Well it was about time for another Jeopardy blunder

Tonight the returning champion, a VERY sharp young fellow, ended Double Jeopardy with $30,400 and a lady challenger had exactly half his total, or $15,200. So as we waited for Final Jeopardy, I just knew that one or the other would do something stupid.

Surely we all realize that the only logical wager was for her to bet everything to try and achieve a tie and for him to bet nothing so he was guaranteed no worse than a tie. Well she did her part, got the question right, and was momentarily tied.

He also got the question right, but then they revealed that he had bet $1. So he won with $30,401 to her $30,400. It worked out OK for the champion and he will be back to continue playing, but how in the world could he not see that if he had gotten the question wrong, he would have LOST by a dollar. These people astound me sometimes with the things they do on that show.

What's the logic of betting a dollar anyway? If you're so cocky that you believe you're going to answer correctly in that situation, you may as well go full balls to the wall and bet everything instead of a dollar. Makes no sense at all.

There is one possible explanation for his deciding to play the odds and bet the $1.00. He might have felt confident in the category and was sure he had a chance to get the answer right. You see if I am not mistaken, when they have ties these days, they no longer invite both back as co-champions. Instead they have a tie-breaker question right there on the spot and that one question decides the champion and the other goes home. So it is possible that he thought his chances were better to win on a category that he might have felt comfortable with instead of a forthcoming question that could have been about anything at all. Still I thought it was a dumb move.

Perhaps. But even in that case, a dollar is worth 32 thousand, IMO.