Warning: This page contains spoilers for the May 5, 2025, game of Jeopardy! — please do not scroll down if you wish to avoid being spoiled. Please note that the game airs as early as noon Eastern in some U.S. television markets.
Here’s today’s Final Jeopardy (in the category Official Languages) for Monday, May 5, 2025 (Season 41, Game 171):
Of the 4 independent nations of the Americas without English or Spanish as an official language, it’s the smallest in area
(correct response beneath the contestants)
Today’s Jeopardy! contestants:
Rhyne Modlin, a scientist & entrepreneur from Hickory, North Carolina
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Ellen Goldlust, s historian, editor & yoga teacher from Charlottesville, Virginia
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Ben Ganger, a data analyst from Goshen, Indiana (4-day total: $96,415)
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Andy’s Pregame Thoughts:
Today on Jeopardy!, Ben Ganger looks to become the 286th 5-time champion in the post-1984 history of the program, as Ellen Goldlust and Rhyne Modlin hope to stop him. One good thing for Ellen and Rhyne is that there’s a good chance that they wouldn’t have seen Ben play last week, so there’s a slightly lesser chance that they’ll be intimidated by how well he played during his run. It’ll be interesting to see how today’s game goes!
I should also note that there is a chance that today’s recap will be delayed.
(Content continues below)
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Correct response: What is Haiti?
More information about Final Jeopardy:
(The following write-up is original content and is copyright 2025 The Jeopardy! Fan. It may not be copied without linked attribution back to this page.)
Serves some of you (“you” mostly being Alex Matthews today in this case) right for trying to look up this one with AI! Countries in the Caribbean are part of the Americas, Haiti’s official languages are French and Haitian creole, and it’s smaller than Suriname, whose official language is Dutch.
For what it’s worth, according to the show, the other two are Brazil and Mexico. It should be noted that the CIA World Factbook states English is an official language for Antigua and Barbuda.
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Game Recap & Tonight’s Game Stats:
Looking to find out who won Jeopardy! today? Here’s the Monday, May 5, 2025 Jeopardy! by the numbers, along with a recap:
Jeopardy! Round:
(Categories: What Century?; “Big” Nicknames; Lakes & Rivers; Eighth Notes; In The Bank; 9-Letter Words)
Ellen got herself up to $3,600, but went for the True Daily Double and fell back to $0. Absolutely the correct play, though. After 15 clues, the scores were Ben $3,800 Rhyne $1,400 Ellen $600.
Statistics at the first break (15 clues):
Ben 6 correct 1 incorrect
Rhyne 2 correct 0 incorrect
Ellen 5 correct 1 incorrect
Today’s interviews:
Rhyne has a six-year Sporcle streak.
Ellen has James Madison (yes, that one) as an emeritus supervisor.
Ben tries to memorize a poem a week.
Ben picked up another six correct after the intereviews to extend his lead.
Statistics after the Jeopardy round:
Ben 12 correct 1 incorrect
Ellen 11 correct 3 incorrect
Rhyne 4 correct 0 incorrect
Scores after the Jeopardy! Round:
Ben $6,000
Ellen $3,000
Rhyne $2,200
Double Jeopardy! Round:
(Categories: Literary Dress-Up; Movie Title Roles; From Thyme To Time; Wars Of The Roses; New York, New York; Lancaster)
Ellen tried a second True Daily Double on DD2, but fell back to $0 a second itme. Although Ben lost $2,500 on DD3 two clues later, Ben did well enough to get a runaway going into Final Jeopardy.
Statistics after Double Jeopardy:
Ben 22 correct 3 incorrect
Ellen 18 correct 8 incorrect
Rhyne 6 correct 2 incorrect
Total number of unplayed clues this season: 30 (0 today).
Scores going into Final:
Ben $11,500
Ellen $4,000
Rhyne $2,600
Everyone went for Suriname and not Haiti; Ben’s runaway makes him a 5-day champion! He’ll go for #6 tomorrow.
Tonight’s results:
Rhyne $2,600 – $1,000 = $1,600 (What is Suriname?)
Ellen $4,000 – $1,201 = $2,799 (What is Suriname? Thanks Suz, you’re my hero!)
Ben $11,500 – $2,000 = $9,500 (What is Suriname) (5-day total: $105,915)
Other Miscellaneous Game Statistics:
Daily Double locations:
1) LAKES & RIVERS $600 (clue #10)
Ellen 3600 -3600 (Ben 1200 Rhyne 600)
2) FROM THYME TO TIME $1600 (clue #10)
Ellen 3400 -3400 (Ben 7200 Rhyne 600)
3) LITERARY DRESS-UP $2000 (clue #12, $16800 left on board)
Ben 9200 -2500 (Ellen 0 Rhyne 600)
Overall Daily Double Efficiency for this game: -227
Clue Selection by Row, Before Daily Doubles Found:
J! Round:
Ben 4 5 5 3 5
Ellen 4 5 4 3*
Rhyne 2
DJ! Round:
Ben 3 4 4 4 5 3 5 5*
Ellen 5 4* 5
Rhyne 1
Average Row of Clue Selection, Before Daily Doubles Found:
Ben 4.23
Ellen 4.29
Rhyne 1.50
Unplayed clues:
J! Round: None!
DJ! Round: None!
