James Holzhauer, he of the extremely wide breadth of knowledge, quick buzzer skills and awkward smile, is quickly running up on yet another Jeopardy! record. The owner of the best single-game episode (a few times over) and the quickest to $2 million earned in regular episodes of Jeopardy! cruised to his 31st straight win on Thursday night.
But what was what’s become an ordinary day for Holzhauer — a cool $58,612 in approximately 22 minutes of work — brought him on the doorstep of one of the show’s longstanding records. Through 31 episodes, Holzhauer has won $2,382,583. That puts him in striking distance to the first of Ken Jennings legendary records on the show.
Through 74 wins, Jennings won $2,520,700. Nice, round numbers from a practical bettor. But Holzhauer is a gambling man, and in less than half the episodes he’s amassed a total that means one big day of work on the show could all but clinch the all-time money amount on the show.
To celebrate, please enjoy this hilarious video of Holzhauer crossing the $2 million mark with firework effects added in by the official Jeopardy! YouTube page.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGSarcwrnYE
It’s worth noting that Holzhauer could have gone bigger on Thursday — his third Daily Double saw a wager of just $5,000. He got it right, but he had more than $30,000 to wager with and went small because all three contestants struggled with the category the clue came from. Still, winning more than $58k in a single episode is a huge number for anyone else.
Now, it would take a single-day record for winnings to surpass Jennings on Friday’s show, but it’s not entirely out of the real of possibility. And if Holzhauer keeps this up, it’s almost certain that he’ll surpass Jennings on Monday’s episode. At the rate he’s going, and with how unbeatable he is, it might even be possible for Holzhauer to approach Brad Rutter’s all-time Jeopardy! mark. That mark — $4,688,436 — came with the aid of various tournaments over the years. Holzhauer, now the owner of every single significant single-day win mark on Jeopardy!, could actually get there if he stays on this absurd pace.
