James Holzhauer, a professional gambler and the fourth highest earning American game show contestant of all time, just had his thirty-two game Jeopardy! winning streak broken, after losing to a University of Chicago librarian, Emma Boettcher.
Nicknamed “Jeopardy James”, his winning streak lasted from April to June of this year. He attained celebrity ranking for his complex technique and strategic approach to the game. “Being a Jeopardy! champion means something different than I thought it ever would” Holzhauer said after his loss to Boettcher, via Jeopardy!’s Twitter account. “People need to play to win. Emma dominated her warm up games. I knew she would make an extremely tough challenger.” Holzhauer had won $2,460,000, prior to losing to Boettcher. His total winnings were just shy of Ken Jenning’s combined earnings of $2,520,000.
We have a new champion! Congratulations, Emma Boettcher!
Stream the final episode of James Holzhauer's incredible streak here, available now through Friday: https://t.co/hUk4MCbBVo pic.twitter.com/9dTwuOnZLr
— Jeopardy! (@Jeopardy) June 4, 2019
According to BBC news, the twenty-seven-year-old librarian wrote her master’s thesis on predicting the difficulty of trivia questions using text features at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. In an interview with Chicago Tribune, Boettcher said that she will arrange to use her total winnings of $46,801 to pay off student loans, and give back to her alma mater’s school of Information and Library Science.
“When they said thirty-two (game winning streak), I almost thought they were joking.” Boettcher said in an interview via Jeopardy!’s Twitter account, regarding Holzhauer’s winning streak. “But then it became clear during the game that he definitely earned it.”
Featured Image Via New York Post