SALT LAKE CITY — “Jeopardy!” champion James Holzhauer crossed the $2 million mark on Friday night.
Holzhauer won his 27th game in a row on Friday night, giving him more than $2 million in winnings. He remains about $455,000 behind Ken Jennings, the all-time leader in prize money for “Jeopardy!” episodes with $2.5 million during his 74-game streak in 2004.
- But, according to The New York Times, Holzhauer will cross that threshold pretty soon. Jennings earned $34,000 per episode whereas Holzhauer locks in about $76,500 per episode.
Context: As I wrote, Holzhauer has been outpacing Jennings. Experts expect him to cross the $2.5 million earnings bar pretty soon. Achieving the 74 wins will be another story.
- “If he continues to win at his current rate, Holzhauer would surpass Jennings’s dollar total in six more episodes, or in less than half the time it took Jennings to reach that amount,” according to The New York Times.
- “If Holzhauer wins as many games as Jennings did — he’d have to win 47 more — and continues to win at his current rate, he would amass more than $5.6 million,” The New York Times reports.
But here’s the thing — Holzhauer still needs to almost double his money to reach the top all-time earner across all “Jeopardy!” shows. Brad Rutter earned $4.7 million if you include the “Tournament of Champions,” and Jennings won $3.4 million. Jennings has also competed on “Jeopardy!: All-Star Games.”