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Jeopardy! fans stunned after champ Mattea Roach LOSES historic winning streak by just ONE dollar on ‘insane’ final round
JEOPARDY! fans have been left stunned after 23-time champ Mattea Roach’s historic run ended tonight.
For the 23-year-old champ from up north, it all went south, but she lost by just $1 in an “insane” final round.
Jeopardy!’s latest ‘super-champ’ Mattea Roach lost after 23 victories on May 6th
Canadian tutor Mattea – who fans have watched win a wild 23 straight games – the fifth-longest winning streak on the show ever – was beaten tonight.
She lost to Danielle Mauer, a Georgia marketing manager in a Final Jeopardy that fans couldn’t manage to believe.
Ken Jennings – hosting this week and who many viewers want to score the respected gig for good – watched it all conclude in an “insane” final round.
It all came down to $1 in a shocking conclusion that left the contestants and viewers speechless.
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Going into Final Jeopardy, Danielle was in second place, but got the Final Jeopardy about her hometown of Georgia – the response being “Hartsfield Jackson” correct.
Ken noted it was “not so hard” for her, then anticipating how fans would feel amended: “the questions are written months in advance before we know the contestants.”
Mattea didn’t get it, and wagered $5601, sadly meaning her wager was $1 enough to lose the game by exactly that much.
Mattea hand-tossed her way to stardom this past month, and The Sun has covered her entire run.
MATTEA’S GREATEST HITS
The now-“super-champ” as Jeopardy! described – won her first game on April 5th and exclaimed her “student loans are paid off!” setting the tone for her unexpected and unconventional yet deeply watchable streak.
Since then, she’s won enough to pay off more than that – $560K total.
Some of her games have been “runaways”, but others have made for the “best episodes of the show in decades.”
Last night, she saw a cinematic come back with a question about Citizen Kane, and earlier, she won a feverishly close one by (the same amount) just $1.
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Fans may have knocked her “quirky” stage presence seeing her openly voice her wager strategy, but she’s buzzed in at a 91 percent accuracy rate, according to “Jeopardy!” daily scores.
Her other memorable moments included saying “I should have wagered” more after a Daily Double she wasn’t feeling.
And who could forget when Mattea near the end of her run shared a Q&A story she’d been holding close to the blazer:
She once sang backup in a music video with the legendary musician of “Rick Roll” fame Rick Astley.
During an earlier Q&A, she also revealed her SEVEN tattoos including two LEG tattoos dedicated to the band The Talking Heads.
“So I have under both of my knees – on one leg I have ‘same as it ever was’ and on the other leg I have ‘how did I get here’ both from [the song] Once In A Lifetime,” she explained.
“I have 7 tattoos! Good for Mattea~~knew I liked her! #Jeopardy,” another fan wrote, relating to her.
Finally, one of her most memorable games saw her answer Final Jeopardy ALONE on the stage with JUST Ken, due to a technicality.
The famed alum known for his winning streak of 74 games in 2004, the longest ever, seems to be a fan.
Often when Mattea gets a question right, Ken – who perhaps sees himself in the rising champ simply replies, “good.”
When Mattea shared an off-set celebration from LA’s In-N-Out Burger on Twitter, Ken replied and wrote:
“If this is the In-n-Out on Venice, I’ve been going here after @Jeopardy off and on for 18 years. Solid choice.”
During Wednesday’s April 20th game, two first-time contestants entered Final Jeopardy with negative scores, so they didn’t even compete.
In an extremely rare move, the show returned from commercial with two long-running champs – Ken and Mattea, on stage alone, together.
“Has that ever happened before?” another wondered.
Her family in Halifax, Nova Scotia has hosted watch parties nightly which include custom candies with Mattea’s FACE since it all began and she is now arguably a household name for anyone with cable.
It’s not the last we’ll see of Mattea; she’ll be joining other “super champs” this wild season Matt Amodio, Jonathan Fisher, and then 40-time champion Amy Schneider who recently visited the White House – for the TOC in November.
Much like Ken and James Holtzauer – many Jeopardy big wigs have big careers after their runs so since Mattea is only 23 the world is her Canadian oyster.
Mayim Bialik and Ken started filling in as temporary hosts after Alex Trebek’s tragic death in 2020 and an ensemble cast of guest hosts in Season 37.
Ken began with an average of 9.2 million views, surpassing Wheel of Fortune and Mayim, who subbed in soon after and averaged her viewers at a lower 5.7million.
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Many fans are begging Ken to take over full-time, as one wrote earlier: “I really wish Jeopardy would just say Ken is the new host and get this over with. That’s clearly where this is going.”
After 23 wins and 24 regular games, which The Sun has covered from the beginning, it’s bittersweet to “hand-wave” goodbye (for now) to Mattea.
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