‘Wheel of Fortune’s’ Biggest Errors

Wheel of Fortune has been running for decades, so it should be no surprise that it’s made a mistake or two over the years.

The original version of the game show was a network daytime series hosted by Chuck Woolery and Susan Stafford. When Woolery left in 1981, he was replaced by Sajak and after Stafford left in 1982, she was eventually replaced by Vanna White, with the co-hosts having hosted the nighttime version since its inception in 1983.

Now, after more than four decades of hosting, Sajak has retired, and his final episode airs on June 7. American Idol host Ryan Seacrest will take over for Season 42 in September.

Sajak has brought excitement to people’s homes for decades—and he’s only made a few errors along the way.

Newsweek emailed Sony Pictures Television, which owns Wheel of Fortune, for comment on Wednesday.

Wrong Prize Puzzle Trip

Producers were forced to correct a mistake and had to ask a former contestant to return to rectify it.

Student David Avelsgard’s first appearance aired as a Saturday rerun on March 2, nine days before his March 11 appearance. Producers asked him to compete again when they realized that they awarded him the wrong Prize Puzzle trip.

If he had been awarded the correct trip the first time around, he would have been in the final puzzle round because of its higher value.

A person who claims to be a former Wheel of Fortune contestant, who goes by @WheelRob10 on X (formerly Twitter), took the time to explain what happened for those who were left confused.

“From what I have heard, the ‘scoring error’ on David’s first episode was that he was accidentally awarded the wrong Prize Puzzle trip, and the value of the trip he should have won might have been enough for him to win, since he had placed a close second,” Rob wrote online.

“The trip he was awarded on screen was a $7,350 trip to Mexico, which was the exact same trip that was awarded on the very next episode. This wasn’t realized until after the episode had already taped.”

Despite the mistake, Avelsgard has no resentment toward the show. Speaking to Valley News Live, he explained what happened after he found out he had been invited to be on Wheel of Fortune a second time.

“They said, you were actually supposed to get a trip to Mexico, not Antigua,” he explained. “So we’ll give you the option of picking the trip you want, and then because of the error we’re inviting you back on the show.”

He added: “It was just once in a lifetime. Well, in my case, twice in a lifetime.”

Contestant’s Money Disappeared

Producers had to correct another mistake when a contestant’s winnings seemed to vanish during a March 2023 episode of the game show.

A woman named Carla managed to accumulate $6,750 when she appeared on Wheel of Fortune but before long, her prize screen was reset to $0 without an explanation. Sajak also implied she had $0, even though she had not landed on a bankrupt wedge.

The next time viewers at home saw Carla’s prize screen, it showed $1,450.

Once again, @WheelRob10 took to X to explain what happened, as he noticed that the show’s editors seemingly fixed their error in a rerun of Carla’s episode.

He shared a clip on the social media platform showing Carla landing on the bankrupt wedge.

“Color me surprised that #WheelofFortune corrected their mistake. Tonight’s rerun was the episode where Carla Sartori lost over $6,000 to a ‘phantom Bankrupt’ that mistakenly got edited out and seemingly caused her to lose. The rerun airing put the Bankrupt back in,” he captioned the video.

Wrong Square Turned

Sajak’s co-host over the years has been Vanna White and in 2014 she revealed that there was one mistake she made on the show that she still thinks about.

In the early years of the show, White had to manually turn the letters on the board, which meant it was vital she turned the correct one. And one day, she accidentally turned over the wrong letter.

“I was so traumatized. I don’t remember if it was a D or an M that I turned. The puzzle was either Doctor Spock or Mister Spock. Whenever they called it, I just turned the—we’ll say D—I turned it and it was an M. I was mortified. They had to throw the puzzle out,” she told Time.

Since the board was manual back then, the entirety of it had to be covered so that the contestants couldn’t see it and each letter had to be switched out manually. Thankfully the game board went digital in 1997, meaning now White only has to touch the square that she wants to reveal and a computer changes what is seen on screen.

Answer Accidentally Revealed

Back in April 2021, Sajak accidentally revealed the answer during a bonus round on the beloved show. The longtime host made the mistake when the letters “_ _ _ TE _ RAN _ L _” were left on the board.

“Yikes. Well, I’d rather be standing here than there, quite frankly,” he said to the episode’s contestant, commenting on the puzzle’s difficulty.

It turns out that “Quite frankly” was the correct answer, but thankfully, the contestant didn’t catch on. Sajak and White later made light of the mistake in a post-episode video, per The Sun.

White asked Sajak if he realized what he had done, to which he said: “I did, right after I said it.”

He continued: “I wonder how many people at home caught it. There weren’t many letters up there and I said, ‘I’d rather be here than up there, quite frankly’ – which was the puzzle. But it goes to show you that people are concentrating and they’re not paying any attention to me.”

Forgot Which Puzzle Was Solved

Sajak made a glaring mistake on the show back in 2022 when he seemed to not realize which puzzle had been solved.

When one of the contestants solved the puzzle by saying the correct answer, “Dazzling Double Rainbow,” Sajak should have told her what she had won; instead, he began introducing the triple toss-up round.

Those working behind the scenes could then be heard trying to get Sajak’s attention by shouting out “prize puzzle.” When Sajak did finally figure out his mistake and announced the prize, he joked that when the show went to commercial he would “read the rules of the show.”