‘Jeopardy!’ Contestant Reveals Plans to Instantly Spend Her Winnings

The current champion of Jeopardy!, Mattea Roach, shocked viewers by explaining that she will be spending all of her $32,000 winnings “immediately.” The 23-year-old was grateful that she won enough money in her first episode to pay off all of her student loans. However, the debt didn’t leave much to invest or spend on fun purchases.

Roach filmed this episode of Jeopardy! back in January with host Mayim Bialik, she explained in an interview with CBC Radio. She said that it has been difficult to keep her winnings a secret since then, and that at times it has felt surreal. She said: “I don’t know that I would win any award for best poker face, but I think I tried my best. I still get chills hearing myself say that I will be able to, when I receive the money, pay off my student loan with the money from last night’s game, like I still can’t believe it.”

Roach thought that she would need to win multiple times in a row to earn enough money to pay off her student loans, but she managed to do it in her first night on the show. She did so with a huge wager on the Final Jeopardy question, which was in the category “classic games.” She and one other opponent guessed the correct question – the board game Life – but Roach’s exorbitant bet made her the winner of the night.

Roach finished the night with $32,001. She will continue her streak on Wednesday night, and there’s no telling how far she’ll go just yet. She admitted that she was extremely nervous and that she does not think she has the same deep well of trivia knowledge as some other contestants.

“I was reading through a bunch of recent games in the past, say three or four years, just to get a feel for how the writers design a clue, what sorts of subjects come up more often than not,” she said. “I did not get anything that I’d really been dreading. The two things that I did not want to see were the U.S. Civil War and football, and I didn’t get either of those.”

While Roach is prohibited from talking about her second episode went – or any potential future episodes, for that matter – she said that playing for multiple episodes in a row does give one a slight edge. She said: “You’re a little bit more familiar with the buzzer timing. You’re a little bit more comfortable up on that stage, and yeah, you do sort of get into a groove.”

Roach will be back on Jeopardy on Wednesday, April 6 at 7 p.m. ET. The show is syndicated, but you can find the local station that broadcasts it in your area on the Jeopardy website here. You can also stream the latest episodes of the series on Hulu + Live TV.