Matt Amodio Isn't Putting Up With Jeopardy! Conspiracy Theories
One of the greatest competitors in the history of "Jeopardy!" James Holzhauer put up a performance for the ages in 2019 when he took home $2,464,216 over a jaw-dropping 32-game winning streak. Ultimately, Holzhauer was bested when his wager during Final Jeopardy came up short. The trivia game champion strategized a low wager, and that was his undoing, per Action.
Many fans were incredulous when Holzhauer finally lost, and several speculated that he did so on purpose — with one viewer tweeting that Holzhauer tanked the game to spend more time with his daughter. "Sure, I could stick around and play a game that pays me $150,000 per hour, but I'd really rather get toys thrown at my crotch for free," he jokingly replied to the allegation in June 2019.
Two years later, Matt Amodio went on a similarly impressive run when he raked up 38 straight "Jeopardy!" victories. Amodio's streak was the second of all-time, only trailing quiz master Ken Jennings' 74 straight wins, per Decider. Amodio flubbed the Final Jeopardy question, and once again several fans were convinced it was a conspiratorial loss. "Who watches Jeopardy every day? And who else believes Matt Amodio lost his 39th game on purpose?" one fan tweeted. "@AmodioMatt As a doctorial candidate myself, I strongly believe that Matt Amodio drop out of Jeopardy on purpose," another wrote.
Amodio heard the theories, and provided the real reason for his loss.
Why Matt Amodio messed up the final question
Several factors contributed to Matt Amodio's eventual "Jeopardy!" demise. During his final day competing on the show, Amodio was under the weather, but this did not fully explain his downfall. "The day I lost, I went in feeling a little 'off' physically, but I had felt worse before and then won with no problem, so I didn't think anything of it," Amodio wrote in an op-ed for Newsweek following his record-setting run. "Then, I gradually saw that I wasn't remembering things that I really should have been able to remember, and I was mis-reading clues in front of me," he added.
Multiple viewers were perplexed by the quiz show champion's misfire during Final Jeopardy. While on the CBC radio show "As It Happens," Amodio explained his strategy was to "skim the question," which led to his undoing. "When you do that first skim, if you misread things or gloss over things, it can be hard to recover in such a short time," he said.
The "Jeopardy!" champion addressed the rumors that he lost on purpose and had a simple response. "I wasn't being fed the answers when I was winning, and I didn't throw the game when I lost," he wrote in the Newsweek piece. "My buzzer was working fine," Amodio added. The quiz whiz had a similarly unremarkable response when asked how he planned to spend his winnings. "I've got the boring answer. I'm going to do long-term invest and hold," he told CNBC.