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Professional Sports Bettor Sets New 'Jeopardy!' Record for One-Day Winnings Total

What is a "Jeopardy!" record? James Holzhauer now knows after setting a new single-game winnings record. 

Charlotte Carroll

Screenshot via @Jeopardy

$110,914 in a single day. What is a "Jeopardy!" record?

James Holzhauer set a new single-game winnings record and earned the most ever on a single day in the game show's 35-year history in an episode that aired on Tuesday. Roger Craig held the old record of $77,000 on Sept. 14, 2010.

Holzhauer, a professional sports bettor who lives in Las Vegas, has won $244,365 during his four-day streak, which is also a record. He correctly answered the Final Jeopardy question with "What is quantum leap" to win an additional $38,314 for a grand total of $110,914. The prompt was, "Ironically, it's a metaphor meaning a huge step forward, but this 2-word process only occurs on a subatomic scale."

The show created a side-by-side to see how Craig and Holzhauer stack up.

On Monday, the program tweeted a teaser, saying, "The next great champion is coming." The trailer ends with host Alex Trebek asking, "Is it too soon to begin making comparisons with Ken Jennings?" Jennings is the legendary contestant who won 74 straight games in 2004 to win more than $2.5 million.

According to the Washington Post, the 34-year old Holzhauer is from Naperville, Ill. and graduated from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in 2005 with a bachelor's in mathematics. Holzhauer told ESPN he's been betting on sports since 2006, starting with baseball and then moving on to football, basketball and hockey.

"Now, I focus largely on in-game betting, where the oddsmaker often struggles to put an accurate line with only few seconds to think about it," Holzhauer told ESPN. "I think my work is similar to an investment bank, except that I'm the analyst, trader, fund manager and day trader all into one."

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Charlotte Carroll
CHARLOTTE CARROLL

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