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Matt Amodio
Matt Amodio
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Matthew Benjamin Amodio[1][2] (born December 4, 1990) is an American mathematician and game show contestant who won 38 consecutive games on the game show Jeopardy! in 2021, the third-longest streak in the show's history, behind Ken Jennings and Amy Schneider.[3][4] A PhD student in computer science at Yale University,[5][6][7] Amodio won $1,519,601 in 39 appearances on Jeopardy!,[8][9] making him the third millionaire contestant on the show in regular-season play.[10][11] Across all American game shows, Amodio is the 7th-highest-earning contestant of all time. His run on the show has been called the "Amodio Rodeo".[12][13][14]

Key Information

Early life and education

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Born on December 4, 1990, Amodio is a native of Medina County, Ohio.[15] He attended Medina High School where he graduated as valedictorian of the class of 2009.[16] Amodio graduated from Ohio State University in 2012 with a Bachelor of Science with Honors in Actuarial Science from the Department of Mathematics, while also earning a master's degree in Statistics.[17] He also earned a Master's of Science (MS) degree in Artificial Intelligence from the University of Wisconsin – Madison in 2017.[18] Amodio received a PhD in Computer Science from Yale University.[19][5][20][21]

After receiving degrees from The Ohio State University, Amodio worked for NSA contractor Booz Allen Hamilton from January 2014 until July 2015 "design[ing] and programm[ing] algorithms for machine learning applications," "construct[ing] interpretable network graph models from massive social media data," and "research[ing] algorithmic models and frameworks for graph analysis of IP networks."[1]

Game show appearances

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Academic Challenge

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Amodio was a contestant on the quiz show Academic Challenge on WEWS in Cleveland, Ohio, while studying at Medina High School in 2009. Participating with two fellow students against two competing high schools, his Medina team finished in second place.[22][23]

Jeopardy!

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Amodio is the third-highest earner of all time in regular-season play,[24] third-most successful in consecutive games won[25] and fourth-biggest all-time winner.[26] Amodio averaged $39,963 per victory, second highest all-time to James Holzhauer at $76,944. During season 37, Amodio qualified as the first seed in the next Tournament of Champions.[27] He responded to 1,299 clues—54.6% of all of the clues given—correctly over the course of his run.[28]

Actor Jonathan Fisher, originally from Coral Gables, Florida, who would himself amass an 11-game winning streak,[m 1] defeated Amodio in his 39th and final game.[m 2] The episode originally aired October 11, 2021.[29] Both appeared in the Jeopardy! Tournament of Champions that aired in November 2022 but did not play each other.[30] Amodio lost to Sam Buttrey.[31] In May 2023, Amodio and Buttrey (who was the Professors Tournament champion in Season 38) were invited to the Jeopardy! Masters tournament. Buttrey was eliminated in the first round, while Amodio was a finalist and finished third behind James Holzhauer and Mattea Roach. Amodio and Amy Schneider were relegated in the 2024 Jeopardy! Masters tournament, sending both into the 2025 Jeopardy! Invitational Tournament in February, which Amodio won to earn a slot in the 2025 version.[32]

Production

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To become a contestant on Jeopardy!, a prospect must successfully pass a test prepared by the production team as a first step in the audition process. Amodio was repeatedly encouraged by his father to take the online test. After taking the online test twice, Amodio was invited to personally audition for the show.[33] In addition to the test results, the producers consider the personality of the prospective contestant; as an introvert, Amodio was concerned that he would not be interesting enough for the show.[34]

Amodio's winning streak came during an interregnum in the show's hosting position after longtime host Alex Trebek died in November 2020, during which the show was helmed by guest hosts. Amodio's streak spanned episodes hosted by Robin Roberts, LeVar Burton, David Faber, and Joe Buck. Mike Richards was named permanent host on August 11, 2021, but lasted only one taping day (first week of season 38), and was replaced by interim host Mayim Bialik (who rotated the rest of season 38 with Ken Jennings, but Amodio's reign ended before Jennings' official term as host, as Jennings was the first host of the interregnum). As Jeopardy! tapes five episodes per production day, Amodio recorded his 39 episodes on nine separate days (three on his first day, one on his final day).[35]

Amodio played with his seventh different host during the Tournament of Champions, which featured Jennings as host, and won a Jennings-hosted game in the Masters tournament, where he defeated Andrew He (Season 39 Tournament of Champions finalist) and James Holzhauer (Season 36 Tournament of Champions winner) in his second game, becoming only the third contestant in Jeopardy! history to defeat Holzhauer (Emma Boettcher, in Game 33; current host Ken Jennings, thrice in the two-legged tie of The Greatest of All Time).

