Wheel of Fortune tied for first time in a decade

Despite airing thousands of episodes of US game show Wheel of Fortune in the past ten years, there had not been a tie since 2006 — until Wednesday.

For all the money being won on the program, the odd numbers and the risk of arbitrary bankruptcy mean two people ending up in an equal position is profoundly unlikely.

But on Wednesday's episode, Danielle Gillseth of North Dakota managed to dramatically catch up to Virginia's Latoya Williams in one fell swoop, guessing the phrase "Hollandaise Sauce".

With a $100,000 grand prize as well as a holiday to Costa Rica at stake, Williams and Gillseth faced off in the first tiebreaker round in a decade.

In the end it took barely a second for the eventual winner to correctly guess the final answer.

In the long history of the show there have only been a handful of tied games, including the extremely unlikely instance in 1987, where there were ties on two consecutive nights.