10 Best Jeopardy! Players Of All Time, Ranked

“Jeopardy!” is a rare entertainment institution that values intelligence above all. Over its 60-plus years on the air, with iconic hosts like Art Fleming, Alex Trebek, and Ken Jennings (who will never appear on “The Traitors”), the show has honored normal Americans (and Canadians) with cash for their knowledge.

But among this plethora of contestants, who are the best? And how do you qualify “the best”? In this case, we used cold hard cash; the following 10 contestants have won the most money. Therefore, other notable contestants who have changed the game, like Chuck Forrest or Arthur Chu, cannot be honored here as their winnings just don’t cut the mustard.

With that in mind, let’s get our hands on the buzzers and rank the 10 best “Jeopardy!” players of all time.

David Madden, an art historian whose recent, borderline villainous appearance on the Rob Lowe-hosted “The Floor” arguably makes him a part-time game show pro, won a “Jeopardy!” total of $763,733.

Madden won 19 games in a row before losing to Victoria Groce. After his regular season run, Madden competed in the 2006 Tournament of Champions, getting knocked out in the semifinals by Bill MacDonald; the 2019 All-Star Games as part of Brad Rutter’s winning team; and the 2024 Invitational Tournament, losing in the semifinals to Amy Schneider.

Madden has also participated in charity work, hiking across the United States for the Fisher House Foundation. He also, in his words, “founded the National History Bee and National History Bowl, two history-themed quiz tournaments, which hundreds of thousands of students in the USA have taken part in… My Jeopardy! winnings provided the seed money and the impetus to get back involved in academic competition. I cannot thank the show enough for that, as this truly is my dream job.”

A musician, writer, and trivia superstar from Macon, Georgia, Victoria Groce won $772,801 over her “Jeopardy!” tenure.

In the regular season, Groce first became a champion by beating David Madden. She was then knocked out in the very next episode by Ray Freson.

Groce’s success came primarily from a series of tournaments. She won $100,000 in the 2024 Invitational Tournament, beating out contestants Amy Schneider and Andrew He in the final matches. Groce commented on her relative lack of experience, saying, “I hoped that I knew as many facts as anybody else. I knew that everybody else had a lot more experience on this stage and also a whole lot more hours on the buzzer than I did.”

The Cinderella story continued. Groce won the 2024 Masters tournament, beating James Holzhauer and Yogesh Raut and winning $500,000 — plus the Alex Trebek Trophy. Of her game, she said, “I never felt like I could take anything for granted until I had locked up, you know, the next stage of the competition. I have far too much respect for the game and far too much respect for my opponents who are incredible.”

A Canadian tutor and broadcaster from Halifax, Nova Scotia, Mattea Roach won $810,983 over their “Jeopardy!” run.

Roach went on a 23-game tear during their regular season play before getting beaten by Danielle Maurer by just one dollar.

Then, Roach competed in the 2022 Tournament of Champions, losing in the semifinals to Andrew He.  Roach then participated in the 2023 Masters tournament, coming in second place to James Holzhauer with Matt Amodio coming in third. The following year, Roach also competed in the 2024 Masters tournament, this time getting eliminated in the quarterfinals.

Writing of their “Jeopardy!” experience, Roach said it fundamentally changed their mindset from pessimism to optimism: “I genuinely did not believe… that I was capable of enjoying myself with such wild abandon. And the realization that such joy is possible for me has changed me forever for the better.”

Clad in a series of loud but smart orange outfits over his tenure, Jamie Ding is the newest member of the “Jeopardy!” Leaderboard of Legends. As of this writing, his grand total won is $882,605 — and he hasn’t even competed in any tournaments yet.

In the spring of 2026, Ding went on a 31-game streak, winning the majority in wild runaways thanks to his bold and hefty Daily Double wagers — in fact, Ding has lost the most amount of money ever in a single Daily Double wager, $21,200, and still won the game. In game 32, he lost to Greg Shahade, an eccentric player who beat Ding in a runaway himself, going on to win two more games.

Ding looked back fondly on his time and used his new platform to speak up about issues affecting his fellow immigrant Americans, telling People that “as an immigrant and a person of color, I was able to become part of the history of an American institution. ‘Jeopardy!’ really is an institution and America’s turning 250 years old, and the federal government is going after immigrants in a way unlike anything that we’ve seen in the recent past. So I hope that immigrants can be seen in a positive light too.” 

The first “Jeopardy!” millionaire on the list, Springfield, Illinois-born writer Yogesh Raut earned $1,096,403 during his time on the game show.

Raut only won three games in his regular season play, getting beaten by Katie Palumbo in his fourth appearance. But that was good enough to earn him a spot in the 2024 Tournament of Champions and he won the whole darn thing.

In the wake of this win, Raut wrote of the mindset of a great “Jeopardy!” player: “There’s a common misconception that high-level quizzers are basically robots, spitting back dry, context-less facts from their ‘photographic’ memories… it does a great disservice to the personality traits actually correlated with quizzing success: boundless curiosity, pride in one’s own passion, a desire to connect with others over their passions, and creativity.”

