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When you watch Wheel Of Fortune from the comfort of your home, it's pretty easy to solve the puzzles, but for the three contestants playing for real each night, it is a lot more challenging. They have the eyes of the studio audience on them, the thought that millions of people will be watching them on TV, the heat of the lights on the set, the pressure of wanting to win, and all of the emotions that go along with being on a game show. With all of that hanging over them, they can make mistakes, as one woman learned this week.
Her name is Amy Higgins and she is a voice teacher and singer from Redwood City, California. In the first round, she was building up quite the stash. She first guessed "N" and since there were three on the board, she added $1,500 to her prize pool and scored a $1,000 gift card for camping gear. As she continued, she landed on the million dollar wedge and picked up a trip to Hawaii. All she had to do to keep them was solve the puzzle. She continued guessing letters correctly and seemed clearly on the road to solving and running away with the game. The board showed "S_IMMING SU__ING SAILING" but Amy guessed "N" again, which caused her not just to lose her turn, but to miss out on the puzzle and the thousands of dollars in prizes she accrued plus the chance for a million bucks.
Host Pat Sajak addressed the flub after the round saying, "You know when you're sitting at home wondering how does someone call an 'N' up there, you had the word 'sunning' in mind and your brain is looking at that, forgetting that there is an 'N' up there. Happens all the time. We will move onto our next round and pretend that never happened."
Contestants don't need to remember all the letters that have been called. Offstage there is a "Used Letter Board" that shows them what's already been guessed. It seemed Amy didn't use it since later in the show she once again picked a letter that had already been called.
Twitter had a lot to say about her performance.
Even with the costly errors, Amy was able to recover and actually win the game and make it to the bonus round where she won another $39,000.
While she could've won a lot more, Amy didn't do too bad for herself, taking home $54,450 in cash and a trip to Puerto Rico.