'Wheel of Fortune' player who won $40,000 at last moment now wants to compete on 'Jeopardy!'
"Wheel of Fortune" and "Jeopardy!" are popular game shows competing to get the attention of viewers for decades. But fans and contestants are always at an advantage as they have more shows to watch and compete in. One of them was a "Wheel of Fortune" winner, who bagged a last-moment $40,000 win on the show and expressed his interest in giving "Jeopardy!" a shot. The contestant, Matt Benton, a Navy veteran and realtor, took the show by storm by scoring a Bonus Round win with just one second to spare. Speaking to ABC Columbia, the Blythewood, South Carolina, resident shared his experience and future plans.
In the episode of the game show, Benton played against Myrna Joy Pilot, from Los Angeles, California, and Bruna Valente-Bua, from Revere, Massachusetts. Benton took the game by storm to take an early lead. He kept the momentum going and won an exotic trip to Iceland and Canada before the end of initial gameplay. In the end, he emerged victorious with $22,148 in cash to advance to the Bonus Round.
Going into the finale, Benton chose the category, “Place" for the puzzle, and he was joined by his wife, Stephanie, on the stage as he spun the wheel alongside host Ryan Seacrest. Before picking out his prize envelope, he was then faced with a long three-word puzzle. With the show's standard letters, "R, S, T, L, N, E" on the board, he went on to choose “F, D, G, and O" as his additional letters. With everything filled in, the puzzle read, “_ F_R_ _ _ _ L_ND.”
As Seacrest kicked off the ten-second timer, Benton looked stumped by the longest word in the puzzle. He desperately tried to get the correct answer, shouting out guesses like “A Foreign Land,” “A Fairytale Land,” and “A Forbidden Land,” and more. Unfortunately, none of them was correct. With just 0.9 seconds left, Benton got the answer, “A Faraway Land,” to win the Bonus Round.
“Yes! That’s it! With 0.9 seconds to go, you got it in time! You went through all of the lands and you got the right one!” Seacrest said, before revealing that he had won an additional $40,000, which took his total to $78,148.
Speaking to ABC News, Benton shared that it was a dream-come-true moment for him to just appear on the show. “It’s extremely gratifying. I’ve dreamt of being on 'Wheel of Fortune' since I was a kid," he said. "Ever since then, I’ve wanted to be on it. And if you’re gonna be on it, you want to win it,” he added.
Upon being asked what was going through his head in the Bonus Round, Benton shared that he decided to take a breather before going for it. “I tried to give myself a break even before filming began. I kind of said, ‘You know what? This is a once-in-a-lifetime experience. If you win or lose, it’s going to be a great day, and so by the time I made it to the bonus round when I’d won the main part of the game, I was like, ‘You know what? It can’t get much better than this,” he said.
Furthermore, Benton expressed his interest in trying out for "Jeopardy!" as well. However, he still wanted to enjoy his win on "Wheel of Fortune" before moving on. "I’ll probably ride this high for a little bit. This is really exciting, and so I really try to live in the moment, these couple of trips that I won are gonna be incredible, and try to be smart with the money I won,” he told the publication.
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