Reigning Jeopardy! champion Scott Riccardi is so laser-focused on winning that his competitiveness wound up blocking a fellow contestant from moving onto the Final Jeopardy! round.

Riccardi entered Monday’s (July 14) game as a seven-day champion and was looking for his eighth victory, giving him the longest-running winning streak in Season 41. He faced off against Paul Swain, a tutor from Vancouver, Washington, and Amanda Hopkins, an analytics manager originally from New Providence, New Jersey.

Once again, the engineer from Somerville, New Jersey, dominated the episode, answering 30 clues correctly and just one incorrectly. This gave Riccardi a massive runaway with $34,200 and left Hopkins in the red towards the end of the episode. If a player is on a minus when the game ends, they’re disqualified from competing in the Final Jeopardy! round.

Hopkins buzzed in to answer the final regular-game clue, which could have allowed her to get out of the red and into the final round. Unfortunately for her, Riccardi and Swain buzzed in before her, with Swain ultimately answering the clue, keeping Hopkins out of Final Jeopardy!

“Sadly, Amanda, you were one clue away from making it back into positive territory, but we loved having you. You’ll receive a third-place prize. Thank you for being here,” host Ken Jennings told the unlucky contestant.

Fans took to social media to react to the episode, with some arguing that they’d have let Hopkins buzz in if they were in a similar position to Riccardi and Swain.

“One thing I’ll never do if I were on the show, answer the last clue over someone else in the red that needed it to qualify for final jeopardy when the game is already a clear runaway…” wrote one viewer on the Jeopardy! Reddit forum.

“I would’ve held my buzzer and let Amanda get the final clue to get her into FJ,” said another. “No one has to know she didn’t just beat everyone else, and it changes nothing with the runaway and 2nd place locked.”

“I’ve been saying this to wife this for years and we’ve always disagreed. She says it’s a game, go for the money. I say let them play final jeopardy in their one shot at it,” another added.

Another wrote, “I saw that and thought it was a d*** move.”

“Yeah, it seems pretty unsportsmanlike to fight for the buzzer when the game is a runaway and she was just barely in the red. I was hollering for the last 5 clues and they never let her get one. Sheesh,” said one user.

However, others disagreed, including former contestants, who argued that in the heat of the moment, it’s often hard to know what the scores are across the board.

“I’ve seen several contestants say that they don’t really know what the score is during the game because they’re so focused on the clues,” wrote one fan. “It can be a whirlwind, and distracting yourself by paying attention to such things could cost you the game in other circumstances. So I’m going to give them the benefit of the doubt.”

Joey Beachum, the 2008 College Championship winner, agreed, writing, “It’s hard to know what your score is unless you’re in a wagering situation or you feel like it’s coming down to the wire in Double Jeopardy.”

“Good luck. I basically had tunnel vision. Everything I thought I would think during the game went away and all I could do was focus on was the next question,” added Tyler Jarvis, who appeared on the show in April 2024.

He added, “I wasn’t in the situation to “let” a person in the red back into the game, but if I had been I probably wouldn’t have had the presence of mind to even consider that angle. It’s a very different game on your couch than it is on the Alex Trebek stage.”

Second Chance competitor David Maybury noted, “I appreciate the spirit behind this, but in my four games, at no time did I have the spare brainpower to think about something like this.”

Bob Callen, who competed on the show in April 2025, shared, “It’s way too intense on the stage to even think about this. I adore the friends I made on my taping day and like to think I’m a decent person and would want them on the stage in final, but I had a hard enough time keeping track of my score, the other players scores, and what I needed to do to get or prevent a runaway.”

He continued, “I’d love to think I’d be generous enough to pass in this situation, but to be honest, I’d probably buzz in if I knew the answer, too. It’s hard to keep your head on straight up there, especially if it’s your first game.”

What do you think? Should Riccardi and Swain have let Hopkins buzz in on the last clue? Let us know your thoughts below.