Strategy

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Amodio is noted for his strategy of consistently prefacing his responses with "What's" instead of adjusting the interrogative pronoun to fit the response. Amodio chose this method because Jeopardy! rules allow any question containing the correct response to be used; by not having to adjust the pronoun, he has one less thing to think about when formulating a response, potentially speeding response time.[36] Amodio has credited Wikipedia's wikilinks format for allowing him to meander through various topics in a random but logical progression and learn content quickly.[20][36]

Regular play winnings

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Game no. Air date Host Final score Cumulative winnings Notes
1 July 21 Robin Roberts $40,400* $40,400
2 July 22 $41,000 $81,400
3 July 23 $20,000 $101,400 First game in which he failed to give a correct response in Final Jeopardy! round.
4 July 26 LeVar Burton $21,000* $122,400 Contestant Patrick Pearce scored the lowest ever (non-adjusted) score of -$7,400.
5 July 27 $25,400* $147,800
6 July 28 $47,000 $194,800
7 July 29 $74,000 $268,800
8 July 30 $22,400 $291,200 Second game in which he failed to give a correct response in Final Jeopardy! round.
9 August 2 David Faber $19,200 $310,400 Third game in which Amodio failed to give a correct response in Final Jeopardy! round.
10 August 3 $52,000 $362,400
11 August 4 $6,200 $368,600 Fourth game in which he failed to give a correct response in Final Jeopardy! round. Broke record for most winnings lost on Final Jeopardy! in regular play ($37,000). His lowest winning single day total.
12 August 5 $26,000 $394,600 His lowest single day total runaway game with a correct Final Jeopardy! response.
13 August 6 $35,600 $430,200
14 August 9 Joe Buck $10,400 $440,600 Fifth game in which Amodio failed to give a correct response in Final Jeopardy! round. Amodio crossed out the correct response in Final.
15 August 10 $35,000 $475,600
16 August 11 $29,600 $505,200 Sixth game in which he failed to give a correct response in Final Jeopardy! round. Crossed out the correct response in Final.
17 August 12 $42,400* $547,600 Reached third-place on all-time Jeopardy! regular play winnings list
18 August 13 $27,201* $574,801 Season 37 finale of Jeopardy!. Amodio was in a "lock-tie" situation headed to Final Jeopardy!, which since season 34 rule change meant he had to wager as least $1 to prevent a tie-breaker, win or lose. Amodio's run went on a month-long hiatus following the end of the season.
19 September 13 Mike Richards $67,800 $642,601 Season 38 premiere of Jeopardy!. Mike Richards had been named permanent host days before taping, but left after this taping day.
20 September 14 $36,200 $678,801
21 September 15 $61,200 $740,001 Passed Julia Collins for third-longest winning streak in regular play.
22 September 16 $35,400 $775,401
23 September 17 $50,400 $825,801
24 September 20 Mayim Bialik $31,200* $857,001 Seventh game in which Amodio failed to give a correct response in Final Jeopardy! round. The only game in which a contestant (Tracy Pitzel) had an opportunity to end Amodio's streak by correctly answering Final Jeopardy!, which she failed to do.[37]
25 September 21 $36,200 $893,201
26 September 22 $36,200 $929,401
27 September 23 $25,800 $955,201 Eighth game in which he failed to give a correct response in Final Jeopardy! round. Crossed out the correct response in Final.
28 September 24 $48,800 $1,004,001 Became third Jeopardy! contestant to win $1 million in regular gameplay winnings
29 September 27 $33,000 $1,037,001
30 September 28 $70,400 $1,107,401
31 September 29 $50,600 $1,158,001
32 September 30 $54,400 $1,212,401
33 October 1 $55,400 $1,267,801 Moved into #10 on American game show winnings list. Passed James Holzhauer for second-longest winning streak in regular play.
34 October 4 $83,000 $1,350,801 Highest single game score ever achieved by a contestant other than Holzhauer. 13th highest overall.
35 October 5 $50,000 $1,400,801
36 October 6 $16,600 $1,417,401 Ninth game in which he failed to give a correct response in Final Jeopardy! round.
37 October 7 $50,400 $1,467,801
38 October 8 $50,800 $1,518,601 Last episode with Mike Richards as executive producer.
39 October 11 $5,600‡ $1,519,601 Defeated by challenger Jonathan Fisher, who finished the game with $29,200. At the end of the first round, Amodio had $9,800; Fisher had $4,000; and challenger Jessica Stephens had $2,400. At the end of Double Jeopardy!, Fisher was in the lead with $14,600; Stephens was in second place with $14,400; and Amodio was in third with $10,600. This was the first time that Amodio trailed going into Final Jeopardy! round. Amodio gave the wrong response and finished third. He was awarded $1,000. This was the 10th game in which he failed to give a correct response in the Final Jeopardy! round. First episode with Michael Davies as executive producer.
* Yellow background denotes game which was not a runaway (lead going into Final Jeopardy! round could not guarantee a win).
‡ Red background denotes game in which Amodio is defeated.

