Champ Wasn\u2019t Afraid to Take Risks<\/strong><\/p>\nUnlike other ‘Jeopardy!’ contestants, who worked their way up from the easiest to the most challenging and financially rewarding questions, Holzhauer developed a strategy to quickly maximize the amount of money he won, Bergman says.<\/p>\n
He found his success in the higher-value questions, which are harder, but it allowed him to keep control of the board and increased his chances of claiming the Daily Double.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m guessing that if he was confident in a category, he probably hit the buzzer before finalizing the answer in his mind,\u201d Bergman says.<\/p>\n
He notes that Holzhauer wasn\u2019t reluctant to risk large sums in an effort to win the game.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think his willingness to go \u2018all in\u2019 was interesting. He wasn\u2019t scared to gamble $40,000 on one bet, which led to profit maximizing. I think most new players are more timid,\u201d said Bergman, noting that Holzhauer\u2019s educational credentials include a bachelor\u2019s degree in mathematics from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, a background that likely influenced his decisions.<\/p>\n
Holzhauer, who had taken a year off from work to prepare for the game show, had accrued more money than his competitors and was in an advantageous position when he hit a Daily Double. He bet aggressively, and it paid off because he answered 72 of the 76 Daily Doubles he played. Bergman says his technique was far more aggressive than that of Ken Jennings, the previous ‘Jeopardy!’ champion.<\/p>\n
The fourth-highest American game-show winner of all time, Holzhauer\u2019s winning streak on ‘Jeopardy!’ extended from April to June 2019 and allowed him to set multiple single-game records for winnings accrued. His winning record intrigued viewers, with one episode drawing more than 14 million people.<\/p>\n
Sports Betting Now a $400 Billion Industry<\/strong><\/p>\nOne thing is clear: whether on betting the odds in a game show or in professional sports, there is money to be made, Bergman says.<\/p>\n
Last year, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a 1992 federal law that effectively banned commercial sports betting in most states, thereby allowing the legalization of an estimated $150 billion professional and amateur sports betting industry. Since that ruling, the industry has grown to $400 billion.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople, like James, are taking advantage of it and placing bets at will,\u201d Bergman says. \u201cEven TV broadcasters are trying to get a piece of the pie. Today you can watch a game on TV and put in a bet before, or even during, the game.\u201d<\/p>\n
He says the daily fantasy world is a great business opportunity for betters and platforms, which take 10 percent of the wagers. \u201cBetters with good analytical models can take advantage of this explosion in gaming,\u201d Bergman notes. \u201cA few years ago, I would have been surprised to think of sports and casinos as partners. Today it is having a tremendous impact on the business world.\u201d<\/p>\n
Will ‘Jeopardy!’ Ever Be the Same?<\/strong><\/p>\nBut for those seeking armchair entertainment, it is likely that the next big ‘Jeopardy!’ winner will need a new or more refined strategy.<\/p>\n
\u201cJames destroyed a lot of records, and perhaps changed the game moving forward,\u2019\u2019 Bergman says. \u201cI think it\u2019s possible that in a Tournament of Champions, the people playing against him will need an adversarial strategy. Obviously they will have to take more risks and \u2018beat him at his own game\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
OPIM professor David Bergman says analytics and strategy helped recent game-show champion James Holzhauer dramatically increase his chance of success.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":121,"featured_media":152113,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1862,2225],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[2105],"class_list":["post-152106","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-busn","category-uconn-storrs"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-10 16:40:16","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152106","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/121"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=152106"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152106\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":152114,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152106\/revisions\/152114"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/152113"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=152106"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=152106"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=152106"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=152106"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=152106"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}