"Willing to make educated guesses" - Jeopardy! Tournament of Champions' Alison Betts comments on whether to make a potentially stupid guess

Jeopardy! Tournament of Champions 2025 five-day finals concluded on February 13. Neilesh Vinjamuri emerged as the winner of the season and advanced to the Jeopardy! Masters tournament.

Before the Jeopardy! Tournament of Champions 2025 finale, a fan posted a question on Jeopardy's sub-Reddit on February 12, asking how "contestants determine whether to make a potentially stupid guess."

The fan further shared their experience of guessing answers from the comfort of their home, noting how they sometimes make good guesses and sometimes their guesses are way off.

Alison Betts' comment (Image via Reddit/ r/Jeopardy)

Jeopardy! Tournament of Champions 2025 quarterfinalist Alison Betts responded to the fan in the comments, noting that the contestants have to take the risk and be willing to make "educated guesses."

"You have to be willing to make educated guesses," she said.

Alison further explained that if a contestant avoids guessing out of fear that it might be stupid or wrong, they are essentially giving their opponents control of the game.

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Jeopardy! Tournament of Champions 2025 contestant Alison Betts explains the balance between taking risks and playing safe

Jeopardy! Tournament of Champions 2025 tournament premiered on January 27, 2025. Since then a lot of fans have been sharing their reactions and asking questions under Jeopardy!'s official sub-Reddit, r/Jeopardy.

One of the fans, user Remote_Plastic_8692, posted a question on the sub-Reddit asking the community how the contestants determine whether to make a potentially stupid guess or not.

Under their question, the Reddit user shared their experience dealing with Jeopardy questions. They explained that when there are questions on the periphery of their knowledge, they guess from the comfort of their home. Sometimes, they get the answer right, and other times their answer is "embarrassingly wrong" and it is nowhere near the correct answer.

Given this, the user asked how contestants handle the pressure of making guesses while competing on live television.

Jeopardy! Tournament of Champions 2025 quarterfinalist, Alison Betts, responded to a user, commenting that the contestants have to make "educated guesses." She shared that when she went on Jeopardy she was so worried about looking dumb when playing practice games that she would only press the buzzer if she was only 100% sure about it.

However, she soon realized that with this kind of approach, she was unknowingly surrendering too much control of the game board to her opponents, allowing them to dominate.

"That cedes a lot of board control to other players, and if you watch enough or play enough practice games you start to realize how often you’d have been right if you just trusted yourself a bit more," the Jeopardy! Tournament of Champions 2025 contestant wrote.

Alison further highlighted the trade-off between taking risks and maintaining accuracy noting that it is a "delicate balance." She acknowledges that while she had a "few very embarrassing wrong answers", and her accuracy rate was a bit lower than she’d have liked, she was able to have very good board control.

"I remember a game where I was only about 80% sure of the answer “Key Largo” but there were two DDs on the board and I’d just pulled into the lead after being in second through the J round. I went for it, got it right, and was able to double up (and I went on to have a runaway in that game.) " she continued.

Alison concluded that there is a cost to buzzing in and taking the risk. She explained that the contestant needs to find the right balance between when to trust their educated guesses and when to play it safe.

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Jeopardy! Tournament of Champions 2025 episodes are available to watch on Hulu.