The earliest dated trivia game in the BGG database is the Travellers' Tour Through the United States which was released in 1822. The next trivia game in the BGG database is the New Question and Answer Game released in 1830. Over the next 70 years, the BGG shows releases of only 16 more trivia games. So a total of 18 trivia games were released in the 1800s.

It was not until 1981 that the genre of trivia games exploded with the release of Trivia Pursuit. In 1983, over 20 million copies of Trivia Pursuit were sold worldwide! Now there are over 2,300 trivia games recorded in the BGG database (as of 3/25/2009).

The highest ranked of these trivia games, Wits & Wagers, was released in 2005. It has a unique combination of trivia and betting, which enables players who are bad at memorizing facts to still have a chance at winning.