‘Jeopardy!’ Tournament of Champions Winner Revealed

Jeopardy wrapped up another Tournament of Champions on Monday, crowning a new winner among winners. The game show named Amy Schneider as the champion, with Andrew He in second place and Sam Buttrey in third. Schneider took home the $250,000 grand prize.

“I feel amazing, “Schneider said in a statement after her win was broadcast. “Earlier in the finals, I had this sudden moment of seeing myself and being like ‘I’m on stage in the Tournament of Champions finals,’ and that was crazy. And I won! It’s a great feeling.” He also won $100,000 in prize money while Buttrey won $50,000. It was a great deal more than any of them had on their podiums going into the Final Jeopardy round – Schneider had $15,600, He had $14,200 and Buttrey had $8,000.

The winning clue was in the category “Plays,” and it read: “This January 12, 1864, Washington Evening Star reported on a performance of this ‘dashing comedy’ to ‘a full and delighted house.’” The correct response was “What is Our American Cousin?” Schneider and He both responded correctly, but Buttrey did not. Buttrey risked all of his winnings on the question, while He risked just over $2,800. Schneider won by taking a bigger gamble of $13,000, leaving her with a final score of $28,600.

Schneider acknowledged her competitors’ skills and said that she believed they could have beaten her with a few strokes of luck. She said: “Any of the three of us really could have won if a very small number of things had gone differently. I’m glad we got a really fair chance to test our skills against each other, and I’d love to play [He] again someday, somehow.”

Schneider, a former software engineer, is the first openly transgender person to win a Tournament of Champions in Jeopardy history. She had a 40-game-long winning streak ending in January of 2022, giving her the second-most consecutive wins of any competitor on the show. She won just under $1.4 million at the time. On Monday, she said that she hopes to continue playing Jeopardy without listing any specific plans.

“I’m going to keep going out there and being me,” she said. “Being in places where people like me haven’t been before, it’s a very powerful thing to do.”