Debbie Jacobson got another turn at Wheel of Fortune on September 29, 2026, five years after a scoring error in her first appearance. The contestant from West Hills, California, won the game with $21,662 in cash and prizes, including a trip to Italy, and played the Bonus Round for an envelope worth $40,000.

The missing $1,000

Her first episode aired on March 29, 2021, according to Wheel recapper Andy Nguyen. That night's Same Letter puzzle was SALMON, SNAPPER, SQUID & SHRIMP, and she called the S, picking up the Mystery Wedge on the same spin.

Finding the shared letter should have earned her a $1,000 bonus. BuzzerBlog reports that the bonus was never added to her score, so she still had $0 to spend in that round; the $1,000 would have let her buy up to four vowels. BuzzerBlog also points out that the error may not have changed the result: she lost her turn on a wrong consonant, and an opponent solved the puzzle. She finished that game in third place with $2,000, per TV Insider.

The second game

This time Jacobson solved the Crossword round and the Prize Puzzle, which carried the trip to Italy, and then the final speed-up puzzle, RASPBERRY LOLLIPOP. That last one was close: host Ryan Seacrest checked with the judges, who confirmed she had started saying the answer before her three seconds ran out.

In the Bonus Round she chose Thing. The puzzle was AN OBVIOUS POINT, and she did not solve it. “You needed more time and more clues,” Seacrest told her. Solving it would have brought her total to $61,662, which is where the “$61,000” in some headlines comes from. (A separate “$67,000” headline that week was about a different player, David Charles, on September 30: his $45,000 envelope would have taken his $22,898 to $67,898.)

Wheel has done this before

In 2020 the show brought back Tony Harrison, three years after his first game. “We had a little production issue, and in the interests of fairness, we brought Tony back,” Pat Sajak explained, as Us Weekly recorded. Fans were quick to spot Jacobson's return too, in a busy r/WheelOfFortune thread on the day it aired.

Sources (checked October 2026): BuzzerBlog, the scoring error; TV Insider, the return episode; Andy Nguyen, March 2021 recap; Andy Nguyen, September 2026 recap; TV Insider, the September 30 game; Us Weekly, Tony Harrison.