Click here if you’re having trouble viewing this video on a mobile device.
James Holzhauer won $110,914 during Tuesday night’s episode — the highest single-day total in the 35-year history of the popular game show. And he didn’t just eclipse the record, he blew it to smithereens. The previous single-day mark was $77,000, set on Sept. 14, 2010, by Roger Craig.
Holzhauer, a 34-year-old resident of Las Vegas, has won $244,365 during his four-day streak, also a record. Can anyone out there knock this guy off?
Holzhauer wagered $38,314 and correctly answered Tuesday’s Final Jeopardy with “What is quantum leap?” It was the response to the answer: “Ironically, it’s a metaphor meaning a huge step forward, but this 2-word process only occurs on a subatomic scale” from the category “Physics Terms.”
Watch out, Ken Jennings, Holzhauer is coming for you. Jennings, of course, achieved game-show fame by bagging more than $2.5 million during a 74-game winning streak in 2004.
Before Tuesday’s show, the “Jeopardy!” Twitter account posted a promotional video in which Alex Trebek proclaimed, “Records are meant to be broken. … Is it too soon to begin making comparisons with Ken Jennings?”
Holzhauer grew up in Naperville, Illinois, and graduated from the University of Illinois in 2005 with a bachelor’s degree in math. According to an ESPN report, he spent time running a poker strategy website and built a bankroll for a future in sports betting.
Las Vegas sportsbooks sources confirmed to ESPN that Holzhauer is a respected bettor. Holzhauer told ESPN he has been betting on sports since 2006 and that he started by focusing on baseball futures before gravitating to football, basketball and hockey.
“Now, I focus largely on in-game betting, where the oddsmaker often struggles to put an accurate line with only few seconds to think about it,” Holzhauer told ESPN. “I think my work is similar to an investment bank, except that I’m the analyst, trader, fund manager and day trader all into one.”
Holzhauer has correctly answered 129 of his first 133 attempts on “Jeopardy!”
