'Jeopardy! The Greatest of All Time' competition odds and betting info
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With $1.5 million up for grabs, the stakes have never been higher.
"Jeopardy!" will hold a tournament to determine its greatest player of all time, pitting the top three money winners in the famed game show's history against one another.
Ken Jennings, Brad Rutter, and James Holzhauer will compete on "Jeopardy! The Greatest of All Time" beginning Jan. 7. The first contestant to win three matches will earn a grand prize of $1 million, while each runner-up will collect $250,000.
Despite owning the show's highest all-time earnings total, Rutter has the longest odds to win the tournament.
| Contestant | Odds |
|---|---|
| James Holzhauer | +110 |
| Ken Jennings | +115 |
| Brad Rutter | +280 |
Holzhauer, a professional sports gambler from Las Vegas, is a slight favorite to claim the title of GOAT after winning this year's edition of the "Jeopardy!" Tournament of Champions earlier in November. He defeated Emma Boettcher to secure that title, exacting vengeance after the Chicago librarian bested Holzhauer in June to end his impressive 32-game winning streak. He was a good sport about that loss.
Knew I shouldn’t have invited @Drake to the @Jeopardy taping.
— James Holzhauer (@James_Holzhauer) June 3, 2019
With "Jeopardy!" winnings totaling $2.7 million, Holzhauer trails both Rutter ($4.7 million) and Jennings ($3.4 million). But the Illinois native does hold the record for most money won during a single game with $131,127. In fact, he holds the top 15 single-game winnings records and consistently racked up high totals during his time on the show.
Holzhauer credits his sports gambling background for his ability to attain such lofty totals, regularly making big-money bets during the Daily Double and Final Jeopardy! rounds. "I don't blink at gambling large amounts of money when I think I have a big edge," he told the Washington Post in April.
Rutter, meanwhile, is the highest-earning American game show contestant of all time and beat Jennings in the Ultimate Tournament of Champions competition in 2005. He originally appeared on the show back when contestants were limited to five-day runs, and he's never lost an official "Jeopardy!" match. The long odds for him to win this competition seem unwarranted. Like Holzhauer, he's also a sports fan with a good sense of humor.
The problem with the Eagles is that they don’t have a single player on defense who has ripped the quarterback’s helmet off and hit him on the head with it. @FakeWIPCaller
— Brad Rutter (@bradrutter) November 15, 2019
Jennings holds the record for longest "Jeopardy!" winning streak at 74 games, but he's also the only one of the three who hasn't won a Tournament of Champions. He did finish ahead of Rutter in "Jeopardy!'s IBM Challenge" in 2011, an exhibition pitting the two human heavyweights against IBM's question-answering computer, Watson. Watson won the three-day contest handily.
Legendary host Alex Trebek weighed in on the upcoming competition in an interview with Gary Levin of USA TODAY. Though he wouldn't predict a winner, Trebek believes Holzhauer holds a minor edge over Rutter and Jennings.
"You have to realize, I think, that Ken and Brad are going to be at a slight disadvantage," said Trebek. "They won the majority of their monies 10, 15 years ago, so they've aged a bit. And are their reflexes going to be as good as James Holzhauer's? Who knows? But we're going to find out in this tournament."
Alex Moretto is a sports betting writer for theScore. A journalism graduate from Guelph-Humber University, he has worked in sports media for over a decade. He will bet on anything from the Super Bowl to amateur soccer, is too impatient for futures, and will never trust a kicker. Find him on Twitter @alexjmoretto.