See also

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References

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Revisions and contributorsEdit on WikipediaRead on Wikipedia
from Grokipedia
Matt Amodio (born December 4, 1990) is an American quantitative researcher and contestant best known for his record-setting performance on the television quiz show Jeopardy!, where he won 38 consecutive games during the 2021–22 season, earning $1,518,601 and securing the third-longest regular-season winning streak in the program's history. A native of , Amodio graduated from with a B.S. in in 2012 and an M.S. in applied statistics in 2013. He later earned an M.S. in from the University of Wisconsin in 2015 before completing a Ph.D. in at in 2022, with his dissertation focusing on "Deep Learning for Embedding and Integrating Multimodal Biomedical Data." Following his doctoral studies, Amodio joined the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard as a postdoctoral researcher, specializing in machine learning and artificial intelligence applications for biomedical analysis. By 2025, he had transitioned to a role as a full-time quantitative researcher based in New York City. Amodio's Jeopardy! career began with his debut in July 2021, during which his aggressive buzzing strategy and frequent use of the phrase "What is" in responses drew both acclaim and controversy among fans. His streak ended in October 2021 after a loss to Jonathan Fisher, but he returned for the 2022 Tournament of Champions, reaching the semifinals. He competed in the inaugural Jeopardy! Masters tournament in 2023, reaching the finals before placing third overall. In February 2025, Amodio won the Jeopardy! Invitational Tournament, defeating 27 top contestants including Roger Craig and Juveria Zaheer in the finals to claim the title and qualify for that year's Masters event, where he finished fifth overall.

Early life and education

Early life

Matthew Benjamin Amodio was born on December 4, 1990, in Medina, Ohio. He grew up in a middle-class family in this suburb of Cleveland as the youngest of four boys, alongside his brothers Dan, Steve, and Mike; his parents, Jim and Bonnie Amodio, still reside in Medina. The family led a typical suburban life, with Amodio attending public schools and developing an early affinity for learning through everyday activities. From a young age, Amodio showed strong interests in academics and , influenced by his family's routine of watching Jeopardy! together every evening during dinnertime. This exposure fostered a lifelong passion for the game show and competitive quizzing, as he later recalled always loving and rooting for champions like during their runs. His enthusiasm extended to puzzles and knowledge-building pursuits at home, setting the foundation for his academic excellence. Amodio attended Medina High School, where he excelled academically and graduated as of the class of 2009 with a 4.7 GPA. During high school, he participated in academic clubs and activities, including an appearance on the local television program Academic Challenge in 2009, which further ignited his interest in competitive trivia. These experiences highlighted his emerging talents in and related fields, shaping his path toward higher education.

Education

Amodio graduated as from Medina High School in 2009, achieving a weighted GPA of 4.7. He pursued undergraduate studies at , earning a with honors in from the Department of Mathematics in 2012. During this time, Amodio took additional coursework in to complement his primary major. He continued at Ohio State for graduate work, completing a in applied statistics in 2013. In 2015, Amodio obtained a second master's degree, a in from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Amodio enrolled in the PhD program in at around 2016, with a focus on and . His research centered on applications for embedding and integrating multimodal biomedical data, culminating in his dissertation of the same title defended in 2022. During his Yale tenure, Amodio co-authored several publications in AI, including work on single-cell multi-modal generative adversarial networks for spatial pattern analysis in cancer data.

Professional career

Pre-Jeopardy career

Prior to his appearance on Jeopardy!, Matt Amodio was a PhD candidate in at , where he conducted research in . His work centered on methods, including projects involving generative adversarial networks and autoencoders for integrating multimodal data, with a focus on predictive modeling in biomedical contexts such as single-cell genomics and . During this period, he systematically studied trivia as part of his personal development routine. His undergraduate degree in provided a strong foundation for his research, emphasizing predictive modeling and techniques.

