As the Jeopardy! season winds down, fans think the clues are getting harder. This theory comes after there were two low-scoring games in a row.

Peter McFerrin‘s last game on June 9 ended with Dan McLaine winning with only $2,193. McLaine’s second game, the next day, had Katelyn Mueller-McLean come out victorious with a final total of $3,400 after wagering $0.

The reigning champion spoke out on Reddit and said that the board was tough and that she was surprised by the amount of Triple Stumpers. Will her second game turn out with similar results? Fans seem to think so.

“Is there an ‘end of season’ syndrome for the clues?” a Reddit user asked. “I’ve noted in the past few years, at the end of the season, in June and July, the clues and categories seem to get weirder and harder. Last night’s (10 June 2026) game was notably low-scoring with totals that would have been small before they doubled the values, which seems to indicate it was a very difficult game. I’m wondering if it’s because the writers are down to the last of the material they’ve created for the season and are using up the stuff they rejected previously. Is it just me, or is this a pattern?”

Season 42 is set to end on Friday, July 24. Although this season has had a handful of multi-day winners, the latest champions have been one-day winners.

“I do believe, in my honest opinion (and my father’s), that the categories and clues have become more difficult. It’s going to be an exciting Tournament of Champions. Patiently waiting!!” a fan replied.

“I remember Season 39 also, toward the end, just had a lot of low-scoring games, almost reminiscent of some TOC/JIT games earlier this year,” another replied.

On another thread, fans said that the game has gotten harder because a “certain category format has been phased out.” “I’ve seen many comments here and there suggesting Jeopardy questions have gotten more difficult, which aligns with my own experience. The box scores also reveal that in every other game lately, there is a contestant, and sometimes two, who has sub-30 buzzer attempts, whereas in the past, typically the lowest number of attempts is low 30s,” they wrote.

“I believe one explanation for this is the writers have made a shift to phase out categories where the correct answer is an obvious choice between 3-4 possible responses, where taking a gamble on a guess makes sense (and therefore more buzzer attempts). For instance, ‘Stupid Answers’ used to be a recurring category that is rarely seen nowadays because the premise of such a category is that there are at most 4 possible answers that purely require clue parsing.”

Fans replied saying they think categories are “too broad” or that the showwriters “barely make the clues fit into categories.” Others said that after rewatching Ken Jennings‘ run, they believe that the clues are significantly harder.

“It’s easily noticeable if you go back and watch clues from the ’80s,” another said.

“I think a lot has to do with writers trying to adapt to daily double hunting. Contestants don’t start from the 200 clue and work their way down to figure out the category,” a Reddit user wrote.

“Maybe the board has gotten harder, but the caliber of players has also increased,” one last fan commented.

Do you think the clues have gotten harder? Let us know in the comments.