Who won Jeopardy! tonight? June 30, 2023, Friday

Jeopardy! Season 30 welcomed three players in its latest episode, which aired on Friday, June 30, 2023. Two-day winner Bryan White returned to defend his win for the third time against the two new players, Courtney Johnston and Elena Di Toro. All three tried their level best to score high in the game.

The official synopsis of the show reads:

“A returning champion and two challengers test their buzzer skills and their knowledge in a wide range of academic and popular categories.”

The highest scorer wins the game and returns in the next episode.

In the latest installment, Bryan was the returning champion who competed against Courtney Johnston, an attorney from Denver, Colorado, and Ilena Di Toro, a public relations specialist from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

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Today’s Jeopardy! winner is Ilena Di Toro

Returning champion Bryan White first appeared on the game show in the June 28 episode, where he defeated Chris Ban. The two-day winner came back in the June 30 episode to play his third game against two new players, but failed to maintain his winning streak.

The categories for the first round included Venn Diagram Intersections, Welcome To The Big Urban Area, Business, Numbers In The News, Sports Rookies, and Compound Words.

Viewers witnessed a rare sight in today’s game as all three players’ scores were zero until the first commercial break. It started after a missed Daily Double and many wrong answers.

After the break, Bryan crawled his way back to the scoreboard. He gave 13 correct answers and three wrong answers, while Courtney Johnston and Ilena Di Toro delivered three and two correct responses, respectively. But the latter also gave two incorrect answers, bringing her scores down to zero.

The scores in the first round were Bryan at $2,200, Courtney at $1,200, and Ilena at $0.

In the second round, the categories were Historic Greats, Serenity Now!, Science & Nature, Let’s Get “Down”, Pop Eye, and The Sailor Man.

In the Double Jeopardy round also, the players gave plenty of incorrect answers, keeping the scores below $10,000. Ileana, however, came out of the zero-score zone and managed to land second place. Bryan was still leading, while Courtney ranked third.

The scores in the second round were Bryan at $9,300, Ilena at $5,400, and Courtney at $4,000.

The Final Jeopardy was a surprise to everyone as Bryan was dethroned. He took the lead in the first and second rounds but Ileana changed the game in the final round. She was the only one to correctly answer the final question. Bryan ranked second and Courtney landed in third place.

Hence, Ilena Di Toro won Jeopardy! today.

Ilena Di Toro: Tonight's winner (Image via @OneEclecticMom/Twitter)

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Final Jeopardy! results today

In the June 30 episode, the final question was under the category of “National Anthems.” The final round’s clue read:

“The name of this country’s national anthem translates as ‘His Majesty’s Reign” & its lyrics come from a 1,000-year-old poem.’”

The correct answer was "Japan."

Only Ilena gave the correct answer while Bryan wrote “Norway” and Courtney guessed “France.” Take a look at the final results of the June 30 episode:

Ilena Di Toro: $5,400 + $4,100 = $9,500 (What is Japan?) (1-day total: $9,500)

Bryan White: $9,300 – $1,600 = $7,700 (What is Norway?)

Courtney Johnston: $4,000 – $3,810 = $190 (What is France?)

With today’s win, Ilena became the one-day champion, who will return next week to defend her winning title.

Hosted by Mayim Bialik, the syndicated game show will return with a new episode on Monday, July 3, 2023.