Yeah this is true. Last Friday I think he won $80k and it didn't seem like he played that great (missed the first DD, was tied with another player at the first commercial). Then I realize he just won more than the previous record.

A new single day record today (Tuesday) would just about do it. $106k per day over the next 2 days would do it. Or $96.4k per day over 3 days. It's very much in reach.

I'm curious about what might happen if it becomes clear that he's just going to win indefinitely, and what actions the show might take and after how long. Like if he wins 200 games and $15ish million, do the producers maybe negotiate a buyout with him? Because obviously the value he adds from extra viewers he gets will have diminishing returns over time, and there will come a point where he'll literally be in danger of putting the show out of business (I think).

Idunno, does anyone here work in TV production know what kind of profits a game show makes in a given day? Is it way more than his daily 70k and I'm being naive?

Thought winners are paid over 30 years or something

Average winner makes 20K, James makes 70K - it seems like they could raise advertising rates easily to get another 50k in revenue per show.

I expect average innings will increase going forward as others emulate his style, but historically Trebek earns more than all the winners for a year combined. When he dies it seems like they should be able to sign up any number of suitable replacements for a substantial reduction to cover any overage in expected winnings.

Also J! has the ability to make questions harder to limit winnings if they really got pressed, although I suppose that could impact viewer ratings over time.

Bottom line, James is an outlier and I don't think his success puts Jeopardy! in jeopardy.

When do Jeopardy! contestants receive their winnings?

A: About six weeks or two months after taping.

Anyone know off hand or roughly how many times during Ken Jennings' run that he almost lost? Did he ever come from behind at FJ? What was his lock %?

People talking about James breaking game and being unbeatable. Disagree with that.

You watch all the champs play. They hunt for daily doubles. This has been going on for years. Yet still, watching regular people play, for years it's still been the run down from 200 approach. These regular people never change.

Ken Jennings didn't do what James is doing. He isn't purposefully running up a score, then going all in on Daily Doubles. Even Ken admits it in this article:

https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/23/enter...rdy/index.html

If James wins like 40 games, we'll have a really good sample size to be able to come to some estimations on what his odds of actually losing a game are based on buzz in rate, correct answer %, DD find rate and correct %, average lead and wager in DDs, etc.

What were Ken's odds of losing based on all those stats

Nope. Every once in a while a champ comes along like Arthur Chu playing the game like it's supposed to be played. Those who play him attempt to emulate that style, but once that champ is gone, all the players go back to normal and take the categories from the top and wager $2000 on all the DD's.

It's sad and hilarious, but I've seen it over and over throughout the years. Academic types just don't understand how to properly play a game.

I suppose they go simply not show his episodes any more although that would be a huge public relations snafu.

Not sure where this bit of info came from, but it's flat out wrong.

Contestants do not get paid until after their final show airs. And they can take up to 180 days from then to do so. And if your show does not air they don't have to pay you.

Very few champs actually do this. Look at the two best, Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter. They both play from the top down and wager little on their DD's. Of course Ken could do that with next to zero risk because of his knowledge base and complete mastery of the buzzer.

Let's face it, a crazy small number of contestants play any game show in an optimal manner. And most of them are really simple to beat if you do so.

Hence the thread title

The most important variable is the quality of his opponents. He's incredibly unlikely to lose against anyone but a top 5-10% player and obviously the probability of losing goes way up as the opponent approaches the top 1% or so.

Against average opponents he could get all 3 daily doubles wrong (which will never happen) and still be a strong favorite.

I've been thinking all you "he'll never lose!" guys are gonna look dumb if he loses one soon...

Until I agreed with the last paragraph of the post above this one.

So how much money did Ken Jennings leave on the table by not betting aggressively? A couple of million?

That makes me curious about his losing game. Would he have won it if he wagered more intelligently? Anyone have a link to the episode?

holy ****. what a machine

No link, but wiki description indicates he would have lost as he got 2 DDs wrong and the final question, so not sure that wagering better would have helped (assuming that his wagers were on low side of optimal).

Here is the archive for that game. Had he gotten either of the two DDs right, it would have been a run away.

http://www.j-archive.com/showgame.php?game_id=62

If he goes all in on the first DD ($1800 more) and saves $1800 on the second one (+$3600) he only needs to save an additional $2000 on the last DD to end up with it locked up. It's definitely close and based on these numbers I think it's fairly likely he would have locked it up if he shoved on the first DD.

Interestingly enough, the vast majority of superchamps have been defeated by very average players who typically lose their next game. This was the case when KJ's 74 game winning streak was stopped.

I'll say the same thing about James as I said about Ken, he'll get beat by a woman in a game where there are some important female-centric clues. Although he hasn't shown many holes in his knowledge base so far.

Pregnancy didn't beat him

Getting the last two DDs and Final Jeopardy wrong, with the opponent getting it correct is a yuuuuuuge parlay. I can only assume that's the only time that happened to Ken? I'd happily lay 100 to 1 on any single game against that happening to James. True odds are probably at least like 400 to 1, maybe much longer, unless they intentionally rig it against him.

If that happens to James, yeah, almost anyone can beat him.

Can you guys imagine how boring it would be to watch Jennings after this?

Once James is done the show is ruined for me aside from ToC.

Here's the stats on James through yesterday's game and KJ's full run.

http://www.j-archive.com/showplayers...layer_id=12600
http://www.j-archive.com/showplayers...hp?player_id=1

After comparing the two I don't think James can continue his high percentage of correct answers on DD's and FJ's. But we will see.

James a perfect bookend to Trebeks career