The Best Players In Jeopardy! History

While Jeopardy! initially launched in 1964, it was after the relaunch in 1984 hosted by Alex Trebek that the show became a true cultural juggernaut, the best-known trivia quiz show on television, and a shorthand for what it means to be a smart person. And airing every weekday for over 35 years means that Jeopardy! has had tens of thousands of players grace its hallowed studio podiums over the years. Only a few have had the juice to become household names, though, and that's what we're looking for here.

These rankings are based solely on Jeopardy! official Hall of Fame totals, and so they only include money from games won, not consolation prizes. It also means that popular players like Austin Rogers, Buzzy Cohen, or Arthur Chu (Jeopardy!'s greatest villain) were just short of the list. Also, the IBM Challenge is considered an exhibition match, so Watson, the Jeopardy! robot, is likewise not included. With that said, the following article gives information on these notable people. Answer: Who are the best players in Jeopardy! history?

As The Herald reports, Ben Ingram is an IT consultant from South Carolina who enjoyed an eight-game winning streak on Jeopardy! in 2013, bringing in $176,534 in total winnings before finishing in third in his ninth game. At the time, an eight-game streak was good enough to tie for fifth-longest streak ever, but now, it no longer even qualifies for the top ten. Naturally, Ingram was invited back to take part in the 2014 Tournament of Champions, which he won, despite being up against two arguably better known (or maybe more notorious) players, Julia Collins and Arthur Chu. This championship win added a quarter million to Ingram's coffers, bringing his total winnings to $426,534, and making him the 11th biggest Jeopardy! winner of all time.

Ingram would return to the show as a part of the 2019 All-Star Games team tournament, where he was drafted by team captain Julia Collins (the two became friends following the Tournament of Champions, despite Ingram beating her) as the overall fourth pick in the draft. Their team would be rounded out with third member Seth Wilson, whose 12-game winning streak in 2016 is — as of this writing — the eighth-longest streak in the show's history. Unfortunately, Team Julia was the first team eliminated from the tournament, and the team split a $50,000 consolation prize three ways, which isn't considered part of total winnings.

Colby Burnett, an AP History teacher from Chicago, holds the distinction of being the only person so far to win both the Teachers Tournament and the Tournament of Champions, as noted on J! Archive. Burnett, often remembered for his tendency to wear oversized suits in his TV appearances, won the Teachers Tournament in November 2012, and a mere three months later, he won the Tournament of Champions in February 2013. The Teachers Tournament netted him $100,000, and the Tournament of Champions brought him home another $250,000.

Burnett returned to the show as part of the Battle of the Decades in 2014, where he finished in second place behind Roger Craig in a semifinal game (with all players missing that Prince Edward Island was named for Queen Victoria's father), which added a semifinalist's winnings to his total. After this, Burnett returned for the All-Star Games, where he captained a team that also included Pam Mueller (whom he'd previously played in the Battle of the Decades) and Alan Lin. Burnett's team finished third behind Brad Rutter's and Ken Jennings's teams. As a result, Burnett, Mueller, and Lin split the third place prize of $100,000. All told, Burnett's official winnings total $480,334, which isn't too shabby for someone who never played a single regular season game.

To make it onto the list of Jeopardy!'s highest-ever earners, it's pretty much essential to win a big money game like the Tournament of Champions. The $250,000 prize from that tournament plays a key role in propelling pretty much every player on this list into the upper strata of players. That's not universally true, however. As the New York Post reports, Jason Zuffranieri's 19-game winning streak in 2019 was good enough to net him $532,496 in total winnings, all without a tournament win. The Albuquerque math teacher's run on the show landed him the third-highest regular season winnings behind Ken Jennings and James Holzhauer, the fourth-longest winning streak behind Jennings, Holzhauer, and Julia Collins, and the seventh-highest total winnings overall. Zuffranieri got knocked out in his 20th game after failing to correctly identify the Sydney Opera House as the subject of the song "The Eighth Wonder." A classic blunder.

However, Zuffranieri stands a significant shot of making a considerable jump in these ratings. The sole reason he's listed here with only regular season winnings is that there hasn't been a Tournament of Champions with him in it as of this writing. Whenever the next championship occurs, Zuffranieri will be there, and he has an extremely good chance of winning. A Tournament of Champions win would put him in the top four, behind Holzhauer.

As J! Archive records, at the time of her six-game run in 2008, Larissa Kelly was the winningest woman in Jeopardy! history. Her total winnings of $222,597 made her the highest-winning female contestant in history and the fifth overall winner in regular season play. She also broke Ken Jennings' record for most money won in five days. However, her status as winningest woman has since been taken by Julia Collins and her 20-game streak, her five-day winnings record was beaten by Roger Craig and then James Holzhauer, and she's no longer in the top ten for regular season play, but her numerous accomplishments are nothing to sneeze at.

Kelly returned for the 2009 Tournament of Champions, where she finished in second place behind Dan Pawson, adding $100,000 to her total winnings. She also took part in the 2014 Battle of the Decades, where she was eliminated in the first round, but she still added $5,000 to her cash pile. The major event that rocketed her up the standings and returned her to her position as highest-ranked woman, however, was when she was drafted (criminally late, according to Deadspin) to Brad Rutter's team in the 2019 All-Star Games. Together with Dave Madden, the three were basically an unstoppable Jeopardy! juggernaut, and they finished in first and split $1 million three ways, giving Kelly a final total of $660,930.

During James Holzhauer's headline-grabbing, barn-burning Jeopardy! run in 2019, it seemed like he would never lose, shatter all standing records, and change the way the game was played forever. As The New York Times points out, the first two didn't quite happen, but he's definitely made an indelible impression on the game. The Las Vegas sports gambler was known for grabbing high money clues early, betting huge on Daily Doubles to get unsurpassable banks of cash, and most importantly, almost never getting a question wrong. It honestly seemed like he might never lose, like he was destined to beat Ken Jennings's legendary streak, until he did lose in his 33rd game to librarian Emma Boettcher.

Still, he's indisputably one of the best to ever play, with the second-longest winning streak ever, the second-highest regular season winnings, and every spot in the top 16 highest single-day totals ever. He averaged over $75,000 per episode, but his total regular season winnings of $2,462,216 fell just short of Jennings's record. Holzhauer returned for the 2019 Tournament of Champions, which he of course won, adding $250,000 to his total, and he then went up against Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter in 2020's Greatest of All Time tournament, finishing in second place, adding another quarter mil to his pile for a total of $2,962,216. His career is still young, though, so he might not be finished winning.

Brad Rutter is not only the biggest winner in Jeopardy! history, he's also the biggest winner in all of game show history. It's wild to think how much more money he might have had, though, if his initial Jeopardy! run hadn't happened before the five-game cap was lifted. Until 2020, his reputation was that he'd never lost a game of Jeopardy! to a human (that is to say, Watson the Jeopardy! robot beat him), but as The Washington Post explains, Rutter finally took an L to his long-time rival Ken Jennings in the Greatest of All Time tournament. 

Rutter's original run on Jeopardy! in 2000 wasn't going to break any records. He took home $55,102 and two Camaros (that used to be a thing for five-time winners). It was in tournaments, however, that Rutter began to shine. He won the 2001 Tournament of Champions for $100,000 and then the 2002 Million Dollar Masters, winning, well, $1 million. He beat Jennings for the first time in 2005's Ultimate Tournament of Champions, winning $2,115,000. He finished third in the IBM exhibition match and took home $100,000 and then won another cold million in the Battle of the Decades in 2014. A first place finish for his team in the All-Star Games and a third place finish in the Greatest of All Time brought his total to a hard-to-fathom $4,938,436.