This is just something that's never made sense to me. The wager is a single number; seven characters max, if they use both a dollar sign and a comma, and I've never yet seen one crossed out and re-written. (I assume that if someone writes illegibly or makes a mistake, it's erased.)
The question, on the other hand, is three words minimum (often much longer, sometimes involving multiple parts), needs to be legible, and sometimes is altered before time runs out. Where, then, did they get the idea that 2/3 or so of the available space should be reserved for the wager? Who in their right mind, in designing this in the first place, wouldn't have done it the other way around, and why has it never been changed?
(And if it *has* been changed, I apologize for saying otherwise... but would still love to hear why.)