It’s an ending that rarely happens on Jeopardy. A two-way tie led all three of the contestants to bet big on the long-running game show, but unfortunately those big bets didn’t pay off and all contestants ended up with $0. Yes, that’s right, you can watch all three Jeopardy! contestants lose in the video, below.
By the final round of Jeopardy, Randi Kristensen, Claudia Corriere and Mike Drummond were all doing pretty decently. Randi trailed the pack with $6,000 while Claudia and Mike were tied at $13,800 going into the final round of Jeopardy! Because of this, it made sense that each of the three contestants bet all of the money they had in order to give themselves the best chance at coming away with the win. Instead, a pretty difficult question led to the end of the game for all parties involved.
Here’s the question that stumped everyone:
A 1957 event led to the creation of a national historic site in this city, signed into law by a President whose library is now there, too.
Yeah, I’m certain many of us would have lost this round of Jeopardy!, too. The contestants guessed Springfield (Randi), Austin (Claudia) and Atlanta (Mike), but the clue was actually indicating former President Bill Clinton, whose library is sensibly in Little Rock, Arkansas. I’m presuming the historic site relates to the Little Rock Nine, but there’s almost no way I would have known that off of the top of my head. Even though this question actually gives us more than one clue, the fact that the President signed the historic site into law probably had everyone guessing Presidents much more dated than Bill Clinton. Jimmy Carter’s Presidential Library, for instance, is in Atlanta while LBJ’s is in Austin, Texas. (Lincoln’s is the only one I know of in Springfield, so really, that answer was wildly off-base.)
In any event, everyone ended up with $0 to their names, meaning that none of the three contestants will be returning for the following episode. This has only happened a few times on the series in the past, and host Alex Trebek tried—poorly—to remain serious and hold a note of gravity in his voice as he announced the next episode would feature all-new contestants. At least the Jeopardy! contestants didn’t look too devastated about their loss and spent the end of the episode awkwardly laughing about their predicament. (Note: Jeopardy! gives out a small amount of money to all participants, which is why $0 isn't listed in this screenshot.)
I’d feel pretty awkward, too, as the last time this happened occurred when a bunch of teens were playing the game during a “Teen Tournament” episode of the long-running show in 2013. You’d expect this from teens but not co-returning champions Mike Drummond and Claudia Corriere. At least they made for exciting competition against one another.
