Incredible moment of honesty by Jeopardy contestant contributes to untimely defeat

A Jeopardy contestant saw his epic 13-game winning streak come to an end last night, in part, because of a gesture of remarkable honesty.

Matt Jackson, a 23-year-old paralegal from Washington, D.C., lost when he wagered almost everything on Final Jeopardy and didn’t come up with the correct answer.

But even in his defeat, Jackson may end up being the game show’s most honest contestant ever.

Towards the end of the first round, he buzzed in to respond to a clue about a two-word ‘A’ category.

The game show’s host, Alex Trebek, thought Jackson had mispronounced the correct response “au,” a two-letter French word meaning “with the” and ended up getting $800, Mashable reports.

Before the game continued to Double Jeopardy, Jackson informed the judges, during a commercial break, that he did not mispronounce “au”. Instead, he meant to say “al.”

As a result, the mistake cost Jackson $1600.

“Kudos to our champion,” Trebek said before announcing the score change.

Jackson leaves the show with winnings totaling $411,612. That places him in fourth place on the all-time regular season money winning list.

“It is pretty hard to wrap my mind around,” Jackson told Zap2it. “While I was in the middle of playing, I really didn’t want to think of it as money because it could mess with my ability to make wagers and take calculated risks. So it’s still hard to believe it will be actual prize money coming my way soon.”

And we haven’t seen the end of Jackson. He’ll be returning for the Tournament of Champions airing later in November.