‘Jeopardy!’ contestant crosses $1 million in show earnings

A “Jeopardy!” contestant on Tuesday became the second contestant ever during regular season play to cross the $1 million mark for show earnings.

James Holzhauer, 34, has earned $1,061,554 over 14 games, according to the program. He has the second highest total winnings ever in regular season play (as opposed to tournaments).

On April 17, Holzhauer also broke his own record for the highest single-game winnings, raking in $131,127 that day. 

The record for total regular play winnings is still held by Ken Jennings, who has made $2,520,700 from these type of games; however, according to The New York Times, it took Jennings 74 games to earn that much money. 

We can hardly keep track of James’s Jeopardy! winnings! Luckily, we just launched the official James Tracker to monitor his progress.

Check it out! https://t.co/c14uZOf5Wk pic.twitter.com/BikLUyKhSg

— Jeopardy! (@Jeopardy) April 24, 2019

“It’s all about your personal risk tolerance. I’m comfortable risking a lot if I know have a big edge,” Holzhauer, a professional gambler, said Monday in an ESPN interview. “On ‘Jeopardy!’, I’m going to get the Daily Double right a lot more often than I’m not going to so I just want to maximize that bet.”

Daily Double clues give players an opportunity to wager their game earnings. Holzhauer has correctly answered 32 out of 35 of these clues. Overall, Holzhauer has a response accuracy of 97 percent and has made an average of $75,825 per game.