,000
 * Question 13: £250,000 - Extensive loss; the contestant loses £93,000
 * Question 14: £500,000 - Devastating loss; the contestant loses £218,000
 * Question 15: £1 million - Catastrophic loss; the contestant loses £468,000

It is these two rules, the lack of any room for error and the loss of all winnings when they give just one wrong answer, that have sentenced so many contestants to game show infamy, and a lifetime of humiliation on YouTube.

In addition, below are the top 6 secondary reasons why contestants lose horribly on the show: counting down from 6 to 1:
 * Reason #6: Because they misspoke or spoke too fast on an easy question
 * Example 1: Paul Weir Galm, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? (U.S. version), syndication
 * Example 2: Lovi Yu, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? (U.S. version), syndication


 * Reason #5: Because they did not read the question properly
 * Example 1: Stan Wu, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? (U.S. version), primetime
 * Example 2: Whitney Beseler, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? Hot Seat (Australia)


 * Reason #4: Because they second-guessed their instincts on a harder question
 * Example: Kati Knudsen, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? (U.S. version), primetime
 * Reason #3: Because they could not think straight under pressure
 * Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? is not just a test of general knowledge, but also a test of one's ability to think straight under pressure, which is not easy when you're on television in front of a live studio audience, and with millions more watching at home. In addition, the rules of the game, which state that there is no room for error and that you lose all of your winnings if you give just one wrong answer put even more pressure on the contestant.
 * Reason #2: Because they did not use their lifelines properly
 * Example: Ken Basin, Ask the Audience lifeline, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? 10th Anniversary Primetime Celebration
 * Reason #1: Because they simply did not know the answers
 * As UK host Chris Tarrant would always say when a contestant came dangerously close to flunking out within the first 5 questions and leaving with nothing, "the questions are only easy if you know the answers," and when a contestant does leave with nothing, he states that, "it was just such a shame that they did not know on that occasion." It's not that anyone who leaves with nothing is stupid; they just did not know the answers to the particular questions that they were presented with. At home, the at home viewing public may know the answers to the questions that the contestant is facing, but once they get into the hot seat themselves, what they should know is the answers to the questions that they are presented with.

Success rates and notable successes around the world

 * In terms of number of Top Prize Winners, Japan is the most successful country.
 * The U.S. primetime version had 9 millionaires; the U.S. syndicated version had 3 millionaires.
 * The UK version had 5 millionaires, excluding Charles Ingram, who achieved his £1 million victory by cheating, and was stripped of his winnings.

Failure rates and notable failures around the world

 * In terms of number of Top Prize Losers, the Japanese version is equally as notorious for its Type 2 failures as it successes, because while many contestant have won on the final question, many others have lost on the final question.
 * On the UK version, failures of both types were extremely rare; fewer than 10 contestants left the show with nothing, and only two contestants flunked out on the £500,000 question and lost £218,000; technically, no one has ever flunked out on the £1 million question and lost £468,000, because the one time that it happened, which happened to celebrity contestants Laurence and Jackie Llewellyn Bowen, the question turned out to have a significant flaw in that it was ambiguous; it technically had two correct answers.
 * The U.S. version is notorious for its Type 1 failures; numerous contestants have flunked out within the first 5 questions and left with nothing. Type 2 failures were rarer, but they have happened; a smaller, but sizeable number of contestants, both on the primetime and the syndicated versions, have flunked out on the $500,000 question, and at the 10th anniversary celebration, Ken Basin became the first contestant to flunk out on the $1 million question.
 * The original Australian version produced the first recorded case of a celebrity contestant to win nothing, U.S. Survivor contestant Richard Hatch, who flunked out on his $500 question. Worldwide, cases of celebrity contestants winning nothing are rare, but they have occasionally happened. On the U.S. primetime version, every celebrity contestant was guaranteed $32,000 regardless of their performance in the hot seat, and regardless if they even made it into the hot seat at all, but outside the U.S., celebrities are not guaranteed any money for charity, meaning that it is possible for a celebrity to win nothing. Domestically, within Australia, Hatch was the first of three $0 winners on the traditional format of the show.
 * On the Australian Hot Seat format of the show, flunking out within the first 5 questions became much more common, and there were 6 million dollar question losers who left with only a measly $1,000, leading to superstitions of a Hot Seat curse, before Edwin Daly finally broke the curse by giving the right answer to his $1 million question, ending the curse.

Trivia

 * In internet slang, due to an internet meme, the word fail is often used as a nominalized interjectory noun, as opposed to a verb, the way the word is traditionally supposed to be used; traditionally, the word fail denotes being unsuccessful or falling short of expectations, but as an internet meme, it is used as a derisive label to slap on a miscue that is eminently mockable in its stupidity or wrongheadedness. Writing packed with nominalizations is commonly regarded by academic professionals as slovenly, obfuscatory, pretentious or merely ugly. The term flunk is a synonym for the word fail as the word is properly used.