Total Left On Board: $0
Number of clues left unrevealed this season: 30 (0.18 per episode average), 0 Daily Doubles
Game Stats:
Ben $14,000 Coryat, 22 correct, 3 incorrect, 40.35% in first on buzzer (23/57), 1/1 on rebound attempts (on 6 rebound opportunities)
Ellen $11,000 Coryat, 18 correct, 8 incorrect, 36.84% in first on buzzer (21/57), 1/3 on rebound attempts (on 4 rebound opportunities)
Rhyne $2,600 Coryat, 6 correct, 2 incorrect, 14.04% in first on buzzer (8/57), 0/0 on rebound attempts (on 6 rebound opportunities)
Combined Coryat Score: $27,600
Lach Trash: $12,000 (on 11 Triple Stumpers)
Coryat lost to incorrect responses (less double-correct responses): $14,400
Lead Changes: 2
Times Tied: 0
Player Statistics:
Ben Ganger, career statistics:
134 correct, 24 incorrect
14/17 on rebound attempts (on 31 rebound opportunities)
43.86% in first on buzzer (125/285)
9/11 on Daily Doubles (Net Earned: $23,200)
2/5 in Final Jeopardy
Average Coryat: $17,680
Ellen Goldlust, career statistics:
18 correct, 9 incorrect
1/3 on rebound attempts (on 4 rebound opportunities)
36.84% in first on buzzer (21/57)
0/2 on Daily Doubles (Net Earned: -$7,000)
0/1 in Final Jeopardy
Average Coryat: $11,000
Rhyne Modlin, career statistics:
6 correct, 3 incorrect
0/0 on rebound attempts (on 6 rebound opportunities)
14.04% in first on buzzer (8/57)
0/0 on Daily Doubles
0/1 in Final Jeopardy
Average Coryat: $2,600
Ben Ganger, to win:
6 games: 57.509%
7: 33.073%
8: 19.020%
9: 10.938%
10: 6.290%
Avg. streak: 6.353 games.
Andy’s Thoughts:
- No wagering suggestions will be posted due to today’s runaway.
- Today’s box score will be linked to when posted by the show.
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First thing I thought was ‘not Brasil’. And some provinces in Canada have French as an official language – but Canada is too big. And then I blanked out. I’ve been to Hispaniola, but only the Dominican Republic portion.
The clue was looking for independent nations, not states or provinces.
I knew it would be a Caribbean island, but because I forgot that it was officially a part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, I went with Aruba. Oddly, I’d dismissed other islands, like Martinique, because they weren’t independent. I think it’s the semi-autonomous nature of the Netherlands Antilles that threw me off.
For same reason it couldn’t be Sint Maarten – which is much smaller than Aruba. And Saba which is even smaller.
What are the other two besides Haiti and Suriname? Brazil should be one but what’s the other one?
As Any said, it is Mexico, apparently because The Constitution of Mexico does not declare an official language, according to Wikipedia.
~Any~ Andy
Yup. Andy does say that. And that’s what I get for skimming too fast.
For those of use who don’t consider executive orders to be laws, there’s also the U.S.
(Note, I’m not disputing the correctness of the clue. Just not how I would’ve chosen to phrase it.)
Had that it was an island nation correct but thought Aruba. A good final jeopardy question.
Good game today! But,unfortunately, Ellen did herself in with daily doubles.
The key to this Final Jeopardy was four independent states in the Americas, whose official language is not English, or, Spanish. To me, that left French, and, Dutch. (Forgetting Portugese, but since the answer clue called for the smallest, Brazil wouldn’t work anyway.) Not sure of Suriname’s political statys, I said it anyway, not knowing Hati’s territory was smaller, even figuring tht French would an official lanuage,
Suriname has been independent since 1975.
The only two of the four I could think of was Suriname and Haiti, but of those two I GUESSED that Suriname was bigger, so kind of lucked into the correct response.
Well, of course Brazil occurred to me, but I IMMEDIATELY ruled it out as too big. Once that fact about Mexico not having any official languages was mentioned, I recalled having found that out sometime in the last few months [though not remembering when or how], I didn’t need to recall that to try to decide on a response since the “smallest of 4” part of the clue was making me just consider small countries, most probably islands.
I noticed earlier that Ellen’s sister Suzanne was a 1-day champion 2 years ago, and she competed on Champions Wildcard last season.
I was going to ask what the relationship was. I knew that I had heard the last name before.
Thanks for clarifying!
Upon reading today’s clue, my mind immediately went to French as the likely language that would be the key to finding the correct response. That made Haiti the easy choice because many, many years ago in college, I had a soccer (futbol) teammate from Haiti. He had a very French sounding name to me. Thanks to Frantz Violette, I was able to get today’s final with little hesitation.
Congratulations to Ben on becoming a 5-day champion and qualified for the next ToC. A very deserving champion.
Actually Haiti was not the correct answer on final Jeopardy on May 5, 2025. It should have been the Dutch side of St.Maarten. It is less than half of the French side of the island and Haiti is more than twice the size of both. Also, I am not sure of the size of Aruba, Bonaire and Curaçao. One of them might be even smaller. But this is all a moot point as all 3 contestants got the answer wrong anyway.
The clue said “independent”.
Please tell the class when that place became independent.
I guessed Ecuador, just to throw something out there. Probably should have gotten this.
Retro congrats to Ben in win #5 and guaranteeing a spot in the ToC! And his last 4 wins are runaways. Nice!
Will he get #6 tomorrow? Gonna have to tune in to see. 🙂