What Are the Rules of Final Jeopardy?
In Final Jeopardy, the contestants are given a category, but must make their own wagers before seeing a universal clue and writing a response in the form of a question. For this round, all participants are given the same 30-second time period to answer.
Any contestant with $0 or fewer at the end of Double Jeopardy cannot participate in Final Jeopardy. The ring-in-first rule of the first two rounds of Jeopardy does not apply in Final Jeopardy. Before receiving the clue, a contestant’s strategy is to base his wager on how much money he has compared to what the others have, and what he needs to win.
Once the 30-second written response time ends, the contestant with the lowest dollar total is called upon to share his answer, followed by the contestant with the next-highest total, then the contestant with the highest total. The responses are given first, then the wagers are shared. Once the wagers are shared, they are added or subtracted from each total, based on whether the response was correct or incorrect. The contestant with the highest dollar amount at the end of Final Jeopardy is announced as the winner and returns for consecutive appearances until he finishes with a lower total than an opponent.
