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James Holzhauer, the professional Las Vegas sports gambler who captivated “Jeopardy!” viewers this year with his 32-game winning streak, will be back on television next week for the game show’s Tournament of Champions, giving him the chance to add to his winnings and prolong his stardom for a bit longer.
“Jeopardy!” released the tournament matchups on Monday, and some fans may be disappointed to see that Holzhauer, 35, isn’t initially scheduled for a rematch with Emma Boettcher, the Chicago-based librarian who beat him. Holzhauer’s prerecorded tournament game will air on Wednesday, Nov. 6, and Boettcher’s will appear the next day. (They could get the chance to play each other in the tournament’s semifinal or final round the following week.)
Boettcher cut Holzhauer’s winning streak short in June when he was $58,484 shy of the $2.52 million Ken Jennings won during his record 74-game winning streak in 2004. Over Holzhauer’s reign, he set the record for the most money won in a single episode ($110,914), and then beat that record ($131,127), gaining national celebrity and the nickname Jeopardy James.
The winner of the tournament will take home $250,000, the runner-up will win $100,000 and the third-place finisher $50,000.
Holzhauer’s strategy became a subject of widespread fascination over his streak, which stretched over two months during the spring. Each game, he went for the high-value clues first, hunted for the Daily Doubles, and when he found them, bet everything he had. During his streak he won an average of $77,000 per game, more than double Jennings’ rate. He credited his ability to stomach large wagers to his career as a sports bettor in Las Vegas.
But then Boettcher, 27, picked up the buzzer and knocked Holzhauer off his throne, beating him by about $22,000. Boettcher was a fastidious “Jeopardy!” student, playing the game from home with a makeshift buzzer and calculating her rate of accuracy in a notebook.
After beating Holzhauer, Boettcher won the next two games and lost on the third, leaving with $97,002 plus a $1,000 consolation prize for the loss. “Jeopardy!” fans debated online over whether Boettcher should have qualified for the Tournament of Champions: some said that her winnings weren’t enough for her to qualify, while others felt that beating Holzhauer was evidence that she deserved to be there.
Holzhauer’s statistics far exceed those of the other 14 contestants on the Tournament of Champions roster. The contestant with the second-highest winnings made $163,721 over seven games.
On Nov. 6, Holzhauer will face Alan Dunn, a software development manager from Georgia, and Lindsey Shultz, a physician and health care analyst from Pennsylvania. The next day, Boettcher will go up against Erin R. Backes, an attorney from Florida and Josh Hill, a network engineer from Arkansas.