James Holzhauer is an American game show contestant and professional sports gambler residing in Las Vegas, Nevada. He is best known for holding the single-game record on Jeopardy! ($131,127) on April 17, 2019. ^[1]

Holzhauer is currently the reigning champion, with a grand total of $1,691,008 won on the game show.

James Holzhauer is a native of Naperville, Illinois. According to his father, Juergen Holzhauer, James excelled in math and science at an early age. At 4 years old, he was written up in the Chicago Tribune for his math. In junior high school, he was on the Mathcounts team.

Holzhauer then attended Naperville North High School where he excelled academically and competed in the Worldwide Youth in Science and Engineering state competition. He won state championships during his junior and senior years, including a first place victory in physics and second place finish in math.

Holzhauer was also a member of the chess team, the Academic Bowl, and Amnesty International.

After high school, he attended the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, graduating with a Bachelor's degree in mathematics.

During his college days, Holzhauer enjoyed playing online poker. He jokingly claims it is is his "real major" because he rarely attended class.

After succeeding in online poker during college, James Holzhauer started his own strategy website where he eventually got his sports betting bankroll. He started betting on baseball games, but expanded to American football, hockey, and basketball.

He eventually stepped away from gambling after meeting his wife, Melissa, and started a family with her.

While doing so, he started his own pet project by learning as much trivia as he could.

He would check out children's library books on subjects of which he was not knowledge enough anytime he felt he did not know enough about that particular subject.

His strategy was to find the most basic level of content to read on the matter.

On September 2, 2014, Holzhauer competed in The Chase. Mark Labbett (best known as "The Beast" on the show) said, "Professionally speaking, he gave me the worst whooping I've ever had."

James Holzhauer began competing on Jeopardy! on April 4, 2019. He is known for placing wagers that represent dates that are memorable to him, including birthdays and wedding anniversaries of loved ones.

On April 9, 2019 Holzhauer broke the single game record, winning $110,914.

Amazingly, Holzhauer strategically positioned his winnings to match his daughter's birthday, October 9, 2014 (10/09/14).

Holzhauer has competed in ten Jeopardy!

games as of April 17, 2019, winning a total of $566,660.

He holds the second highest winnings in the history of *Jeopardy!*after Ken Jennings. ^[1]

On Thursday, April 18, 2019, Holzhauer broke his own single-game winnings mark with $131,127 to capture his 10th straight victory on the game show.

He became the 8th player in Jeopardy! history to accomplish the feat; Ken Jennings holds with all-time record with 74 straight wins.

He has won $851,926 during his 12-day streak and owns the five most prolific single-day performances ever on the show.

On April 19, 2019, he won $80,006, which is fifth all-time in one-day earnings on Jeopardy! He now owns the top five one-day totals on the game show and six of the top eight.

On April 22, 2019, Holzhauer won $90,812, which is third all-time in one-day earnings on Jeopardy!

On April 23, 2019, he won $118,816, which is the second-highest one-day total of all time.

He also passed the $1,000,000 total winnings mark in 14 games; it took Ken Jennings 30 games to reach the same milestone.

On April 26, 2019, Holzhauer announced on Facebook that Jeopardy!'s show producers informed him that the rules have changed and he is no longer allowed to give shoutouts on Final Jeopardy. April 29 became the first day Holzhauer did not give a shoutout for his written answer.

In early May 2019, the teachers tournament on Jeopardy! began, which put James Holzhauer's winning streak on hold. He will defend his title on May 20, 2019.

Holzhauer is married to Melissa Sassin Holzhauer, who also appeared on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? The couple have a young daughter together and got married in 2012. ^[1]