'Jeopardy!' Champion Matt Amodio Loses Game Ending Long-Running Streak After 38 Consecutive Wins

"I always wanted to be a Jeopardy! champion and I accomplished that," the exiting champ said

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Published on October 11, 2021 07:30 PM

Matt Amodio's time on Jeopardy! has officially come to a close.

The Yale University Ph.D. student's 38 game winning streak came to an end during Monday's episode of the hit game show.

Amodio –– who originally hails from Medina County, Ohio –– came in third with $5,600 during Monday's episode, bringing his overall prize money earnings to $1,518,601.

An actor from Florida named Jonathan Fisher came out on top, finishing by a small margin as he scored $29,200 over statistical research specialist Jessica Stephens, who earned $28,799.

Amodio got stumped over a Final Jeopardy! clue regarding which nation Nazi Germany annexed and divided into regions of The Alps and The Danube before the Allies split it into four sectors. But Fisher and Stephens answered the clue correctly as "What is Austria?"

Jeopardy! Champion Matt Amodio — Jeopardy Productions, Inc.

"Everybody's so smart and so competent that this could happen any game," Amodio said in a statement. "And this time it did."

Even with Amodio's loss Monday, his efforts up until now put him in the number two spot on the all-time consecutive wins list behind Ken Jennings' 74 wins. His cash winnings additionally place him in the number three spot behind James Holzhauer ($2,462,216) and Jennings ($2,520,700).

Amodio will next appear on the upcoming Tournament of Champions season, where Jeopardy!'s top players from the previous season compete against each other.

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"I always wanted to be a Jeopardy! champion, and I accomplished that," Amodio said in a statement. "l know going into every bar trivia game that I play that I'm going to come in with a little intimidation factor. But also, I just like the badge that it represents."

"As somebody who prioritizes knowledge and knowing things, this is really a good one to have following me everywhere," he added.

Amodio made Jeopardy! history in September when he became the third all-time highest winner. Despite his vast knowledge, he has admitted pop culture is his weakest subject area.

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"I did my best. Thankfully, if there's one thing the internet has information on, it's celebrities. That's pretty easy," he told Vulture last month.

"I did my best to be interested in the minutiae of the celebrity eye. I'm naturally a curious person, which helps, but I still went in very skeptical. This is gonna be miserable every second I spend on TMZ reading about these people. But as I learned more, I was able to appreciate the nuances of things and started asking questions," he continued. "I would read about Brad Pitt and how he was married to Jennifer Aniston before Angelina Jolie. How did that end? Well, that was an interesting outcome. I found myself interested in the answers to these questions more than I thought I would be."

Mayim Bialik is serving as an interim host for the 38th season of Jeopardy! alongside Jennings. The Big Bang Theory alum and neuroscientist, 45, was initially cast as the host of Jeopardy! primetime and an upcoming spinoff series.