I mean, these kids were raised on the Internet. Surely the first thing they’d do when they found out they were on Jeopardy would be to google the subject, where the betting is all laid out. No need for them to think at all.
All I can think is that, since they weren’t getting the money anyway, and probably know the capitals of every country in the world (I did at their age) they didn’t see any problem in going all in.
Good thing the Jeopardy! producers allow them to consult Google in the 60 seconds (or whatever) they have to make their wagers. :rolleyes:
They’re kids. I give a pass to kids on betting mistakes. Adults are a different story.
Band name! (For a really sucky band.)
No. It’s much more likely their thought process was “Catholic/Protestant fighting? That’s something to do with Ireland. Dublin is the capital of Ireland.”
They weren’t tricked, they were just ignorant.
And your reasoning doesn’t even make sense. England, Scotland and Wales are also parts of Great Britain, are you saying they wouldn’t know London, Edinburgh & Cardiff are capitals either? That’s not an argument in their favor.
Especially since they’re supposed to be way above average, relative to their semi-literate fellow students. (Otherwise they wouldn’t have wound up on Jeopardy!, right?)
PS: Technically, Great Britain and Northern Ireland make up the UK. Just sayin’… 
And contrast those three with the three contestants from Friday’s show, who all bet correctly, got it right and ended up with incredibly high scores.
Well now I think you’re not giving these kids enough credit. If this was any three random kids from an American high school I’d probably agree with you, but three kids in the semifinals on Jeopardy? I can’t buy that all three of them knew enough to know that the Troubles took place in Ireland but none of them knew enough to know that it was in Northern Ireland.
And any of them would tell you that Dublin is the capital of Ireland, while London is the capital of the UK. Cardiff, Edinburgh and Belfast are definitely Capital Cities (as the category asked for), but not of sovereign states. The whole “countries within countries” aspect of the UK is fairly unique.
Three random kids from an American high school would probably have given an answer like this:
It’s not really. The OP wasn’t pointing out a spelling mistake.
One of their first names is Breaker and OP mistakenly left off the ‘t’.
Okay, I might be exposing my own ignorance, but why would it matter if Northern Ireland is a country at all? It can still have a capital city. To me it’s like Mexico and New Mexico. One is a country and one is not, but both have a capital city.
About 10 or 12 years ago, I remember an episode of Teen Celebrity Jeopardy where one of the clues was “novel by Herman Melville about Ahab’s quest for a white whale,” and not one of the three brainwaves even rang in. In the deafening silence due to the absence of a buzzer, Alex turned to the camera and paused a beat. He didn’t do it, but you knew he wanted to roll his eyes.
Wanted to pound that kid who messed up the wager by betting it all when he didn’t have to. I realize the kid is smarter than me, but I was nonetheless enraged and wanted to kill him.
What age are the kids by the way? I’ve never seen this show.
You see, you, and I, and a few others here, could deal with that, and even be aware that New Mexico is part of a different country than Mexico.
Some other people, though, are not quite there. Hell, some people in the USA don’t know that last fact. And for many of those people, if the category did not explicitly insert the qualifier State Capital, it would not even cross their mind that a subnational-entity capital is a valid answer.
And, surprise, a clip of Final Jeopardy is on YouTube here. It looks to me like the teens are all too aware of their mistakes in betting. Per http://buzzerblog.com/2013/01/jeopardy-teen-tournament/ Tori is 16, Joe is 17, and Kelton is 15. http://www.j-archive.com/showgame.php?game_id=4074 has a recap of the game. http://gameshows.about.com/od/jeopardy/p/Jeopardy-Teen-Tournament.htm lists prize money.
Especially considering that, when it’s wagering time, they have their opponents scores right in front of them ***and ***have calculators to do the math!
No, it’s because, ahem,: "In Soviet Union, questions answer you!!" 
I’d like to see Irish kids that age answer that question.
as do I, but it’s the spoilers note that does it for me. PSXer’s particular brand of comedy is under-appreciated.