‘Jeopardy!’ Fans Address Huge $500,000 Episode Win & Tease James Holzhauer

This… Is… Jeopardy!

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Have you ever wondered what the most money a contestant could win in a single game of Jeopardy! is? Well, so have many others, and one particular fan has done the math to figure out the exact number.

On the Jeopardy! Reddit forum, one user calculated that the most money a person could win on a single day of Jeopardy! is $566,400, though, as they pointed out, achieving this feat would be “impossible.”

The user worked it out by assuming the contestant “gets every clue correct,” the “Daily Doubles are the smallest dollar amounts for that round,” the contestant “selects the Daily Doubles last” and “wagers their entire amount,” and then “they win Final Jeopardy, also wagering their entire amount. ”

Taking this into account, the hypothetical contestant would end the Jeopardy round with $35,600 and the Double Jeopardy round with $283,200. If the contestant then wagered that entire amount on the Final Jeopardy clue and got it correct, they’d take home a massive grand total of $566,400.

Fans jumped into the comments to discuss this impossible scenario, with some using it to jokingly throw shade at Jeopardy! icon James Holzhauer, who holds the record for single-game winnings with $131,127. In fact, Holzhauer holds all top ten single-game winning records from his incredible 32-game winning streak in 2019.

“Ya hear that, Holzhauer? You’re goin’ DOWN!” quipped one Reddit user, adding, “Pffft! He didn’t even break 150k. Piker.”

“The fool kept doing all this “strategy” stuff like trying to get the daily doubles early to make sure he controlled them, or having final wagers low enough to still win runaway games if he missed the FJ answer. Utter nonsense,” another sarcastically said.

“Interesting! This means that Holzhauer’s single game winning record of $131,127 was ~23% of the maximum single game earnings,” added another, highlighting how impressive Holzhauer’s achievement actually was.

“Insane efficiency, tbh,” replied another commenter.

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“His second best game total is $130,022, too. So he’s basically hit that ~23% twice. What a monster,” the first poster added.

Another pointed out, “Since the maximum for each game depends on DD placement, the actual maximum for that game was about $20k less at $547,200…so he actually got ~24% of the total possible money in that game!”

“What’s crazy is he got that total when he didn’t even find the 1st DD, and didn’t even wager half his total when he found the other 2,” they continued. “If he’d gone all in on those 2 DD’s and Final he would’ve finished with $239,200.”

As for the original user’s maths, one commenter wrote, “I have honestly wanted to calculate this for years, and this would be the method I would use as well. Great work!”

Another added some optimism regarding the crazy scenario, “Unlikely, not impossible.”