Who Won Jeopardy! Tonight? (Thursday, Sept. 17, 2026) — Final Jeopardy Answer and Scores (Spoilers)
Quick answer: Mark Ramirez won Thursday night with $20,800, and Jen Spinoglio's championship ended after one game. Final Jeopardy! was What is The Golden Girls? — and all three players wrote it.
- Ramirez, an executive communications lead from Northglenn, Colo., had the game locked up before Final and wagered $0.
- Christie Ritten took second with $12,000 after betting everything on a late Daily Double. Spinoglio was third at $5,599.
- Four games into Season 43, there have been three different champions.
Who won Jeopardy! on Thursday, Sept. 17?
Mark Ramirez, in his first game. He led from the first round and never gave the lead back.
| Player | Into Final | Wager | Final |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mark Ramirez | $20,800 | $0 | $20,800 |
| Christie Ritten | $9,600 | +$2,400 | $12,000 |
| Jen Spinoglio | $2,800 | +$2,799 | $5,599 |
That $20,800 is the second-biggest one-day total of the young season, behind Matthew Riggle's $23,201 on Tuesday. Our Thursday preview had Spinoglio defending against two first-timers. One of them ran away with it.
What was the Final Jeopardy answer on Sept. 17?
The category was TV Anniversaries. The clue pointed to a sitcom that turned 40 in 2025 with none of its four leads still living, the last of them dying in 2021 at 99.
The response: What is The Golden Girls? Betty White was the 99-year-old, and she died on the last day of 2021, weeks short of her 100th birthday.
Nice bit of timing by the writers, too. The show premiered on NBC on Sept. 14, 1985, so the clue aired the same week it would have turned 41.
Three-for-three in Final is the second time it has happened this week. Spinoglio bet $2,799 of her $2,800, which kept her alive for second and left a single dollar behind.
How did Ramirez lock the game up before Final?
By being right a lot: 27 correct responses against six wrong, and first on the buzzer on 47 percent of the clues he went for, per The Jeopardy! Fan. The Daily Doubles were mostly other people's problems.
Ritten found the first one in a 1976 books category with $400 on her board, bet $1,000 and missed. Ramirez missed his own Daily Double in Double Jeopardy! — $1,800 on a desert-animals clue — and it barely dented an $11,800 lead. Ritten's last stand was a true Daily Double for $4,800 with one clue left, and she got it.
It still was not enough to make Final a live game:
| What Ritten needed | Amount |
|---|---|
| Half of Ramirez's $20,800, plus a dollar | $10,401 |
| What she actually had | $9,600 |
| Short by | $801 |
👉 Without that true Daily Double she would have gone to Final with $4,800, so the all-in call was worth $4,800 and still $801 shy of mattering. Our math, from the scores in the Sources below.
What happened to Jen Spinoglio's title?
One night, one win, $10,801. She beat a four-day champion on Wednesday with a $201 wager calculated to the dollar — that game is in our Sept. 16 result — and on Thursday she was $2,800 going into Final while Ramirez was $20,800.
Short reigns are ordinary. Riggle's four-game run, which ended the night before, is closer to the exception, and where that sits historically is on our longest Jeopardy! winning streaks page. His fourth win is in the Sept. 15 result, and the $1 finish that opened the season is in the Sept. 14 one.
How is Season 43 going so far?
| Game | Aired | Winner | Score |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Sept. 14 | Matthew Riggle | $8,001 |
| 2 | Sept. 15 | Matthew Riggle | $23,201 |
| 3 | Sept. 16 | Jen Spinoglio | $10,801 |
| 4 | Sept. 17 | Mark Ramirez | $20,800 |
The winning totals average $15,701 a night, and the spread runs from $8,001 to $23,201. Three champions in four games is a lot of turnover for a premiere week, and four nights running a player has wagered down to the last dollar.
Who plays Jeopardy! on Friday, Sept. 18?
Ramirez defends in Friday's episode, the last of premiere week. His two challengers go up on Jeopardy.com on the morning of the show, and our nightly Jeopardy! page adds them as they are posted.
The full week is in the Sept. 14–18 schedule, air times by city are in the viewing guide, and Wheel of Fortune's Thursday page has that half hour covered. Every game we have written up is filed under results.
FAQ
What was the Final Jeopardy answer today? What is The Golden Girls? The category was TV Anniversaries, and all three contestants answered correctly.
Who won Jeopardy! tonight? Mark Ramirez, with $20,800.
Who is the Jeopardy! champion now? Ramirez, an executive communications lead from Northglenn, Colo., a one-day champion. Jen Spinoglio's run ended at one win and $10,801.
Sources
- The Jeopardy! Fan — Today's Final Jeopardy, Thursday, September 17, 2026
- Fikkle Fame — Final Jeopardy: TV Anniversaries (9-17-26)
- Jeopardy Tonight — tonight's Final Jeopardy and winner
- Who Won Jeopardy! Tonight? (Wednesday, Sept. 16, 2026) — Final Jeopardy Answer and Scores (Spoilers)
- Who Won Jeopardy! Tonight? (Tuesday, Sept. 15, 2026) — Final Jeopardy Answer and Scores (Spoilers)
- Who Won Jeopardy! Tonight? (Monday, Sept. 14, 2026) — Final Jeopardy Answer and Scores (Spoilers)
- Who Won Jeopardy! Tonight? (Friday, Sept. 11, 2026) — Final Jeopardy Answer and Scores (Spoilers)