ken jennings has been the biggest winner on jeopardy.
who has been the biggest winner on jeopardy?
ken jennings
brad rutter (born january 31, 1978) is the biggest all-time money winner on "jeopardy!" and briefly held the record for biggest cumulative game show winnings for any u.s. game show contestant. rutter retained the record for "jeopardy!" winnings with either $4,255,102 or $4,270,102, and a pair of chevrolet camaros. rutter became a five-day undefeated champion on "jeopardy!" in 2000, with a total of $55,102. he subsequently won four "jeopardy!" tournament titles: the 2001 tournament of champions, the 2002 million dollar masters tournament, the 2005 ultimate tournament of champions, and the 2014 battle of the decades. in twenty games, rutter has never lost an official "jeopardy!" match to a human, though he was defeated in an exhibition match by the watson supercomputer and ken jennings (who outpointed rutter in the two-game match). his team won the 2019 jeopardy! all-star games relay tournament.
list of jeopardy! contestants
in 1999, mckee was passed by michael shutterly, who was the biggest winner in the first season of "who wants to be a millionaire" in the united states. shutterly was the first contestant on the show to get to the 15th and final question, but elected to walk instead with $500,000 which made him the biggest winner in american game show history at the time. shutterly had previously won $49,200 as a four-day champion on "jeopardy!" in 1988, making his career winnings total $549,200. on november 19, during the second season of "millionaire" in the united states, the show crowned its first million-dollar winner when john carpenter won the show's top prize without using any lifelines, save for a phone call on the final question, when he told tell his father he was going to win the million dollars. after carpenter answered the final question, which concerned richard nixon's appearance on "laugh-in" in 1968, host regis philbin proclaimed carpenter the show's (and worldwide format's) first top-prize winner. carpenter's record remained intact until the following year. in early 2000, rahim oberholtzer, a contestant on the revival of nbc's "twenty one," won four games in his appearances on the show, along with $120,000 in the show's "perfect 21" bonus round, for a total of $1,120,000. for surpassing carpenter's mark, then-host maury povich proclaimed oberholtzer "the tv game show king". late in its run, the fox game show "greed" brought back some of its previous winners to try for an extra $1,000,000. curtis warren, who was part of the first "team" to win $1,000,000 on the show (of which his share was $400,000, plus $10,000 for winning a terminator round), was one of the contestants brought back to do so on february 11, 2000. warren was given a question about tv shows that had been made into movies, with eight choices (of which he had to identify the four correct answers). he successfully did so, giving himself $1,410,000 and the record for the time being. warren's record was even shorter lived than oberholtzer's had been, lasting only four days. three days before warren's win, david legler, who also appeared on "twenty one," began a run as champion on the show. four days after warren's win, the run continued, with legler having earned a grand total of $1,765,000 in six wins to surpass warren's record and become the third contestant in two months to top $1,000,000 on a game show.
american game show winnings records