'Jeopardy' Winner Leaves Show With Less Money Than Runner-Up

One thing that is great about being a contestant on Jeopardy is that the winner gets to keep everything they've earned during their time on the show. That means if they do really well, they can walk off with over a million dollars, as some have done. However, on the other side, if they don't do well, they are still taking home those earnings, even if they amount to less than the consolation prize. That's just what happened this week.

There were some pretty high scores heading into the Final Jeopardy round on Wednesday, with architectural designer Devin Lohman at $20,600, a small lead over one-day champ Deb Bilodeau, who had $18,800, and sales engineer Ben Spilsbury trailed with $4,400. The category was "Lives of the Poets" and the clue read, "At a seminary that classified students’ degree of faith, Emily Dickinson was 'without' this, which she compares to a bird in a poem." The correct response was "What is Hope?"

Host Ken Jennings went to Ben first, who wrote "What is faith?" His wrong answer, along with his wager of $4,399, left him with just one dollar. Deb was next and she guessed "What is doubt?" She wagered it all and sadly, lost it all, leaving her with $0. Ken joked, "Oh, without a doubt you wagered all of it." As for Devin, he wrote, "What is God?" which also cost him a ton of money - $19,400, leaving him with $1,200.

Since the consolation prize for second place is $2,000 and for third place it's $1,000, Deb walked away with a lot more than the $1,200 Devin took home. However, Devin gets the chance to go for a lot more when he returns as champion on Thursday's episode. Though if he winds up in third place, he'll get the $1,000 consolation prize and his total winnings for both shows will be $2,200, just $200 more than a second place finish on one show.

Viewers were pretty surprised by the outcome, with plenty critiquing how the players wagered and others commenting on how everything panned out. One wrote, "Wow, small win on Jeopardy today. Lowest score. Unbelievable," and another said, "Man, what was the lowest amount someone won with? $1,200 is the lowest I've seen in a while."

Turns out, Devin had far from the lowest amount ever. That honor goes to Manny Abell who, on October 17, 2017, won Jeopardy with $1.