These Wheel of Fortune Secrets May Make Your Head Spin
Pat Sajak is about to put a new wheel into motion.
Because after 41 seasons, the 77-year-old is hosting his last episode of Wheel of Fortune June 7.
And if you're wondering how Pat feels about saying goodbye to a job he's had for more than four decades, he'd like to solve the puzzle.
"Surprisingly OK," he recently told his daughter Maggie Sajak, the show's social media correspondent. "You know this was announced a long time ago—almost a year ago—so I've had time to sort of get used to it. And it's been a little bit wistful and all that, but I'm enjoying it and taking it all in and reflecting on a great run."
Pat announced his decision to step back from hosting Wheel of Fortune in June 2023. Although, the show won't be bankrupt of him entirely. Sony Pictures Television's President of Game Shows Suzanne Prete confirmed at the time that Pat "has agreed to continue as a consultant on the show for three years following his last year hosting."
Going forward, Ryan Seacrest will be the one calling out the number of consonants and vowels. And no matter how you spin it, he knows he has big shoes to fill.
"Pat Sajak is an icon in this business, and he's made it so comfortable for everybody to watch it," Ryan said on a September episode of Sunday Sitdown with Willie Geist. "I'm like a kid so excited about just seeing the set."
Meanwhile, Vanna White will continue her reign at the puzzle board, and she'll always have L-O-V-E for her longtime costar.
"We've laughed. We've cried. We've celebrated," she told Pat in a teary, farewell message in June. "Oh gosh, what an incredible and unforgettable journey we've had, and I've enjoyed every minute of it with you. As this chapter of our lives is coming to an end, I know you'll still be close by. You're like a brother to me, and I consider you a true lifelong friend who I will always adore."
So before fans watch Pat take his final bow on Wheel of Fortune, they can keep reading to learn 26 secrets about the show—one to represent each letter of the alphabet.
1. Created by Merv Griffin, Wheel of Fortune debuted as a daytime game show on NBC in 1975 and was based on the word game “Hangman.”
2. Pat Sajak took on the role of host in 1981, and Vanna White joined the show as cohost the following year. In 1983, Wheel of Fortune went into syndication. Its spinoff Celebrity Wheel of Fortune debuted on ABC in 2021.
3. Born in Chicago, Pat started his career in the broadcasting industry. According to his bio, he joined the United States Army in 1968 and was part of Armed Forces Radio in Saigon during his time in Vietnam. Afterwards, Pat continued to work at radio and TV stations, where he fulfilled the roles of staff announcer, talk show host and weatherman.
In fact, he was working as a star weatherman in Los Angeles when he received a call from Merv asking if he’d like to host Wheel of Fortune.
“I swear, the first thought was, 'There’s nothing for me to do,’” Pat recalled to daughter and Wheel of Fortune social correspondent Maggie Sajak in a June 2024 video. “I mean, 'Yes, there are three R’s' is not exactly a career mover….Shows you what I know.”
4. As for Vanna, she grew up in South Carolina. According to her bio, she studied at a fashion design school in Atlanta before pursuing a career in modeling—with her then moving to L.A. to try acting. It was there she was spotted by Merv and auditioned for Wheel of Fortune.
“I was probably more nervous than any other person that auditioned,” Vanna told CBS 58 in 2019, “and 200 girls auditioned—and I was the last one.”
5. In fact, Wheel of Fortune previously revealed that the very first letter Vanna turned on the puzzle board was T.
6. Meanwhile, Jim Thornton joined Wheel of Fortune as the announcer in 2011. Previously, he did voice work for several movies, TV shows and commercials—including Monsters, Inc., Rugrats and Celebrity Deathmatch.
7. Before Pat retired in June 2024, he and Vanna had appeared on more than 8,000 episodes of Wheel of Fortune across 41 seasons of syndication.
8. He actually secured a Guinness World Records title in 2019 for longest career as a game show host on the same show.
9. Vanna has broken records, too. In 2013, she was presented with the “most frequent clapper” title—with Guinness World Records estimating she clapped at least 3,480,864 times across 30 seasons. If you break it down and factor in her rare absences, that comes out to about 606 claps per show, according to the organization.
10. Wheel of Fortune attracts more than 20 million viewers every week, per a 2023 press release.
11. But let’s talk about the prizes. According to the show’s 2024 numbers, it awarded nearly 600 cars to contestants in 41 seasons.
12. Not to mention it had given away nearly 5,000 vacations by that point.
13. And if you’re wondering how much money Wheel of Fortune has distributed, the show said at the time it’s handed out more than $324 million in cash and prizes.
14. Vanna has also racked up a lot of steps walking across the puzzle board—the equivalent of two marathons (about 52 miles!), per the show’s figures.
15. As for her dazzling dresses, Vanna’s worn more than 7,000. But, no, she doesn’t get to keep them.
16. And, amazingly, Vanna didn’t have an outfit repeat for nearly four decades.
“Can you believe for the first time ever I wore the same dress twice after 7,000 dresses?” she told social media followers in a September 2020 video while holding up a blue frock. “Ugh! This is so 2020.”
17. Of course, it wouldn’t be Wheel of Fortune without the wheel. It’s a big one, too—weighing 2,400 pounds per ABC News.
18. And it’s one-of-a-kind. The outlet reported the show brings the wheel to all its destinations by breaking it down and then reconstructing it—with the program typically traveling with more than a million pounds of equipment.
19. Plus, ABC News states the Bonus Wheel has more than 24 envelopes filled with prizes.
20. If you’re puzzled by how the show works, allow Vanna to explain. When it comes to filming, she told WLKY in 2015, “We only do four days, but six shows each day.”
21. As for the puzzle board, Wheel of Fortune got a new one in 2022 that’s one giant screen.
“This year, we switched to a laser,” Vanna explained in a YouTube video at the time. “I don’t even have to touch it. I just stick my hand by it.”
22. And while prices may fluctuate over time, the show shared the cost to buy a vowel has stayed at $250 throughout the past four decades.
23. Ever wonder how Pat knows the exact number of letters in a puzzle so quickly after a contestant guesses? He’d like to solve this one. As he explained in a 2021 YouTube video, the behind-the-scenes team would listen to ensure the right letter is called and then relay the correct number to Pat via a TV screen that he could see from his hosting spot on the set.
24. There’s also a used letter board the contestants can view to help them keep track of which consonants and vowels have already been called.
“You never see that at home, but our players see it,” Pat said in the same video. “So every time a letter is called that letter comes off, that light turns off, and they know not to call it again—except when they do call it again….I kid our players, but, believe me, I understand the pressures they’re under.”
25. If you love the Toss Up puzzles, you can thank Pat for those. As he explained, Wheel of Fortune was facing a challenge:
“How do we get more content and not take up a lot of time?” Pat told Maggie. “So I did come up with the Toss Up puzzles, and they’ve worked real well. And then our producer added the Triple Toss Up. And then I added the idea of $10,000 if you get all three because it’s not my money, what do I care?”
26. In January 2015, reporter Christopher Ingraham published an analysis for The Washington Post that looked at 1,546 final bonus puzzles from 2007 to that year. Based on his examination, he wrote that H, G, P and O were the letters most likely to appear in these puzzles at the time (taking into account that contestants are already given the letters R, S, T, L, N and E). However, Ingraham found that players chose these letters less frequently than they selected C, D, M and A—even though, according to his analysis, the latter set of letters appeared less frequently back then.
