The contestant, Caitlin Burke, stunned “The Wheel of Fortune” host, Pat Salak, by guessing a 27-letter clue with just one letter (“L”) showing.
Burke immediately guessed “I’ve got a good feeling about this”.
Sajak said it was the best he’s ever seen on the show. He said “Is it just me, or was that the most amazing solve we've ever had?"
The answer won Burke $900 and a Caribbean vacation.
In fact Burke was so confident that she knew the answer to the clue before the first letter was uncovered, she told the New York Post, that she considered answering before choosing a letter but didn’t want to annoy the producers.
Burke told Fox 411 “I didn’t hesitate once I got that ‘L’…I was like, ‘Oh—this is what it is.’ I just guessed it and it ended up working out just fine!”
The Manhattan resident continued “For those who think I cheated, I say, ‘How?’ I don’t understand…I would love to know how people think I cheated at that game—like what, I had it written on my hand? How would I even know it would be a puzzle? Or what, I snuck backstage? I don’t even know how that stuff works. I mean, if I was cheating, I probably would have cheated in a smarter way and rigged the wheel so I made more money.”
A Las Vegas-based casino consultant, George Joseph, agrees that it is almost impossible that she could have cheated. He said “There’s no vested interest for the show, or anyone connected with it, to run the risk of cheating. It’s not like it would make the show better," he said. "At the end of the day, the contestant only won $900 and a trip. That’s your first clue she didn’t cheat.”
Burke explained her tricks and how to work the puzzles. She said “If you look at the end of a word and understand how letter endings work, you can work from there. For example, if there’s an ‘N’ in a word, there’s usually a ‘G’. If there’s a three-letter word, it’s probably ‘T-H-E’—things like that…Common sense is underrated—you can really solve a lot by understanding the way words are formed.”
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