‘Jeopardy’ Champ James Holzhauer’s Fate Revealed

[This story contains spoilers from the Monday, June 3, 2019, episode of Jeopardy.]

Long-running Jeopardy champion James Holzhauer went into Monday’s game roughly $70,000 shy of beating Ken Jennings’ 2004 record of $2.52 million earned over 74 games in 2004.

But, according to a New York Times report on Monday and leaked video that surfaced Sunday night on Twitter, Holzhauer doesn’t overtake Jennings. 

In fact, his 32-game winning streak comes to an end in his 33rd game on Monday.

The minute-long video shows Holzhauer and competitor Emma Boettcher correctly answering the Final Jeopardy question, though Boettcher ultimately pulls out the win.

BREAKING: Jeopardy! champ James Holzhauer loses on Monday’s episode: pic.twitter.com/yqRqdl2zp0

— Random Intel (@TheRandomIntel) June 2, 2019

Holzhauer won his 32nd game on Friday, which brought his total earnings to $2,462,216. Throughout his time on the show, Holzhauer set the record for the most money won in one episode. He also played 11 games in which he did not buzz in with one incorrect answer during his winning streak.

Many viewers expected Holzhauer to beat Ken Jennings’ Jeopardy record. Jennings previously won $2.52 million during his 74-game winning streak in 2004. While Holzhauer was unable to beat Jennings’ record, he did win an average of $77,000 per game, which was more than double that of Jennings’ rate.

“I lost to a really top-level competitor,” Holzhauer told The New York Times following his loss. “She played a perfect game. And that was what it took to beat me.”

A couple of hours after the Times report surfaced, Holzhauer issued the below tweet, referencing the recording artist’s reputation as a bad-luck charm for his favorite sports teams:

Knew I shouldn’t have invited @Drake to the @Jeopardy taping.

— James Holzhauer (@James_Holzhauer) June 3, 2019

While Holzhauer broke several records through his performance as a contestant on Jeopardy, the frenzy around his winning streak also broke ratings records for the series. The syndicated game show drew its best household rating in 14 years in the week of April 29. Additionally, Jeopardy‘s 8.3 mark among households was its highest since March 2005.

The game show averaged 13.28 million daily viewers for the week. The number was higher than the same-day audiences for every Nielsen-rated show in primetime, including CBS’ The Big Bang Theory and the initial tune-in for HBO’s Game of Thrones.

Jeopardy‘s ratings steadily increased during Holzhauer’s winning streak. In his first full week of shows (April 8-12), the show averaged 10.09 million viewers. It grew to 10.67 million the week of April 15, then 11.97 million and 13.28 million. Household ratings have also increased up by nearly 30 percent (6.4 to 8.3) in the same time frame.