'Wheel of Fortune' contestant taught students how to solve puzzles, but ends up losing $75,000
She had won more than $30,000 leading up to the Bonus Round, which was a great feat.
Nov. 7 2025, Published 11:08 a.m. ET
Winning the bonus round in "Wheel of Fortune" has seemingly become increasingly difficult in the past few months. Even following the show closely doesn't guarantee that someone will get past the challenging final round. One contestant made it all the way to the final round and revealed that she had taught kindergarten kids how to solve the puzzles on the show. However, she was not able to do it when it mattered the most.
The contestant was Courtney Smith, and the first thing that host Ryan Seacrest asked her was about teaching the kids how to play the game. She was a kindergarten teacher after all. “I sure did,” she said. “They have gotten so good at letting me know that they would like to solve the puzzle, Miss Smith.”
Courtney had played a fantastic game to make it to this stage of the game show, winning a whopping $30,670 in cash and prizes. Once all the formalities were taken care of, it was time to play the bonus round.
Courtney gave the wheel a good spin, and it landed on the apostrophe. The contestant had chosen the ‘Phrase’ category and, as per the rules of the show, was given the letters R, S, T, L, N, and E. Once these letters were revealed, the contestant had the chance to pick three more consonants and one more vowel. She chose the letters H, C, D, and I.
Unfortunately, this was perhaps one of the worst decisions that she made on the show, as these letters did absolutely nothing to open the puzzle up. All she could see now was, “__ THE ____.” The contestant had 10 seconds to give the correct answer, but a lot of people expected her to fail. That is exactly what happened. She blurted out phrases like “Up the wind,” and “Up the creek.” But neither one of those was correct.
Her 10 seconds eventually ran out, and the correct answer was revealed to be “By the book.” Seacrest knew that the contestant had almost nothing to work with. “I don’t know how anyone would have gotten there without more letters,” he said. The host then opened up the envelope to reveal that the contestant had lost out on an additional $75,000. That would have made her total prize a six-figure sum. But Courtney was not too upset about it as she was going home with a big sum anyway.
Watch the heartbreaking moments in the video here.
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