The Loop
An apparently MASSIVE Jeopardy! spoiler has leaked, plunging America into darkness
If you, the game-show loving citizens of America, don't want to potentially spoil Monday, June 3rd, 2019 CE's episode of Jeopardy!, please turn around and head back the way you came. Your click is appreciated.
Let's just get right down to it: Mondays suck, but you know what makes Mondays suck even worse? When you wake up and literally the first piece of news that hits your eyeballs is leaked footage from Season 35, episode 191 of Jeopardy!—set to air Monday June, 3rd, an unholy day that will live forever in infamy, if the rumors are to be believed—that shows the downfall of the Great and Just James Holzhauer.
The king is (allegedly) dead. Long live the king.
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According to reports, clips of Hozhauer's final Final Jeopardy appeared social on Sunday, showing the 33-day champ betting a very un-Holzhauer-like sum of $1,399 while being caught and passed by challenger Emma Boettcher despite correctly answering a question about 16th-century playwright Kit Marlowe. The clip has been purged from the internet like the insidious scourge that it is, but also allegedly included scenes of Alex Trebek's shock and Holzhauer congratulating his usurper with a high five.
Perhaps most notably, the loss is said to occur on a day when most Jeopardy! nuts and nerds expected Holzhauer to eclipse Ken Jennings' all-time winnings total of $2,520,700. Jennings' 74-consecutive-game streak still seems like an unclimbable mountain, even for Holzhauer, but at just $58,484 behind Jennings' all-time total, that record seemed certain to fall...until Sunday that is.
As with everything on the internet, take this all with a grain of salt. Holzhauer, a professional sports gambler by trade, has quite literally made his money betting five figures on Double and Final Jeopardies, so a paltry wager of less than $1,500 on a category he clearly had some working knowledge of seems like a bit of red flag. Is the whole thing faked as a means of backdoor PR? Perhaps (Jeopardy! could use a little cash infusion after Holzhauer's has spent the last few months cleaning out the coffers.) Is it instead a clip from an episode even further down the road? Also possible. Jeopardy! films multiple episodes at every taping and with Trebek's uncertain health outlook, may be banking them even further in advance.
One thing is certain, however. Someday, Holzhauer will lose, and that day will be a dark one. All we can hope, as we count down the excruciating seconds until 7:30 p.m. ET, is that today isn't it.