Ken Jennings from Jeopardy! urges contestants to “bet carefully” before all three players make brutal mistakes and shock fans

DANGER! Fans accused all three contestants of making “terrible” final bets on Tuesday’s episode.

Host Ken Jennings had even urged them to “bet carefully” before everyone seemed to do otherwise.

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Returnee Kendra Westerhaus met Blaine Smith, an author and communications consultant from Portland, Oregon, and Laurin Bell, an executive assistant from Lakeland, Florida.

Kendra, a licensed psychologist from Pocatello, Idaho, defeated popular 2-Day winner Mira Hayward to become the new champion.

Kendra walked out with a two-day grand total of $47,000.

But fans couldn’t believe how Final Jeopardy played out and felt like she was risking staying here.

In fact, they charged that none of the bets worked on a particularly important final act.

‘BET CAREFULLY!’

As we walked in, a very interesting situation lay ahead of us.

Kendra had exactly double Blaine’s score – she had $17,600, Blaine $8,800 and Lauren $5,000.

Even host Ken Jennings, 48, admitted this wasn’t your average rodeo.

He advised: “The math is interesting today, make your bets very carefully.”

Under “Art & Science,” the note read: “A ship that visited it was named after Giotto, based on the story that the painter had depicted it as the Star of Bethlehem 680 years earlier.”

Ken turned first to Lauren, who bet her entire $5000 from third place and went back to $0.

Ken then turned to Blaine and reminded him that he had “exactly half” of Kendra’s score, indicating he had to go all-in.

If he did, they could have gone into a special tiebreaker bonus round if they had equal scores.

Instead Blaine oddly bet $8700 instead of $8800 and missed $100 – he was wrong too.

And finally, Kendra bet $0 instead of $1 or more, making this tie-breaker scenario very likely if he was right.

Kendra was the only one who was right about “Haley’s Comet” — but the bets had all fans scratching their heads on Reddit.

They felt that Kendra’s best bet would have been anything but $0, since that would have made a tie possible – but Blaine was really blocking his way out of a tie by going with less than everything – It just didn’t add up.

‘TERRIBLE BET’

One user wrote in a troubled thread: “Some interesting bets on Final Jeopardy today!

Another accused the runner-up: “Blaine – bad bet on Final Jeopardy.

“Mathematically, it didn’t make sense.”

A third agreed, “I can’t think of a valid reason for Blaine’s bet. Maybe go for second place? But given the huge difference between 1st and 2nd place, that’s such a bad reason.

Besides, the only reason he finished second was because the third-place finisher made her own irrational bet.”

A fourth fan also agreed as everyone did the math: “Kendra’s zero effort wasn’t good, in fact it’s a huge risk.

“Because she’s risking a tie-break, her chances of winning go down significantly.

Remember that ties are now decided by tie breakers so this should be avoided at all costs. And tiebreakers favor the challengers.”

“For Kendra, the correct bet should have been $1 because that gives her the highest probability of winning.”

But since she’s the only one with the correct Final Jeopardy, at least she’s forgiven.

But if Kendras was bad, the other two bets were terrible.”

KEN’S LAST WEEK FOR A WHILE

Over the summer, Ken and actress Mayim were announced as replacements for the late longtime host Alex Trebek, who ran the show from 1984.

Alex tragically died of pancreatic cancer in 2020 at the age of 80, leaving huge footsteps to fill, and it took two dramatic years to fill them.

Mayim hasn’t been seen on the regular show since or this season – she only has Celebrity Jeopardy! treated.

But she will be, and for a while.

Mayim will finally be back behind the host podium starting February 20th with a High School Reunion Tournament.

After that, Mayim will continue to host the regular show, as those in charge previously announced, and host Ken may be free until next September, or at least for the foreseeable future.

The silent consensus is that fans aren’t emotionally ready for Ken to leave – given that he’s the only one who’s been hosting for the last five months and many have gotten pretty used to seeing him up there.

“Producers will see ratings drop significantly from February 20th,” one wrote in a recent malicious Facebook thread.

“Keep Ken Jennings!” begged another harsh critic, as another agreed: “Ken has to stay.”

“Then I’m going on vacation!” a fourth is even planned. “You can’t see it,” scoffed a fifth reviewer.

A sixth defended: “So let me get this straight…all you so called Jeopardy! lovers don’t you watch the show for the game, the knowledge and the interesting contestants? You just look at who reads the questions?”

In the meantime, Ken will still be on the air – hosting the new Jeopardy! Masters spinoff set to air prime time on ABC in the spring.

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