Ken Jennings

Kenneth Wayne Jennings III (born May 23, 1974) is an American game show host, author, and former game show contestant.

He is the highest-earning American game show contestant, having won money on five different game shows, including $4,522,700 on the U.S. game show Jeopardy! From 2021 to 2023, Jennings and Mayim Bialik alternated as hosts of that show, as well as Celebrity Jeopardy! In 2023, Jennings received a nomination for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Host for a Game Show.

In December 2023, Jennings was announced as Jeopardy!'s permanent main host.

Jennings holds the record for the longest winning streak on Jeopardy! with 74 consecutive wins.

He also holds the record for the highest average correct responses per game in Jeopardy! history (for those contestants with at least 300 correct responses) with 35.9 during his original run (no other contestant has exceeded 30) and 33.1 overall, including tournaments and special events.

Kenneth Wayne Jennings III was born on May 23, 1974, in Edmonds, Washington, a suburb of Seattle.

His father was a lawyer employed overseas, and Jennings spent 15 years growing up in South Korea and Singapore where his father worked.

Upon returning to the United States, Jennings attended the University of Washington.

Following two years as a volunteer missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, where he was assigned to serve in Madrid, Spain, Jennings transferred to Brigham Young University in 1996.

One of his roommates at BYU was author Brandon Sanderson.

He also played on the school's quizbowl team, at one point serving as captain, and graduated in 2000 with a double major in English and computer science.

Before 2003, Jeopardy! contestants were limited to five consecutive wins.

At the beginning of the show's 20th season in 2003, the rules were changed to allow contestants to remain on the show as long as they continued to win.

In 2004, Jennings won 74 consecutive Jeopardy! games before he was defeated by challenger Nancy Zerg in his 75th appearance.

After this rule change, and until Jennings' run, the record winning streak was set by Tom Walsh, who won $186,900 in eight games in January 2004.

Jennings' run began during Jeopardy! 20th season with the episode aired on June 2, 2004, in which he unseated two-time returning champion Jerry Harvey, and continued into season 21.

In that first episode, Jennings' entire winning streak nearly ended before it even began.

The Final Jeopardy!

answer was, "She's the first female track & field athlete to win medals in five different events at a single Olympics."

Jennings responded with "Who is Jones?"

Jennings' run was interrupted by the off-season break (July until September), 2004 Kids' Week, the Tournament of Champions (aired from September 20, 2004, through October 1, 2004), the 2004 United States presidential election (aired on Tuesday, November 2, 2004, pushing his weeks of episodes to air from Wednesday to Saturday) and the College Championship (aired from November 10, 2004, to November 23, 2004).

As a result, he went the entire five months without a loss.

Jennings did not participate in the Tournament of Champions, as invitations are extended only to champions (4 wins or more) who have been defeated (with the exception of the winner[s] of the College Championship).

On November 30, 2004, Jennings' reign as Jeopardy! champion ended when he lost his 75th game to challenger Nancy Zerg.

Jennings responded incorrectly to both Double Jeopardy!

Daily Doubles, causing him to lose a combined $10,200 ($5,400 and $4,800, respectively) and leaving him with $14,400 at the end of the round.

As a result, for only the tenth time in 75 games, Jennings did not have an insurmountable lead going into the Final Jeopardy!

round.

Only Jennings and Zerg, who ended Double Jeopardy!

with $10,000, were able to play Final Jeopardy!

as third-place contestant David Hankins failed to finish with a positive score after the Double Jeopardy!

Jennings' total earnings on Jeopardy! are $4,522,700, consisting of: $2,520,700 over his 74 wins; a $2,000 second-place prize in his 75th appearance; a $500,000 second-place prize in the Jeopardy! Ultimate Tournament of Champions (2005); a $300,000 second-place prize in Jeopardy!'s IBM Challenge (2011), when he lost to the Watson computer but became the first person to beat third-place finisher Brad Rutter; a $100,000 second-place prize in the Jeopardy! Battle of the Decades (2014); a $100,000 second-place prize (his share of his team's $300,000 prize) in the Jeopardy! All-Star Games (2019); and a $1,000,000 first-place prize in Jeopardy! The Greatest of All Time (2020).

During his first run of Jeopardy! appearances, Jennings earned the record for the highest American game show winnings.

His total was surpassed by Rutter, who defeated Jennings in the finals of the Jeopardy! Ultimate Tournament of Champions, adding $2 million to Rutter's existing Jeopardy! winnings.

After his success on Jeopardy!, Jennings wrote about his experience and explored American trivia history and culture in his book Brainiac: Adventures in the Curious, Competitive, Compulsive World of Trivia Buffs, published in 2006.

using only the last name of Marion Jones (who was not stripped of her medals until December 2007).

Host Alex Trebek said, "We will accept that, in terms of female athletes, there aren't that many."

If the response had not been accepted, Jennings would have finished in third place, and challenger Julia Lazarus would have won the game instead.

Jennings regained the record after appearances on several other game shows, culminating with his results on an October 2008 appearance on Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?, though Rutter retained the record for highest Jeopardy! winnings and once again passed Jennings' total after his victory in the Jeopardy! Battle of the Decades tournament.

In 2020, he once again faced off with and won against Rutter, as well as James Holzhauer, in a special primetime series, Jeopardy! The Greatest of All Time.