Penultimate Prize Losers

On Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, if a Top Prize Loser is a contestant who flunks out on the final question, then a penultimate prize loser is a contestant who flunks out on the penultimate (second-to-last) question. Flunking out on the penultimate question, although not quite as costly as flunking out on the final question, is usually extremely costly in itself; it will usually cost the contestant hundreds of thousands of money units (usually 218,000 units of the local currency, assuming the Money Tree is using the classic UK amounts and the classic format with fixed milestones at questions 5 and 10; flunking out the final question would usually cost the contestant 468,000 units of the local currency). (Note: Contestants who lost greater or lesser than normal because they played on an adjustable high-risk format are noted below.)

United Kingdom

 * Duncan Bickley - £32,000, 21st October 2000 (£500,000 question wrong; lost £218,000)
 * Rob Mitchell - £32,000, 1st November 2003 (£500,000 question wrong; lost £218,000)
 * Eleanor Ayres - £125,000, 1st January 2019 (£500,000 question wrong; lost £125,000; adjustable high-risk format)

Primetime

 * Mark McDermott - $32,000 (January 13, 2000) ($500,000 question wrong; lost $218,000)
 * Lawrence Caplan - $32,000 (January 15, 2000) ($500,000 question wrong; lost $218,000)
 * Rudy Reber - $32,000 (February 24, 2000) ($500,000 question wrong; lost $218,000)
 * Richard Klimkiewicz - $32,000 (March 2, 2000) ($500,000 question wrong; lost $218,000)
 * David Duchovny - $32,000 (May 5, 2000) ($500,000 question wrong; lost $218,000)
 * Kati Knudsen - $32,000 (July 30, 2000) ($500,000 question wrong; lost $218,000)
 * Nick Meyer - $32,000 (August 17, 2000) ($500,000 question wrong; lost $218,000)
 * Raymelle Greening - $32,000 (January 28, 2001) ($500,000 question wrong; lost $218,000)

Syndicated

 * Bob Edgeworth - $32,000 (October 25, 2002) ($500,000 question wrong; lost $218,000)
 * Rod Martin - $32,000 (June 16, 2003) ($500,000 question wrong; lost $218,000)
 * Ava Johnson - $25,000 (December 2, 2004) ($500,000 question wrong; lost $225,000)
 * Chris Ngoon - $25,000 (October 30, 2013) ($500,000 question wrong; lost $225,000)
 * Justin Peters - $25,000 (February 2, 2015) ($500,000 question wrong; lost $225,000)

Standard format

 * Red Symons - AU$32,000 (July 17, 2000) (AU$500,000 question wrong; lost AU$218,000)
 * Mickey Pragnell - AU$32,000 (2004) (AU$500,000 question wrong; lost AU$218,000)