Ask Ken Jennings: Winning Jeopardy! can change your life

James Holzhauer is officially Jeopardy! royalty.

Not only has he come to dominate the list of highest single-game payouts, but Holzhauer has also become only the second contestant to earn more than $1 million in regular-season play.

For some contestants, winning might usher in 15 minutes of fame and a small, unexpected windfall. But for players like Holzhauer, securing records, fame and big winnings can be transformative, creating opportunities and providing a level of financial security unthinkable to many Americans.

We asked a few Jeopardy! contestants how their time on the show affected their lives.

KEN JENNINGS

Before he became a Jeopardy! legend, Ken Jennings was a 29-year-old computer programmer living in Salt Lake City, wondering if there was any way out of a career in coding.

Jennings had double-majored in English and computer science and always wanted to write, but after graduating and getting engaged he took a job at a tech startup to pay the bills. Then he qualified for Jeopardy!

In 2004, he won 74 games in a row, earning more than $2.5 million. No one has come close to beating his streak, though Holzhauer is closing in.

Last month, Holzhauer became the only contestant to join Jennings in earning more than $1 million in regular-season play. (Another contestant, Brad Rutter, earned the vast majority of his winnings — more than $4.5 million — in more difficult tournament games.)

For Jennings, Jeopardy! “changed what I did every day.”

After the show, Jennings decided to write a book about the history and appeal of trivia in America. In 2006, he published Brainiac: Adventures in the Curious, Competitive, Compulsive World of Trivia Buffs, which did well enough for him to keep going. “Each book sold better than the last, which is what publishers are into,” he said.

His books since include a trivia almanac, a debunking of myths passed down to children and one about how comedy has come to dominate culture. Jennings says he is now working on his 13th book, a travel guide to various depictions of the afterlife throughout human history.

LARISSA KELLY

For Larissa Kelly, being on the show in 2008 and 2009 provided a lifeline for her and her husband, Jeff Hoppes, graduate students at the University of California, Berkeley, facing a job market in the throes of the Great Recession.

“Having the money from Jeopardy! meant that we had the freedom to think about where do we want to go, what do we want to do,” said Kelly, whose winnings topped $660,000.

The money has allowed her and her husband to buy a house and gave them the freedom to pursue jobs related to what they love. “For the last six or seven years, we’ve both been doing professional trivia,” she said.

Kelly edits questions for National Academic Quiz Tournaments, which runs national quiz bowl championships at the middle school, high school and collegiate levels.

MONICA THIEU

Monica Thieu was technically still in high school when she first appeared on the show, but because she was enrolled in classes at the University of North Texas, she was allowed to compete in the show’s college championship in 2012.

Thieu won the title and $100,000, which helped pay for tuition at Stanford University.

“We might not have been able to afford it if we didn’t have the Jeopardy! money,” she said.

At Stanford, Thieu worked in a psychology laboratory dedicated to the research of memory. She graduated in three years as a psychology major and is now a Ph.D. student at Columbia University, where she mostly studies how people perceive emotions. The show, she said, probably enabled that career path.

“If I had gone somewhere else, I might have done something else,” she said. “I might have made my parents happy and been in medical school right now.”

Thieu appeared again on Jeopardy! in 2013 and for this year’s All-Star Games.

Since her first appearance, though, Thieu has avoided telling people up front about her time on the show for fear that it would come to define her.

“I don’t want to be the Jeopardy! girl,” she said. “I would like to be the girl that has these other hobbies and interests.”

ROGER CRAIG

Before Holzhauer obliterated the record in April, the title for most money won in a single game of Jeopardy! belonged to Roger Craig, who won $77,000 in a single game in late 2010.

To prepare, Craig, who was finishing graduate school at the time, used a background in machine learning to analyze tens of thousands of past Jeopardy! questions and answers, which he downloaded from a fan-run website. He used his findings to direct his studies for the show and to hone his strategy.

“That was probably the biggest thing that was unique to me, was becoming known for that because it was also related to my line of work,” Craig said.

Unlike other big winners, his life did not hugely change after he appeared on the show.

His winnings gave him some financial freedom, but he still works in machine learning and artificial intelligence, now as a consultant, he said.