Post-Jeopardy career

Following his appearance on Jeopardy!, Amodio completed his PhD in at in 2022, with a dissertation titled "Deep Learning for Embedding and Integrating Multimodal Biomedical Data," which explored generative models like adversarial networks and autoencoders for analyzing complex biomedical datasets. In 2023, Amodio began a postdoctoral fellowship at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, where he continued research in and , applying these techniques to single-cell data analysis and tumor heterogeneity in cancer studies. During this period, he co-authored several papers on multimodal generative models, including work on single-cell multi-modal GANs for revealing spatial patterns in data and topological frameworks for unsupervised medical image segmentation. By 2025, Amodio had transitioned to a role as a quantitative researcher based in .

Game show appearances

Academic Challenge

Matt Amodio made his first appearance on a competitive quiz show as a teenager in 2009, representing Medina High School on Academic Challenge, a local television program broadcast on WEWS (News 5 Cleveland) in . The show featured high school teams from the area competing in a team format, with Amodio participating alongside two classmates against opponents such as St. Ignatius High School. This early outing provided Amodio with his initial exposure to structured trivia competition on television. During the episode, Amodio demonstrated notable strengths in several academic categories, including —where he correctly answered questions on topics like the , , and the —and , covering authors and works such as , , Black Beauty, and . He also contributed effectively in (e.g., mountain ranges and national parks), mythology, and , showcasing quick buzzer speed with responses often delivered within seconds of the question being read, such as identifying "Robin Hood" at the 1:17 mark and "Yellowstone" at 1:25. One highlight included a minor stumble, incorrectly naming "" as the author of Black Beauty, but overall, his category dominance helped the team accumulate points through diverse correct answers. Medina High School's team finished second in the match against St. Ignatius, scoring 265 points to their opponents' 680, marking a strong but ultimately runner-up performance in this regional contest. This experience served as Amodio's first significant foray into competitive quizzing, honing his skills and building the confidence that would later propel him toward national game shows like Jeopardy!.

Jeopardy! regular season

Matt Amodio made his debut on the regular season of Jeopardy! on July 21, 2021, during the show's 38th season, facing initial opponents including traffic court supervisor Josh Saak and healthcare consultant Caroline McCreath in episodes taped earlier that summer under enhanced post-COVID-19 safety protocols, such as mandatory testing, social distancing on set, and production without a live studio audience. His run unfolded amid a transitional hosting period following the departure of executive producer Mike Richards in August 2021, with episodes featuring guest host Robin Roberts at the outset and later Ken Jennings and Mayim Bialik as the show shifted to permanent co-hosts. Amodio quickly established dominance, securing victories in his first 38 games through consistent performance and knowledge across categories, briefly interrupted by a production hiatus at the end of the initial broadcast week but resuming seamlessly in September. A highlight came on September 21, 2021, during his 28th win, when he crossed the one-million-dollar threshold in cumulative regular-season earnings, joining an elite group of contestants at that milestone. Notable matchups included competitive bouts against educators like Sam Buttrey and lawyers such as in earlier episodes, building toward his streak's climax. The streak concluded on October 11, 2021, in Amodio's 39th episode, where he fell to Jonathan Fisher after a tight three-contestant Final Jeopardy round, with Fisher advancing to an 11-game run of his own. At the time, Amodio's 38-game streak ranked as the second-longest in Jeopardy! history, behind only Ken Jennings's record of 74, though it later placed third following Schneider's 40 wins; across his regular-season games, he achieved an 89% correct response rate on clues, underscoring his precision under pressure. Throughout, Amodio occasionally prefaced responses with phrases like "What's," a stylistic choice that became a minor hallmark of his on-air presence.

