‘Wheel of Fortune’: Navy Vets Speaks Out After Dramatic $78,000 Win
Wheel of Fortune contestant Matt Benton, from Blythewood, South Carolina, spoke out after he won a huge jackpot on the game show. His Bonus Round guess came down to the last moment and he almost lost.
Benton, a navy veteran and realtor, played against Myrna Joy Pilot, from Los Angeles, California, and Bruna Valente-Bua, from Revere, Massachusetts, on July 30. Their episode originally aired on February 5, but was reaired during the game show’s summer reruns.
After winning $22,148 in cash and a trip to Iceland, Benton advanced to the Bonus Round, where he picked the category “Place.” He brought his wife, Stephanie, with him. They share three children together, Josiah, Leia, and Gibson.
Wheel of Fortune gave him “R,S,T,L,N, and E.” He chose “F,D,G, and O.” His puzzle then looked like “_ F_R_ _ _ _ L_ND.”
As the timer counted down, the high school golf coach guessed “A Foreign Land,” “A Fairytale Land,” and “A Forbidden Land.” At the last second, he said, “A Faraway Land,” which turned out to be right.
“Yes! That’s it!” host Ryan Seacrest said. “With 0.9 seconds to go, you got it in time!” Benton added $40,000 and a trip to the Canadian Rockies to his total, giving him $78,148, a trip to Iceland, and a trip to the Rockies.
“You went through all of the lands and you got the right one!” Seacrest said.
Benton, who is also a substitute teacher spoke out about his win to his local news station. “It’s extremely gratifying. I’ve dreamt of being on Wheel of Fortune since I was a kid. I probably watched it 90% of the nights it was on, watched it with my Mom. Ever since then, I’ve wanted to be on it. And if you’re gonna be on it, you want to win it,” he told ABC 25 Columbia.
He shared what was going through his head during the Bonus Round. “I tried to give myself a break even before filming began. I kind of said ‘You know what? This is a once-in-a-lifetime experience. If you win or lose, it’s gonna be a great day, and so by the time I made it to the bonus round when I’d won the main part of the game, I was like, ‘You know what? It can’t get much better than this.'”
The navy vet also detailed how he met Vanna White and Ryan Seacrest before the show. White came in the room with them and was “very sweet.” Seacrest was “fantastic, went out of his way, not only for the contestants, but definitely went out of his way to talk to the families that were there and the audience that were there.”
Although Benton “rode the high” after his time on Wheel of Fortune, he said he would like to take a stab at Jeopardy! next. “Next is just enjoying what we have, I’ll probably ride this high for a little bit. This is really exciting, and so really try to live in the moment, these couple of trips that I won are gonna be incredible, and try to be smart with the money I won,” he ended.
Wheel of Fortune, Season 43, September 8, check local listings
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