James Holzhauer

This article is about the game show contestant and gambler. For the American politician, see James Holshouser.

James Holzhauer
Holzhauer on The Chase in 2014
Born (1984-07-01) July 1, 1984 (age 40)
Naperville, Illinois, US
Alma materUniversity of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (BS)
Occupations
Known for32-game Jeopardy! winning streak
Spouse
Melissa Sassin
​
(m. 2012)​
Children1

James Holzhauer (born August 6, 1984) is an American game show contestant and professional sports gambler.[1] He is the third-highest-earning American game show contestant of all time. Holzhauer is best known for his 32-game winning streak as champion on the quiz show Jeopardy! from April to June 2019, during which he set multiple single-game records for winnings, and for winning the following Tournament of Champions that November.[2]

Holzhauer won $2,464,216 in his 33 appearances, making him the second-highest winner in Jeopardy! regular-play (non-tournament) winnings (behind only Ken Jennings, who won $2,520,700 in 2004) and, at the time, second in number of games won (again behind only Jennings) although he has since been surpassed by Matt Amodio (38 games) and Amy Schneider (40).[3] His $250,000 top prize in the Tournament of Champions, $250,000 runner-up prize in the Greatest of All Time Tournament and $500,000 first prize in the inaugural Masters tournament[4] brought his total to $3,464,216, making him still the third-highest winning Jeopardy! contestant, behind Jennings and Brad Rutter.[5] Holzhauer also set the single-game winnings record with $131,127 and holds all top 10 single-game winning records.[6][7] Based on his success on Jeopardy!, Holzhauer has been nicknamed "Jeopardy James".[8][9][10]

  1. ^ Lawrence, Christopher (April 9, 2019). "Las Vegas sports gambler crushes Jeopardy record". Las Vegas Review-Journal. Retrieved April 9, 2019.
  2. ^ Baker, Suzanne (November 15, 2019). "Did James Holzhauer take the 'Jeopardy' Tournament of Champions crown? Or did Chicago librarian Emma Boettcher give him a run for the $250K prize?". Naperville Sun. Naperville, Illinois: Tribune Publishing. Retrieved November 15, 2019.
  3. ^ Arnowitz, Gary Levin and Leora. "James Holzhauer is (finally) unseated as 'Jeopardy!' champion; how did it all come down?". USA TODAY. Retrieved January 17, 2020.
  4. ^ "James Holzhauer teases he might be the villain of Jeopardy Masters in exclusive clip". May 8, 2023.
  5. ^ "James Holzhauer". Biography. January 15, 2020. Retrieved January 17, 2020.
  6. ^ Guglielmi, Jodi (April 17, 2019). "Jeopardy! Contestant Shatters His Own Record with $131,127 Single-Day Win". PEOPLE.com. Retrieved January 17, 2020.
  7. ^ "James Holzhauer's Record-Breaking 32-Game Streak | J!Buzz | Jeopardy.com". www.jeopardy.com. Retrieved May 16, 2024.
  8. ^ Cite error: The named reference ESPN Feature was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  9. ^ Metrick, Becky (April 30, 2019). "'Jeopardy James' runs away with 19th win". PennLive.com. Retrieved May 28, 2019.
  10. ^ Jennings, Ken, in "'Jeopardy' champion Ken Jennings on James Holzhauer: 'It's really astounding what he's doing'". Chicago, Illinois: WLS-TV. May 28, 2019. Retrieved May 29, 2019. You know what bothers me, is when I hear 'Jeopardy James,' I'm like, no, no, no, no, I'm that guy. You can't put Jeopardy in front of his name! I used to be the Jeopardy guy.