Jeopardy! fans outraged as judges accept ‘wrong answer’ that completely changes the game

Evan Dorey was crowned the new Jeopardy! champion as he took the crown from Joey DeSena, but viewers were left fuming over one decision which changed the game’s outcome

Jeopardy! viewers have been left divided after judges made a controversial decision which ended up deciding the game.

Evan Dorey became the new Jeopardy! champion on Wednesday, knocking two-day champ Joey DeSena off the top spot. The players also went up against realtor Lois Dioro and it all came down to the final round.

Evan got off to a great start in the Jeopardy! round and secured the first Daily Double, taking his total to $5,000 by the end of the round. In Double Jeopardy!, Lois evened the playing field when she found the last Daily Double and added $2,400 to her amount.

Going into Final Jeopardy!, Evan and Lois were tied at $14,600. The game came down to the final clue which read, “It’s the geographic word in the title of a Robert Burns poem about ‘the mountains …covered with snow…the straths & green valleys below.'”

Evan Dorey won the game (Image:Jeopardy!)

Joey, who was in third place, answered incorrectly with “moor” and Lois was also wrong as she said “Scotland.” Evan, however, wrote “Highland” but seemed to be unsure as to whether it would be accepted.

The correct response was the plural version of the word, but judges accepted Evan’s answer and he doubled up to have $29,200. Fans quickly flocked to Reddit, with many accusing the judges of making a mistake.

“Little confused by that myself. I thought if the answer was a word in a title, the answer needed to be the title word, not a version thereof,” one person wrote.

Another questioned, “I’m confused. If a FJ contestant gives a singular name though the correct title is plural, it’s accepted. But if they write that singular and are starting to add s when time runs out, it isn’t?”

Joey DeSena and Lois Dioro got the Final Jeopardy! question wrong (Image: Jeopardy!)

Someone else joked, “Based on today’s FJ ruling, if the clue is about a fruit in the title of a Steinbeck novel and I write “What is Grape?”, I guess that’s acceptable.”

However, other viewers accepted the decition. “My interpretation of this ruling is: If the clue specifically wanted the full title and he wrote ‘My Heart’s in the Highland’, that would be incorrect. But since they just wanted the word rather than the full title, they’ll take singular or plural,” one person suggested on X.

Another fan proposed, “My husband, a former Jeopardy champion, was also mad they allowed it. But after a re-reading of the “question”, he really thought it was poorly written, in that — were they seeking the geographical word or the actual word in the TITLE of the poem? That may explain they took it.”