The two who were tied for the lead made smart bets. Each had to bet everything to guard against the other. The one in last bet stupidly. Her only chance was for the other two to be wrong, so any bet would win except for betting and losing it all. Even leaving one dollar would have won it for her.
The bait shop analogy actually isn’t far off. In real life it looks like a big glass single wide trailer straddling the Arkansas River in Little Rock
Bingo. When the top two players have roughly the same amount of money, the smart strategy for the third player is to bet nothing, and hope that the other two both bet heavy, and lose.
I was going to write a book, "Leaning Right's Guide to Jeopardy Betting", but I decided to have a beer and take a nap instead.