If you want to be a Jeopardy! winner, you’ll need to know a lot of trivial facts. But one contestant was aided to multiple-day wins because she knew the future.
Katie Sekelsky, a three-game winner who walked away with nearly $40,000, posted a drawing she made the night before her first games. The graphic designer said she nervous in her hotel room and wanted to visual her win. So, she drew herself at a Jeopardy! podium, having just won $19,201.
The first night she was on the show she won $7,999, according to The Jeopardy! Fan Blog. She took home 11,600 her second night on the show. But it was the third night that has everyone freaking out because she won $19,201. The exact amount she drew days earlier when she was “visualizing her win.”
She later tweeted that she wasn’t aiming for this amount. It was just the exact amount she needed to keep the second-place contestant from catching her. Also, to any naysayers, she says she has proof that this is real.
“This was not on my mind at all while wagering. I was just betting what I needed to in case Erin bet everything and got it right. And the drawing was sent to @muffymarracco@lynnqyu and @AriannaHaut before taping. THERE ARE RECEIPTS.”
Katie’s power of prognostication ended there, however. She lost the next night after getting the Final Jeopardy! question wrong. But she had a good sense of humor about taking the L.
The question she missed was “A character who was going to be called Lunar Larry became him, inspired by the name of a real person.” The correct answer was Buzz Lightyear. She guessed Osmosis Jones. So, she added “Never Seen Osmosis Jones” to her Twitter bio after the loss.
‘Jeopardy’ Player Born to be a Contestant on Show
Evan Williams, who came in third Wednesday night, told guest host Savannah Guthrie that he was born a Jeopardy! fan and destined to be on the show. That’s because he was born during an episode of Jeopardy!
“I was,” the contestant tells Guthrie. “My mom was wheeled into the delivery a couple of minutes past 7 p.m. on a Tuesday evening when Jeopardy! was airing. For whatever reason, it was on in the delivery room …”
And this wasn’t a passive fandom. She was playing the game with others in the room, he said.
“She was shouting out answers while she was pushing,” Williams says.
That anecdote made him the perfect candidate for the show, he joked.
“So I was born to play, I guess,” he says.
Guthrie agrees: “I was going to say, you were born for this.”