Raut then competed in the 2024 and 2025 Masters events back to back. In 2024, he came in second place to Victoria Groce. But in 2025, he once again won the whole darn thing, proving that curiosity, indeed, has no bounds.

Coming in fifth place is Amy Schneider, a writer from Dayton, Ohio, with total winnings of $1,682,800.

In regular season play, Schneider won a whopping 40 games in a row before getting defeated by Rhone Talsma. Schneider went on to win the 2022 Tournament of Champions, beating fellow finalists Andrew He and Sam Buttrey. “Any three of us could have won if a very small number of things had gone differently,” said Schneider after the win. “I’m glad we each got a real chance to really test our skills against each other.”

The next year, Schneider played in the Masters Tournament but was eliminated without winning a single game. Then, in 2024, Schneider competed again, this time advancing to the semifinals before getting eliminated.

Also in 2024, Schneider played in the Invitational Tournament, coming in second place to winner Victoria Groce. She played in the same tournament the following year but was eliminated in the quarterfinals by Luigi de Guzman.

With his terse, eccentric manner of answering clues (no matter what, his form of a question was just “What’s”), mathematician Matt Amodio captured the “Jeopardy!” audience’s hearts and minds, winning a total of $1,818,601.

Amodio won 38 regular-season games in a row before getting beaten by Jonathan Fisher. “To see myself on this stage at all was an honor,” said Amodio of his historic run. “And everything that’s happened since, I just can’t fathom.”

In the 2022 Tournament of Champions, Amodio made it to the semifinals before getting beaten by Sam Buttrey. Three years later, Amodio won the 2025 Invitational Tournament, beating finalists Roger Craig and Juveria Zaheer. In the 2026 Invitational, he made it to the semifinals before getting beaten by Andrew He.

Amodio has also participated in three Masters tournaments. In 2023, he came in third place, with James Holzhauer winning the whole shebang. However, in both the 2024 and 2025 tournaments, he was eliminated fairly early in the quarterfinals.

A professional gambler from Naperville, Illinois (which you can see when he pantomimes pushing in all of his chips on Daily Doubles), James Holzhauer cuts a striking vibe on “Jeopardy!” episodes, almost playing a professional wrestling-style “villain,” an image he started cultivating on shows like “The Chase.” His winnings total $3,612,216.

Holzhauer won 32 regular-season games in a row before getting defeated by Emma Boettcher. His secret to success? He would study subjects in children’s books, as “they come at you rapid fire with different subjects, and I’ve seen lots and lots of answers that came straight from that.” He would also eat “a slice of cheese pizza, a candy bar and a bag of chips” every game day, which sounds pretty delicious to us.

Holzhauer then competed in and won the 2019 “Tournament of Champions,” beating Boettcher and Francois Barcomb. He’s also appeared in two “Masters” tournaments, winning the 2023 competition and coming in third place in the 2024 one.

Holzhauer also participated in “The Greatest of All Time” tournament, where he faced Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter in a “first to three matches” competition. Winning one match to Jennings’ three, Holzhauer came in second place.

The current host of “Jeopardy!” and a player who arguably codified the idea of a “best player of all time” in the cultural consciousness, the Edmonds, Washington-born Ken Jennings won $4,370,700 over his time as a contestant. He started the run as a computer programmer, but he probably doesn’t need to touch a PC again as long as he lives.

Jennings currently has the longest regular-season streak, winning 74 games in a row before getting bested by Nancy Zerg. After that mammoth run, Jennings appeared in multiple special “Jeopardy!” events, starting with the 2005 Ultimate Tournament of Champions, which Brad Rutter won and Jennings finished in second place.

Jennings also played in The IBM Challenge, in which he and fellow human Rutter faced off against the IBM supercomputer called Watson; in a striking blow against humanity, Watson beat the two humans pretty handily. Jennings next participated in the 2013 Battle of the Decades competition, ultimately coming in second place, once again, to Rutter.

Five years later, Jennings played in the All-Star Games, teaming up with Matt Jackson and Monica Thieu to, once again, come in second to Rutter (and his team, Larissa Kelly and David Madden).

Jennings’ final tournament before switching to full-time hosting was The Greatest of All Time competition. And this time, he beat Rutter and James Holzhauer fair and square.

By the factor of all-time winnings, the Lancaster, Pennsylvania-born Brad Rutter is the best “Jeopardy!” player of all time, winning $4,938,436 over his tenure.

Rutter’s initial run was in 2000, when a player could only win five games in a row before getting “retired” and advancing to the Tournament of Champions. Rutter did play in the ToC and won, beating Tad Carithers and Rick Knutsen.

Next up for Rutter was the Million Dollar Masters, which Rutter also won, making him, in 2002, the show’s first-ever millionaire. Rutter also won the Ultimate Tournament of Champions, beating Jerome Vered and Ken Jennings. Rutter did not win, however, the IBM Challenge, as supercomputer Watson could not be beaten.

Rutter came back strong, though, winning both the Battle of the Decades and All-Star Games competitions. But then, Jennings beat Rutter in the Greatest of All Time tournament, and then Rutter was eliminated quickly in the Masters tournament.

Can someone break through and beat Rutter’s winning record? Only time will tell.