Contestants End In Highly Unlikely Three-Way Tie On “Jeopardy!”
Posted March 17, 2007 12:00 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Your odds of winning on “Jeopardy!?” Probably not great. Your odds of tying your two co-contestants? What is, almost astronomical, Alex?
All of those years of answers and questions, more than two decades worth, and what happened Friday on the popular game show had never happened before: a three-way tie.
The three contestants on the classic trivia competition all finished with $16,000 after each answering the final question correctly in the category, “Women of the 1930s,” on Friday evening’s program.
Each successfully identified Bonnie Parker, of the famed crime couple Bonnie and Clyde, as a woman who, as a waitress, once served one of the men who shot her.
“We’ve had a lot of crazy things happen on ‘Jeopardy!’ but in 23 years I’ve never seen anything like this before,” legendary host Alex Trebek said.
Just how crazy was Friday’s feat?
Well after the show, producers contacted a mathematician who calculated the odds of such a three-way tie occurring on their program. The odds: one in 25 million.
The three contestants, Jamey Kirby of Gainesville, Florida, Anders Martinson of Union City, California and Scott Weiss of Walkersville, Maryland were all declared champions.
The trio was then invited to tape a rematch, which will air Monday.
Photo courtesy Scott Wintrow/Getty Images Entertainment
