Jeopardy James Holzhauer and Jeopardy host Alex Trebek.
James Holzhauer was a Jeopardy champion for 32 games but his incredible run has ended. In a tweet confirming the news, Holzhauer, a sports gambler from Las Vegas, jokingly blamed the Drake Curse for his inability to make it 33 games. Holzhauer’s joke was appreciated by fans who have been cheering him on, night after night.
On Monday, June 3, Holzhauer took to Twitter to let the world know that he was dethroned and he did so in a pretty epic way, given his background. You can see his tweet below.
The hilarious troll quickly went viral.
Here’s what you need to know:
What Is the Drake Curse?
GettyDrake pictured wearing a Dell Curry jersey during Game 1 of the NBA finals.
The social-media-minted Drake Curse causes teams to lose based on recent things the rapper does. When he wears a team’s jersey, for example, the team loses. When he takes a photo with an athlete, that athlete has a bad game and/or the team loses. The so-called Drake Curse has been in effect since 2012, but it didn’t officially become a “thing” until 2015.
Needless to say, James Holzhauer knows all about the Drake Curse. Being a sports gambler, he’s dialed into the superstitions and other “curses” that could affect how a team ends up competing.
Who Beat James Holzhauer?
Holzhauer will go down in history as one of the best contestants to ever play Jeopardy. He walked away with more than $2.4 million, which isn’t too bad for being good at trivia.
So, who was the lucky person to unseat the champ? Meet Emily Boettcher. She’s a resident librarian at the University of Chicago who has a masters in science from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.
“I lost to a really top-level competitor,” Holzhauer told The New York Times. “She played a perfect game. And that was what it took to beat me,” he added.
How did it all go down? It was a bit of a mathematical gamble.
“He first was concerned with the contestant in third place, who had $11,000 heading into a Final Jeopardy. Doubling down would have gotten that contestant to $22,000, which would have been $1 less than if James would have missed. If James doubled down, he would have been at $46,800, but Boettcher seemed to have done the math perfectly as well. She got the question right and wagered $20,201, which gave her $46,801, a dollar more than what Holzhauer would’ve earned with a double-down bet,” The Action Network reported.
“I knew I could only win if Emma missed Final Jeopardy, as there was no way she wouldn’t bet to cover my all-in bet. So my only concern was getting overtaken by third place, and I bet just enough to make sure of locking him out. Betting big would have looked good for the cameras, but now I turn my straight bet (Emma misses) into a parlay (Emma misses and I get it right),” Holzhauer told the outlet.
Holzhauer came up short in breaking another Jeopardy record. Ken Jennings banked more than $2.5 million over the course of 74 wins back in 2004.