Are you being ripped off? Thorpe Park accused of "fiddling prizes"
Staff at one of Britain's biggest theme parks have been accused of rigging games to prevent visitors winning prizes.
A BBC investigation team discovered that staff at Thorpe Park were encouraged to make a certain amount of money before giving out prizes at games stalls.
The Evening Standard reports that wax was used on balls to make it harder for visitors to knock blocks over.
LBC reports that a member of staff, employed by HB Leisure Ltd, was caught admitting that workers were "increasing the difficulty level" for some visitors.
A statement released by Thorpe Park read: "We would never condone any activity on the park which was proven to mislead or in any way disadvantage our guests.
"These games are operated by third party suppliers, and as the programme makes clear as soon as we were made aware of the allegations we contacted them and began our own extensive investigation.
"This investigation is on-going but if we find any evidence of malpractice we will take swift and appropriate action both against both any individuals concerned and the supplier company."
HB Leisure managing director Alex Sparks told the Evening Standard that the investigation presented "rare and now remedied incidences".
He said: "We utterly refute any suggestions that any of our games are not fair and we had provided detailed information, explanations and evidence to the programme, in advance, to prove this.
"But the BBC decided to ignore much of this information and has therefore presented a biased and incorrect view of the games."
According to the Independent, HB Leisure said it was retraining its staff.
It also said more than 100,000 prizes have been given out at Thorpe Park in the last season.
The investigation by BBC One consumer show Your Money Their Tricks airs tonight at 8pm.
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