Jeopardy! champion Mattea Roach wins 6th game; winnings hit $148K

Nova Scotia’s Mattea Roach won her sixth consecutive game on Jeopardy! Tuesday night, raking in more than $30,000.

The Halifax native, who now lives in Toronto, has won $148,000 during her tenure on the show.

She faced off against a social studies teacher from Georgia and a software engineer from Massachusetts Tuesday night.

According to the Jeopardy! statistics tracker, Roach attempted to buzz in 42 times during Tuesday’s episode. She was successful 31 times for a success rate of 74 per cent.

Of her 31 buzzes, Roach responded correctly 97 per cent of the time.

She was in the lead with $25,400 heading into Final Jeopardy! The category was "geographic terms" with this clue:

The 1964 article that gave this term its current use noted the "menace that haunts the Atlantic off our southeastern coast."

Roach was one of the two contestants who correctly answered: "What is the Bermuda Triangle?"

Her wager of $5,400 brought her to a total of $30,800, securing her sixth Jeopardy! win.

Roach will go for seven wins in a row Wednesday night, when she faces off against a bookseller from California and an airline planning analyst from Illinois.

'I THOUGHT IT WAS OVER'

While Roach has dominated wins in her run as a Jeopardy! champion, it all came down to the final question on Monday night's show.

"Oh, I thought it was over completely," Roach said in an interview with CTV News before Tuesday night’s win. “I wouldn't have written a little message saying, 'If this is it, I had fun, thanks everyone.'”

Even though she answered correctly, Roach’s winning streak was still hanging by a thread Monday. That's because if her opponent answered correctly too, the 23-year-old would have been finished.

But she won, qualifying for the game show’s Tournament of Champions.

Monday’s game was also Roach’s first hosted by Ken Jennings -- which was another thrill for her.

"There's especially, I think, a little added layer of pressure where he's, like, the best person to have ever played this game," Roach said of the Jeopardy! legend. “But it's also very exciting to get to meet that person and to experience the moment with them."

Roach says her whirlwind rise to fame has also been a fun adventure, even if it's been a bit overwhelming.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, some of her favourite accolades have come from back home on the East Coast.

"Nova Scotia is where I got my start," Roach said. “It's where I'll always consider my home to be. So, to have support from people back there, especially people who have known me for a really long time -- like since I was a kid -- that's been very special."

Some have told Roach that her game-show success has been the good news they've needed with all of the heavier things happening in the world, like COVID-19 concerns and the war in Ukraine.

"It's an honour, honestly, to hear people say things like that," Roach said.

While she can’t reveal much about the pre-taped episodes, she did have one message for Maritimers watching Tuesday night.

"People can expect me to try and have a better game than yesterday. That's what people can expect," Roach said.