Jeopardy! tournaments

Amodio first competed in a post-season Jeopardy! tournament during the 2022 Tournament of Champions, held in November 2022. As a top seed, Amodio received a first-round bye and competed in the semifinals against John Focht and Sam Buttrey, entering Final Jeopardy with $16,800 but finishing second to Sam Buttrey and earning $25,000. This performance highlighted Amodio's continued aggressive betting style from his regular-season run, though it fell short of the finals. In the inaugural Jeopardy! Masters tournament in May 2023, Amodio advanced through the quarterfinals and semifinals to reach the finals against and . He secured a semifinal win with 32,800 points but placed third overall in the best-of-three finals, wagering conservatively in key moments like Game 2 where he entered Final Jeopardy with 3,200 points. For his third-place finish, Amodio earned $150,000. Amodio returned triumphantly in the 2025 Jeopardy! Invitational Tournament, held in February-March 2025, where he dominated the field to win the title. In the finals against Roger Craig and Juveria Zaheer, he claimed victory in both games of the best-of-three series, leading after the Jeopardy! rounds with scores like $5,200 in Game 2 through strong buzzer efficiency and correct responses. This marked his first tournament championship, earning him $150,000 and a berth in the subsequent Masters event. Later that year, Amodio participated in the 2025 in April-May, advancing to the quarterfinals but ultimately finishing fifth overall. In his elimination game on May 27 against Juveria Zaheer and Roger Craig, he led after the Jeopardy! round with $4,800, entered Final Jeopardy with $8,600, correctly answered and wagered $2,000 to finish with $10,800, but placed second to Juveria Zaheer ($17,601). Earlier matches saw higher stakes, with totals around $36,000 in competitive rounds against players like Victoria Groce and Yogesh Raut. He received $75,000 for his performance. As a recognized superchampion, Amodio has made multiple tournament appearances, showcasing consistent strategy across high-stakes invitational events. His combined tournament earnings total over $400,000, including prizes from the 2022 Tournament of Champions, 2023 and 2025 Masters, and his 2025 Invitational victory.

Legacy and records

Jeopardy! achievements

Matt Amodio's 38-game winning streak in the 2021–2022 regular season marked the second-longest in Jeopardy! history at the time, spanning 39 total appearances and establishing him as a dominant superchampion. During this run, he amassed $1,518,601 in regular-season winnings, the third-highest total for a single streak behind Ken Jennings's $2,520,700 and James Holzhauer's $2,462,216. As of 2025, his regular-season earnings rank third all-time, behind only Jennings and Holzhauer. These achievements stemmed in part from his aggressive strategy of high Daily Double wagers and consistent performance. In subsequent tournaments, Amodio added approximately $300,000 to his earnings as of November 2025, for an overall Jeopardy! total of $1,818,601 and placing him in the top 10 all-time for combined regular-season and tournament winnings. Key tournament successes include a semifinalist prize of $50,000 in the 2022 Tournament of Champions, securing third place in the 2023 Jeopardy! Masters for $100,000, an early elimination in the 2024 Jeopardy! Masters for $25,000, and claiming the 2025 Jeopardy! Invitational Tournament title for $150,000. He also participated in the 2025 Jeopardy! Masters as a quarterfinalist. Among his notable records, Amodio became the third Jeopardy! contestant to reach millionaire status through regular-season play alone, following Jennings and Holzhauer. His streak featured standout single-game performances, including a personal and streak-high score of $83,000 during his 34th victory on October 4, 2021. Additionally, he maintained a success rate of approximately 74% in finding Daily Doubles across his regular-season games, contributing to his ability to control gameplay.

Public reception

Matt Amodio's distinctive answering style on Jeopardy!, particularly his consistent use of "What's" to begin responses regardless of the clue's phrasing, drew significant attention and criticism from fans during his 2021 regular-season run, sparking online debates and memes that portrayed him as a rule-bending " villain" for his aggressive, no-frills approach. The show's production team issued a public clarification affirming that his method complied with official rules, which only require the response to be in the form of a question, leading to widespread discussion on and fan forums about the nuances of gameplay . Media coverage of Amodio has generally portrayed him positively as an intellectual underdog, with features highlighting his analytical mindset and transition from Jeopardy! success to a career in artificial intelligence. In a 2025 profile in Ohio State Alumni Magazine, Amodio discussed his betting strategy—rooted in data-driven analysis similar to his AI research—and his Yale doctoral work on neural networks for biological data, emphasizing how his academic background shaped his trivia preparation. Interviews in outlets like Entertainment Weekly and Vulture further explored his preparation techniques, including studying pop culture despite personal disinterest, reinforcing his image as a strategic, challenge-seeking competitor. Fans and critics have praised Amodio's methodical, analytical playstyle for elevating the intellectual rigor of Jeopardy!, though some continued to critique his response phrasing as overly mechanical even after the 2021 clarifications. His victory in the 2025 Jeopardy! Invitational Tournament reignited interest, with official Jeopardy! social media and fan reactions dubbing it his "villain era" for bold buzzer timing and confident wagering, as noted in post-tournament commentary from CinemaBlend and TV Insider. Amodio's run has inspired broader discussions on the intersection of AI and trivia mastery, with media profiles linking his machine learning expertise to his game analysis, such as treating clue patterns like predictive models. Post-2021, he has appeared on podcasts like The SIS Baseball Podcast and news segments, sharing insights on strategy and his AI applications in medical research, while participating in charity events like the Game Theory fundraiser for .

References

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