James Holzhauer

James Holzhauer (born August 6, 1984) is an American game show contestant and professional sports gambler.

He is the third-highest-earning American game show contestant of all time.

Born on August 6, 1984, Holzhauer was born and raised in Naperville, Illinois.

His father was a German immigrant.

His grandmother was Japanese and spoke very little English; he had promised her that he would appear on Jeopardy! before she died.

In 1989, when Holzhauer was four, his teacher was astounded by his arithmetic abilities and developed advanced classwork just for him.

At age seven, Holzhauer was moved up to a fifth-grade math class, and skipped second grade at his mother's urging.

Holzhauer consistently got A's on math tests and competed on the Naperville North High School math team.

Despite high marks on individual tests, Holzhauer was a C student overall, as he often skipped class and homework on the grounds that he could use the time more "productively", such as playing online poker.

Holzhauer memorized obscure baseball and professional wrestling statistics, prompting his parents to reprimand him for "wasting his life" learning about sports.

Holzhauer was a member of the Worldwide Youth in Science and Engineering Team that won the state competition at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign; he contributed by taking first place in physics and second in math.

His $298,687 total winnings across his first five days surpassed the five-day record set by Frank Spangenberg in 1990 before the changes in the values of the clues.

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).

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 brought his total to $3,464,216, making him still the third-highest winning Jeopardy! contestant, behind Jennings and Brad Rutter.

Holzhauer also set the single-game winnings record with $131,127.

Based on his success on Jeopardy!, Holzhauer has been nicknamed "Jeopardy James".

Holzhauer graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in mathematics in 2005.

In his fourth game, which aired on April 9, he broke the previous single-game Jeopardy! winnings record ($77,000, set by Roger Craig in 2010) by winning $110,914.

During his 33 appearances, Holzhauer exceeded Craig's single-day total 16 times (see table below), including a new all-time record set on April 17, when he won $131,127.

Holzhauer is also the first and only player to win $100,000 or more in a single episode, a feat he accomplished six times.

Holzhauer appeared on the American version of the quiz show The Chase on September 2, 2014.

In his first round, a one-minute round called the Cash Builder, Holzhauer correctly answered 12 questions out of 13 posed by host Brooke Burns; the last question was asked just before time expired and was quickly passed on by Holzhauer.

His score set a record for the Cash Builder that was never surpassed during the show's run.

In his second round, Holzhauer faced Mark Labbett to determine whether he would advance to the final round and add money to the team prize pool.

Holzhauer had a choice of three amounts to play for: $60,000 based on his score in the Cash Builder, $30,000 to reduce the difficulty of the round; and $120,000, which would increase the difficulty.

He chose to play for $60,000; after the show, Holzhauer said that the odds did not favor playing for the maximum amount and that it was not worth the gamble.

The Chase was played head-to-head, with the players using hidden buttons to select multiple-choice answers.

Holzhauer advanced to the finals and added to the prize pool with a score of five right and one wrong.

Labbett scored a perfect five, with his final answer not revealed since Holzhauer had already achieved the necessary points to win the round.

In the Final Chase round (as team leader with two other contestants also participating), Holzhauer's team defeated Labbett by a score of 26 to 9, earning him a $58,333.33 share of the $175,000 team prize pool.

By answering 19 questions correctly for his team, he set a Final Chase record, which was also never surpassed.

Bob Boden, the producer of The Chase, was impressed by Holzhauer’s performance and had him audition to join the show as a colleague of Labbett.

Holzhauer appeared on the American quiz show 500 Questions on May 22, 2015.

This show did not allow the challenger to replace the champion unless the champion answered three questions wrong in a row.

The incumbent champion, Steve Bahnaman, prevailed over Holzhauer, who did not receive any winnings.

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.

Holzhauer appeared on 33 episodes of Season 35 of the American quiz show Jeopardy!, from April 4 to June 3, 2019.

During his first game, Holzhauer won $43,680, the largest single-game total to that point in Season 35.

In July 2020, Holzhauer and several other famous game show contestants were said to be in negotiations to become chasers for a potential reboot of The Chase, which would be produced for ABC.

The reboot starring Holzhauer, Ken Jennings, and Brad Rutter premiered January 7, 2021, on ABC.