14 “Jeopardy!” Stars with the Longest Winning Streaks
14 “Jeopardy!” Stars with the Longest Winning Streaks
Jessica SagerSun, April 26, 2026 at 10:30 AM UTC
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Ken Jennings, James Holzhauer, Matt Amodio and Mattea Roach.Credit: Christopher Willard/ABC via Getty
Ken Jennings famously went from Jeopardy! champion to host, but he's not the only player to have a lengthy streak on the beloved trivia show.
Since the show eliminated a rule prohibiting contestants from winning more than five consecutive games, 20 players have won 10 or more games in a row, including Jamie Ding, the current returning champion.
Since streaks have become more common, so have Jeopardy! spinoffs, including Jeopardy! Tournament of Champions and Jeopardy! Masters, celebrating the show's best players.
Backgrounds and strategies vary from champion to champion, but Jennings has said that late host Alex Trebek taught him that contestants all have one thing in common: They're all the real stars of the show.
"The thing he always emphasized about the show which was: He's not the star of the show. The host is not the star of Jeopardy!," Jennings shared during an appearance on Good Morning America in January 2021. "He always made it about the players and about the competition."
Get to know the players with the longest Jeopardy! winning streaks in history.
01 of 12
Ken Jennings
Alex Trebek and Ken Jennings on July 14, 2004 in Culver City, California.Credit: Jeopardy Productions/Getty
Jennings is officially the Jeopardy! GOAT.
The former software engineer from Utah won a record 74 consecutive games and made $2,522,700 in regular season earnings in 2004.
He further solidified his status as the greatest player of all time in January 2020 when he won the Greatest of All Time tournament against James Holzhauer and Brad Rutter.
02 of 12
Amy Schneider
Amy Schneider on Jeopardy!Credit: Eric McCandless/Disney via Getty
Amy Schneider made history during her regular season run on Jeopardy! in more ways than one.
She won the most games ever for a woman on the show and became the first transgender contestant to ever make it to Jeopardy! Tournament of Champions (and later the first to win it).
Schneider took home $1,382,800 from her regular-season winnings in January 2022, after which she quit her day job as a software engineering manager.
Since then, she's visited the White House for Transgender Day of Visibility in 2022, competed in Jeopardy! Masters and wrote a memoir.
"When I started, my biggest goal was just to win four games," Schneider told PEOPLE at the conclusion of her streak.
She continued, "Not only did I end up winning 10 times as many, but I've heard from so many people, especially trans people and their loved ones, about how much it's meant to them to see me succeed, and that's something I will always, always be proud of."
03 of 12
Matt Amodio
Matt Amodio on Jeopardy!Credit: Jeopardy Productions, Inc.
Matt Amodio, then a Ph.D. student at Yale University, won 38 games in a row and a total of $1,518,601.
"Everybody's so smart and so competent that this could happen any game," Amodio, who's originally from Medina County, Ohio, said in a statement at the time. "And this time it did."
Amodio, now a quantitative researcher in New York City, noted that pop culture was his weakest subject, but it was a history clue in Final Jeopardy! that ended his streak in October 2021.
04 of 12
James Holzhauer
James Holzhauer and Alex Trebek on Jeopardy!Credit: Jeopardy Productions, Inc.
Holzhauer's experience as a professional sports gambler paid off.
Using a strategy of going for high-value clues first and betting everything on Daily Doubles, he won 32 straight games in 2019 and made $2,462,216 in his regular-season run.
“Nobody likes to lose,” Holzhauer, who lives in gambling mecca Las Vegas, told The New York Times when his streak ended. “But I’m very proud of how I did, and I really exceeded my own expectations for the show. So I don’t feel bad about it.”
05 of 12
Jamie Ding
Jamie Ding on Jeopardy!Credit: Jeopardy!
Ding, a Princeton University graduate, currently has a 30 (and counting) game streak and has amassed over $800,000 in winnings so far as of April 24.
Ding, who also runs a General Tso's chicken review account with his sister on the side, also broke Jennings' record for the highest Coryat score ever in March 2026 with $42,400.
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"Just so many people have been rooting for me and reaching out to me," Ding told PEOPLE after ranking fifth in all-time consecutive wins.
"Just complete strangers, but also people from my past, like old teachers, old friends," he added. "It's so nice hearing from everyone and knowing they're enjoying my run."
06 of 12
Mattea Roach
Mattea Roach on Jeopardy!Credit: Eric McCandless/Disney via Getty
Mattea Roach won 23 consecutive games during their Jeopardy! run in 2022.
Then working as a tutor in Toronto, Roach made $560,983 from their regular-season streak — which ended after missing a Final Jeopardy! clue that left them just $1 short of victory.
07 of 12
Cris Pannullo
Cris Pannullo on Jeopardy!Credit: Jeopardy Productions, Inc.
Cris Pannullo of Ocean City, N.J., won $748,486 from his 21-game streak in 2022.
Jeopardy! isn't the only betting game he's great at: Though he's a customer success operations manager now, he was previously a professional poker player.
08 of 12
Julia Collins
Alex Trebek and Julia Collins on Jeopardy!Credit: Sony Pictures Television/Courtesy Everett Collection
Before Schneider, Julia Collins held the record for the longest Jeopardy! winning streak for a woman at 20 straight games in 2014.
Collins, a supply chain professional, took home a total of $428,100 in regular season winnings, making her one of the highest-ever earning players at the time.
09 of 12
David Madden and Jason Zuffranieri
David Madden on Jeopardy!; Jason Zuffranieri on Jeopardy!Credit: Jeopardy! (2)
Art historian David Madden made $432,000 throughout his 19-game run in summer 2005.
Fourteen years later, math teacher Jason Zuffranieri won 19 consecutive games and took home $532,496.
10 of 12
Ryan Long and Scott Riccardi
Ryan Long on Jeopardy!; Scott Riccardi on Jeopardy!Credit: Jeopardy!(2)
Fan favorite Ryan Long had a 16-game winning streak in spring 2022.
The rideshare driver made $300,400 during the regular season, which he revealed in a June 2022 Jeopardy! blog that he needed to help make ends meet and support his son.
“I have to give a shout-out to the wardrobe people because they did wonders with what I brought: two shirts and two sweater vests,” the Philadelphia native told 6ABC in May 2022.
He continued, “That’s all I had. That’s all I could afford. I figured I wasn’t going to be there longer than a day.”
Scott Riccardi won 16 consecutive games in 2025 for a total of $455,000. He also had a season record of 39 correct responses in a single game.
When Riccardi guessed the Final Jeopardy! clue incorrectly in his 17th game, some fans speculated that he lost on purpose, which he denied.
11 of 12
Adriana Harmeyer
Ken Jennings and Adriana Harmeyer on Jeopardy!Credit: Christopher Willard/Disney via Getty
Adriana Harmeyer racked up 15 consecutive victories in 2024 and a total of $351,600 in regular-season winnings.
The archivist from West Lafayette, Ind., lost her 16th game to Survivor alum Drew Basile.
12 of 12
Harrison Whitaker
Harrison Whitaker on Jeopardy!Credit: Jeopardy!
Harrison Whitaker, a researcher (and one-time bouncer for a party held by Princess Beatrice's company), won 14 regular-season games in a row in November 2025 and took home nearly $375,000 in winnings.
What makes Whitaker's success particularly remarkable is that he told TV Insider he only ever had four hours of sleep before Jeopardy! matches.
on People
Source: “AOL Entertainment”
