'Jeopardy!' Champ Margaret Shelton Says She's Not 'Awesome' at Math as Wager Goes Wrong

Outgoing Jeopardy! champ Margaret Shelton admitted she's "not that awesome" at math, after a risky wager saw her get knocked out of the competition.

Shelton, a homemaker from Pittsburgh, made a memorable arrival on the syndicated quiz show on March 1, when she defeated four-time champ Christine Whelchel before going on to achieve her own four-game win streak.

But on Monday night's installment, Shelton's run came to an abrupt end, when she wagered the entirety of her day's earnings of $12,300—which had placed her in the lead—on an incorrect response to a clue in Final Jeopardy.

Speaking with Jeopardy! Clue Crew member Sarah Whitcomb Foss after the game, Shelton said of her risky decision: "I'm not that awesome at math, and so I was telling my husband like, I'm going to get up there and get flustered and I'm either going to wager nothing or everything. And I hadn't done that yet, so I thought why not!"

During the game, Shelton faced off against Maureen O'Neil, an executive assistant from Rye Beach, New Hampshire, and Clay Cooper, an SAT & ACT tutor from Las Vegas, Nevada.

With Cooper entering the final round with his earnings depleted, the competition in Final Jeopardy only stood between Shelton and O'Neil, who had earned $10,200.

However, both contestants were stumped on the clue in the category Central America, which read: "A small river connects these 2 lakes that combined form close to 10% of their country's area."

Neither contestant answered with the correct response, which was "What are Lake Nicaragua and Lake Managua?"

But as O'Neil, had wagered $8,000 of her total, leaving her with $2,200, she was heard gasping as she learned that she had become the winner after Shelton brought her own total down to zero with her incorrect response.

In the moments following the broadcast, Jeopardy! host Ken Jennings said to Shelton: "After you locked in your wager, you said you had some feelings of regrets. What were the regrets?"

"That I wagered everything," Shelton quipped, raising a laugh from others in the Los Angeles studio. "I feel like every time you're on here you have to shoot your shot."

"Go big or go home," responded Jennings, who holds the record of being the most successful contestant in the show's history with 74 consecutive wins.

Elsewhere in her interview with the Jeopardy! Clue Crew, Shelton discussed the prospect of qualifying for this fall's Tournament of Champions, which sees the 15 top performing contestants return to compete against one another.

"I would love that," said Shelton as she discussed a possible return to the elite competition. "But I understand if I don't get it, too. But I would love it."

Calling recent record-breaking champ Amy Schneider her "idol," the departing contestant shared an insight into her preparation plans for the Tournament of Champions, should she make the cut.

"I will probably just do what I always do," she said, "which is start out on Wikipedia on like Snoopy and then you end up in like Cambodia, you know?"

Shelton's four-game win streak sees her walk away from regular play Jeopardy! with a total of $79,700 in earnings, placing her above previous champ Whelchel (who earned $73,602) on the Tournament of Champions board.