The Richest Jeopardy! Winner Might Surprise You

"Jeopardy!" has been around for a long time, with the first episode airing back in March 1964. Since that time, the series has aired more than 8,000 episodes, and each one has featured multiple contestants. The game show has ingrained itself into the zeitgeist such that people who have never sat down to watch an episode likely know who the late Alex Trebek was, and they've probably even heard of people like contestant-turned-guest-host Ken Jennings.

This is because the public has long been fascinated with quiz shows and their winners. People who can answer a wide array of insanely difficult trivia fascinate us, and that's especially true when a large sum of money is involved. Unlike shows like "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?", "Jeopardy!" doesn't feature a large cash prize. To win big bucks, you have to be fast, you must be smart, and you've got to win every time you play the game. When a player does take home several hundred thousand dollars, it becomes big news. It's not an easy feat and it's especially rare, but while the show's biggest winners include people who've made headlines, some have even gone home as millionaires.

The players on this list have brought in more money than anyone else in "Jeopardy!" history. Their winnings from regular-season play have been combined with any tournament winnings to determine the total. When you find out who the richest "Jeopardy!" winner is, you might just be surprised.

Austin Rogers was working as a bartender in New York City when he made waves on "Jeopardy!" in 2017. The champ didn't own a television when he appeared on the program, but he still managed to bring in a lot of money. In a press release (via Cleveland.com), Alex Trebek described Rogers as "outside the box, completely different from what many viewers expect a 'Jeopardy!' contestant to be." Rogers managed to keep his position for 12 games, which saw him bring in a total of $411,000 over regular play. On two occasions, he scored the record for the third- and fifth-highest single-game winnings with $69,000 and $65,600, per the show's website. Rogers returned to the game for an attempt at the 2017 Tournament of Champions, where he placed third. 

While it would have been natural for Rogers to quit his job and move on to bigger and better things with $400K in the bank, he instead kept his bartending gig in Hell's Kitchen. He spends his time working and hosting trivia nights, as he explained during an appearance on ABC News' special "Jeopardy!" episode in 2019: "I am working! Why wouldn't I come here, make some cash, hang out with my friends?" While he didn't splurge, Rogers did treat himself to international vacations and "a mint condition 1989 Honda Civic station wagon," due to nostalgia stemming from his time in college. Per CNBC, he also continued to commute to work via his bike and opted not to upgrade his apartment.

Julia Collins stepped onto the "Jeopardy!" stage on April 21, 2014, and she didn't leave for quite some time. She managed to win 20 straight games, giving her the most consecutive wins for any female contestant in the show's history. This record was eventually broken, but that doesn't take away from Collins' accomplishment. Her string of victories came to an end on June 2, 2014, with a total amount won of $428,100. At the time, she placed third-highest in the show's history. Her standing earned her a place at the 2014 Tournament of Champions, where she came in third place. She returned once more in 2018's All-Star Games draft show, which ended with her splitting $50,000 with teammates Ben Ingram and Seth Wilson.

By the end of her time on the show, Collins managed to take home $453,100. According to Vulture, this made her the "winningest female 'Jeopardy!' star" of all time. Ultimately, she would lose this placement to another woman on this list, but Collins initially maintained the second-longest winning streak (behind Ken Jennings). "I try to steer the conversation towards the bigger picture — that I'm in second place of any player who's ever played," she told Vulture of the emphasis placed on her gender. "That's a bigger deal." Per The Millions, Alex Trebek called her "wonderfully delightful" and "relentless" during her 21st appearance. 

Collins vacationed in Paris and London after exiting the show. At the time, she planned on investing most of the rest of her winnings while looking for work, as she wasn't employed when she appeared on "Jeopardy!".

Roger Craig, a computer scientist from Ferndale, Pennsylvania, made waves on "Jeopardy!" when he achieved a record single-game total, dethroning Ken Jennings' $75,000 record in the process. Craig managed to blow past that with a total win of $77,000, per NPR. While that record also didn't hold forever, Craig's achievement is nonetheless impressive, as it came on his second appearance on the show on September 13, 2010. After two rounds, he managed to take in such a high sum by betting $30,000 of his $47,000.

"It wasn't even about the money," he later told NPR of his shock when the wager paid off big. "I felt that my systems and my methods were sort of validated." Craig managed to continue playing for a total of seven appearances before he was knocked out by Jelisa Castrodale. When he finished his regular-season play, he made a total of $231,000, which was the sixth-highest amount won on the show at that point. Craig returned for the 2011 Tournament of Champions, where he scored big. In the tournament, he managed to uncover double Daily Doubles back-to-back, wager everything he had, and win both times, according to HuffPost. He ended up winning the Tournament of Champions, bringing in another $250,000.

Having returned for the "Jeopardy!" Battle of the Decades, where he won $50,000, Craig later took home his share of a $75,000 pot from competing in the 2019 All-Star Games, adding $25,000 to his sum and bringing his total earnings to $556,200.

