This Is How Much Ken Jennings Made On Jeopardy And Exactly How He Made His Millions
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After an extremely unlikely person lured Alex Trebek into hosting Jeopardy! in the mid-'80s, he played a major role in the show becoming truly beloved. Given his role in the show's success, Trebek's hefty Jeopardy! salary made all the sense in the world.
Since he managed to become a television legend, Trebek's many fans were greatly saddened to learn that he was battling advanced cancer. After fighting hard against the disease, Trebek ultimately passed away in 2020.
Even though Jeopardy! and Trebek will always be synonymous in a lot of people's minds, the show went on after its host passed away. Ultimately, after someone else resigned from the show amid controversy, Mayim Bialik and Ken Jennings were hired to co-host Jeopardy! during the 2021-2022 season.
Before Jennings' was hired to co-host Jeopardy!, he appeared on the show as a contestant and reigned supreme as the champion for a record-breaking amount of days. With that in mind, many fans are curious about how much money Jennings has made from Jeopardy!, both as a contestant and co-host.
How Much Money Did Ken Jennings Win On Jeopardy?
In the years since Jeopardy! premiered, the vast majority of champions have won a day or two before they were replaced by someone else. However, there have been some champions who've won day after day and accumulated a huge amount of winnings.
Some of the most impressive Jeopardy! champions in the show's history include Brad Rutter, Matt Jackson, Julia Collins, David Madden, Jason Zuffranieri, Amy Schneider, and Matt Amodio. James Holzhauer also won nearly $2.5 million on top of winning in another way since he arguably said the funniest thing in Jeopardy! history.
Despite the impressive runs all of those champions went on, Ken Jennings still stands tall as the biggest winner in Jeopardy! history. In fact, Jennings won Jeopardy! so many days in a row that the show's ratings reportedly went up by 22% since people wanted to be there to see it when he finally lost.
After winning 74 times in a row, when Jennings finally lost to Nancy Zerg the studio audience could loudly be heard gasping. While it was sad to see the Jennings era end, he certainly still had a lot to celebrate.
By the time Jennings' run on Jeopardy! ended, he won the truly staggering sum of $2,520,700.
Thanks to Jennings' legendary run as Jeopardy! champion, he was asked to return to the show several times to compete against the cream of the crop among the show's other winners. Unsurprisingly, Jennings has been able to win a lot of money during those returns.
While Jennings didn't win during all of his returning appearances, he prevailed in several of them. As such, Jennings was able to expand his lifetime Jeopardy! winnings to $4,522,700.
How Much Money Is Ken Jennings Paid To Co-Host Jeopardy?
After Alex Trebek hosted Jeopardy! from 1984 until 2020, the show easily could have ended following his passing. However, based on Trebek's personality, it seems extremely likely that he would have celebrated the idea of someone else getting the chance to host Jeopardy! once he was gone.
Still, when the decision was made to continue Jeopardy! with guest hosts after Trebek's passing, the first person to take that gig had a tough task ahead of them. As it turns out, the person tapped to be the first Jeopardy! guest host after Trebek passed away was Ken Jennings.
After Jennings guest hosted Jeopardy! from January 11, 2021, to February 19, 2021, many fans thought he was excellent in the role. As a result, when the decision was made to hire permanent Jeopardy! co-hosts, Jennings was one of the people tapped for the role.
As of the time of this writing, there haven't been any reports about how much Jennings was paid to guest host Jeopardy! and his current co-host salary also hasn't been confirmed. However, that doesn't mean that nothing is known about either of those figures.
Roughly a month after Jennings guest hosted Jeopardy!, Dr. Oz took over the show from March 22, 2021 to April 2, 2021. Since Oz later went on to run for US Senate, he had to file financial disclosures. For that reason, it can be confirmed that Oz was paid a salary of $269,000 for his stint guest-hosting Jeopardy!.
Of course, given that Oz already was a TV host before he guest-hosted Jeopardy!, it certainly is possible he was paid more for his stint than Jennings was. However, it seems very safe to assume that Jennings was paid a similar figure for his time guest-hosting the show.
According to celebritynetworth.com, Alex Trebek's annual Jeopardy! salary was $18 million by the time he passed away. Considering Trebek's legendary run as the host of Jeopardy!, there is no way that Jennings gets paid anywhere near that much money. On top of that, Jennings shares hosting duties with Mayim Bialik.
Keeping all of that information in mind, fans can make an educated guess about how much Jennings currently gets paid to co-host Jeopardy!. No wonder, Jennings has a $4 million fortune according to celebritynetworth.com.
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