Jeopardy!’s latest champion, Amy Schneider, on Monday surpassed Yale Ph.D. candidate Matt Amodio to win 39 straight games and become second on the show’s all-time consecutive wins list. The engineering manager from Oakland, Calif.’s winnings now total $1,319,800.
Only one contestant has won more games than Schneider – Ken Jennings, who has held the top spot with 74 since setting the record in 2004. Jennings has been hosting Jeopardy! throughout Schneider’s run.
Jennings, who officially became Jeopardy!’s greatest player of all time when he won ABC’s primetime Jeopardy! tournament against James Holzhauer and Brad Rutter in January 2020, is now a consulting producer and ongoing guest host of Jeopardy! Jennings and Mayim Bialik are sharing guest-hosting duties in the wake of the death of longtime host Alex Trebek in November 2020 and the subsequent naming and then ouster of executive producer Mike Richards in August 2021.
A new second-place record had just been set earlier this season by Amodio, who won 38 consecutive games. Amodio and Schneider will face off in this year’s Tournament of Champions.
“It’s going to be an honor playing against you, and it’s going to be a tight competition,” Schneider said in a message to Amodio.
Schneider’s run has helped propel Jeopardy! to the top of both the syndication and overall TV ratings charts. In the week ended January 9, Jeopardy! led all of syndication with a 6.6 live plus same day national household rating, according to Nielsen Media Research. Season to date through the week ended January 2, Jeopardy! was the most-viewed non-sports entertainment program on television, averaging 9.2 million daily viewers, also according to Nielsen.
Jeopardy! is produced by Sony Pictures Television and distributed by CBS Media Ventures. Michael Davies is executive producing. ■