Larissa Kelly, a writer and academic from Richmond, California, comes from a family of "Jeopardy!" contestants. Between 2004 and 2008, her husband, Jeff Hoppes, went up against Ken Jennings, but he lost what became Jennings' 70th game as champion; meanwhile, Kelly's sister, Arianna, played the game, but also didn't win.

Kelly herself stepped onto the "Jeopardy!" stage on May 20, 2008. Her time on the show resulted in the breaking of several records while establishing some new ones. She became the first female champion to win more than five games. While Kelly ended her winning streak after only six games, that too set a record for female players: By the time she finished her regular-season play, Kelly's winnings of $222,597 placed her at the third-highest regular-play winner. That record also made her the highest regular-play winner for any female champion. However, another player on this list would eventually break that record, per Entertainment Weekly, not that Kelly minded. "Well, it was fun to hold a Jeopardy record for a few years...but it's been even more fun to watch @Jeopardamy set new standards for excellence, on the show and off," she tweeted in December 2021.

Kelly returned to the stage to participate in the 2009 Tournament of Champions, where she placed second as the first runner-up. She won an additional $5,000 at the 2014 Battle of the Decades, and she won big at the 2019 All-Star Games alongside teammates Brad Rutter and David Madden. As the winning team, they split $1,000,000 three ways, bringing Kelly's total earnings to $655,930.

Amy Schneider made significant waves on "Jeopardy!" as she knocked down or wiped out numerous records set before she had a chance to play the game. She started an astounding winning streak on November 17, 2021, and she kept it going all the way until January 25, 2022. Her reign came to an end the following day, leaving her with 40 consecutive wins, per NPR.

Throughout her impressive run, she managed to dethrone Larissa Kelly as the winningest female contestant in "Jeopardy!" history. Schneider also happens to be trans, so she set multiple records for members of the LGBTQ+ community, as well. Over the course of her time on the show, she managed to bring in a total of $1,384,800. Arguably, one of Schneider's most impressive milestones came on her 28th appearance, when she crossed the million-dollar mark. That's an achievement no other female contestant has reached, as of this writing, placing Schneider into "Jeopardy!" royalty. She also managed to dethrone another player on this list, Matt Amodio, who previously held the No. 2 winning streak spot. Still, that put her well behind Ken Jennings, whose winning streak tops the record at 74 games.

Schneider has spoken about her success on the show, noting that the positive comments she's received regarding her contribution to trans visibility in the media are "just one of the best things I could hear" (via NPR), Schneider stated, "That I've been able to do that, give people that experience, and if I'm helping them, that's what I want to do most of all."

It takes a lot of work to become the third-highest-earning game show contestant of all time, but that's precisely what James Holzhauer managed to do on "Jeopardy!". The professional sports gambler started on the show in April 2019, and he didn't leave the stage until his 32-game winning streak came to an end that June.

Holzhauer broke numerous records, with the most impressive relating to how much money he won: a whopping $2,462,216 during regular-season play. His highest single-game total was an astounding $131,127, making him the highest-earning player for single-game winnings of all time, as of this writing: He even holds that record for 10 positions on the "Jeopardy!" Hall of Fame, with his lowest single-game winning amount coming to $89,229. He's also the third-highest-earning player of all time, and he placed second in highest winnings from regular-season play. 

Holzhauer later won the 2019 Tournament of Champions, taking home an additional quarter of a million dollars, before nabbing another $250,000 as the first runner-up on 2020's "Jeopardy!": The Greatest of All Time. Once all of his winnings are totaled, as of January 2022, Holzhauer has won $2,964,216. Residing in Las Vegas with wife Melissa Sassin Holzhauer and their daughter, he explained that his bets on the show included hidden meanings for his loved ones, telling the Naperville Sun, "Family will always be more important to me than money or winning on 'Jeopardy!' The bets were a fun and unconventional way for me to show that."

Brad Rutter made his first "Jeopardy!" appearance on October 30, 2000. At the time, the rules didn't allow a player with five consecutive wins to return. However, this did guarantee them a spot at the Tournament of Champions. Because of this, per Distractify, Rutter won $55,102 from his five-game winning streak — he also won two cars, so he left the stage with a smile on his face.

Rutter returned to the "Jeopardy!" stage for the 2001 Tournament of Champions, where he took home the $100,000 first-place prize. He came back for the 2002 Million Dollar Masters Tournament, which he also won, earning an additional $1,000,000. Those victories placed him as the highest-money winner in the show's history up to that point, and he continued to rake in the millions, winning the 2005 Ultimate Tournament of Champions, the 2014 Battle of the Decades, and the 2019 All-Star Games alongside teammates Larissa Kelly and David Madden.

Over two decades of play, Rutter has traded places in the ranks with Ken Jennings as they amassed their fortunes — but as of this writing, with his most recent appearance coming in 2020 at the "Jeopardy!": The Greatest of All Time (where he won $250,000), Rutter holds the biggest purse of all high-earning "Jeopardy!" players with $4,938,436. Just don't expect any large purchases from this game show champ to make headlines. As Rutter told Vanity Fair in 2014, "I try to be prudent with everything and fortunately I have enough to support me in a nice middle-class lifestyle, while I try to do other things."