‘Jeopardy!’ Champ Amy Schneider Tied James Holzhauer for 3rd Place in Consecutive Wins and Wants to Beat His Record
Jeopardy! viewers just witnessed current champ Amy Schneider win her 32nd game in a row, putting herself alongside former Jeopardy! star James Holzhauer in third place for most consecutive wins. On Jan. 14, Schneider could break Holzhauer’s record and send him to rank in fourth.
‘Jeopardy!’ James racked up over $2 million in 32 games
Holzhauer made a name for himself in 2019 during his 32-game winning streak on Jeopardy! The professional gambler’s “all in” strategy, where he bet his entire amount of money on Daily Doubles, earned him a massive $2.4 million by the time his stint ended.
Schneider is making some records of her own as the first woman to break into million-dollar territory and Jeopardy!‘s biggest-winning trans contestant in the game show’s history. Though Schneider has a long way to go before matching Holzhauer’s cash total (her current jackpot is at $1,109,600), the engineering manager is just one game away from knocking Holzhauer out of third place for most consecutive wins and having the ranking to herself.
Yale student Matt Amodio bumped Holzhauer down to third place after his 38-game winning streak earlier this season. Amodio also holds third place for highest regular season play winnings at a little over $1.5 million, though Schneider is knocking on the door of that record and needs $417,001 to bump Amodio to fourth in that category, according to CBS News.
Jeopardy! GOAT and guest host Ken Jennings remains tough to catch with a record of over $2.5 million in winnings during his 74-game winning streak.
Amy Schneider has been looking to out-win James Holzhauer
Schneider has wanted to surpass Holzhauer’s record for a while and set his ranking as a goal to surpass.
“I’d like to beat James Holzhauer, I think,” Schneider said in December 2021, according to Newsweek. “He seems very confident, I guess I’ll say. And so it would sort of feel good, I think, in a way.”
While the Oakland resident knew she could handle the quiz board, her current streak is beyond her expectations. As a devoted Jeopardy! viewer, Schneider is grateful to be a part of the iconic game show.
“I’m not gonna pretend I didn’t think I could do good, but this has just been so much better than I thought I would do,” she remarked. “It’s also something of a dream come true for the life-long Jeopardy! fan … My parents watched it, so I grew up watching it. So it’s probably been 35 years I’ve been watching the show.”
Post-‘Jeopardy!’ plans for Amy Schneider
Though Schneider could afford to take an extended vacation when her Jeopardy! run comes to an end, she’s considering what options may arise from her newfound fame.
“My kind of feeling is that I don’t really know what opportunities might come out of this, and so I’m sort of gonna play it by ear,” she told Newsweek. “I overheard Ken Jennings, when he was doing interviews, say that he was a computer programmer, didn’t really know what to do with his life and now he’s a professional former TV show contestant. So if things go well enough, maybe there’s something to do there. Maybe something on TV or something, or maybe writing a book. Who knows what it might be.”
Schneider added, “It’s definitely something I’m keeping an open mind about.”
Jeoapardy! viewers can tune in on Friday, Jan. 14 to see if Schneider wins her 33rd game.
