The 47-year-old from Hawthorn in Victoria made mention of the city during his sign-off speech as he retired undefeated from Channel Seven's Million Dollar Minute in the episode televised Friday.

A relieved and tearful Mr Skarbek thanked the show for making the win possible.

He told host Simon Reeve and a nationwide audience he had a message for "people playing trivia all across this country, you can go from Dubbo to Humpty Doo to Fremantle to Innaloo, out your way ... there's people playing trivia in pubs ... apply to come on this show, you know a lot more than you think you do, you really do, so all those trivia people, apply to come on the show, if this can happen to me, this can happen to virtually anybody I reckon."

Knowing what year the Burke and Wills expedition left Melbourne (1860) sealed the deal for Mr Skarbek and delivered him his life-changing win.

Mr Skarbek had to fend off challengers in 23 consecutive episodes before playing his winning round of five questions that he correctly answered to snare the coveted $1 million prize, bringing to $1,016,000 his total winnings on the show.