The show might be staged but they use a pretty standard payout formula for picking. Seems like the easiest thing for people to do these days is just call something fake.

So when you go on the interwebs and look up AP fake a lot of stories come up. Heres the thing though. All the stories claiming AP was totally fake are not well known proven sources like national newspapers. Mike from AP pickers has disputed these stories saying the show has minimal staging. I see no actual proof in these totally fake stories. I think it is very possible that the stories are faker than the the actual show. Remember your sources are very important. Literally anyone on the internet can have a website. Way too many people these days taking one or two stories from questionable sources and taking them as gospel. People should dig in a bit more to find truth.