If you’ve been on any Jeopardy!-related forums online in the past year, you know there’s been plenty of discourse regarding whether or not the show has been rigged. Many fans have called the validity of some of the champions into question, namely those whose winning streaks have lasted for weeks or even months.
These viewers believe that there’s no way that these champions, including Mattea Roach and Amy Schneider, could have won without help—to be more specific, that they couldn’t have done it without the help of the show itself. That’s right, many think that Jeopardy! has been continually rigging the show to keep favored contestants winning.
Not only is that insulting towards the abilities of the contestants, it’s undermining the integrity of the show. Jeopardy! has been a formidable television mainstay since the ’80s, and it’s the most popular game show of all time. Would it really have made it this far if the show’s writers and producers fixed the game?
I’m of the mind that there’s no way Jeopardy! has been rigged. Below, I’ll be outlining exactly why I believe that the show is far from fixed. So, buckle up and get comfy, because there’s a lot to unpack here. Get ready to debunk the theory that Jeopardy! is rigged.
Drama at the Host’s Stand
Some folks believe that the show’s newfound trend of long winning streaks has been rigged by the show’s producers to distract from the tumult regarding the new hosts.
If you need some background, here’s the CliffsNotes version: in late 2020, longtime, beloved Jeopardy! host Alex Trebek passed away. It was a tragic loss that shook casual viewers and diehard fans alike. Though Alex still had a few weeks-worth of episodes left to air, the media was already abuzz with questions and rumors about who would take over the position of host.
For the remainder of season 37, guest hosts rotated up at the podium, each taking over for a week to a month. These guest hosts included stars such as Anderson Cooper, Savannah Guthrie, Joe Buck, and LeVar Burton, among others.
Now, this guest-hosting was totally unprecedented—after all, Trebek had been the host of the show since the ’80s. As fun as it could be, the show was seeking a permanent replacement. Soon, Mike Richards was appointed to the position.
Richards was a longtime television producer for shows including The Price is Right and Deal or No Deal. He had been working behind the scenes of Jeopardy! since the fall of 2020, so he seemed like a sensible choice for the job.
Unfortunately, only 9 days after his appointment as Jeopardy! host was announced, it was announced that Richards would step down from the position. This occurred after past offensive comments he’d made resurfaced. There were also reports regarding his bad behavior—sometimes verging on abusive—while working on other television sets. Needless to say, it’s a good thing this was found out sooner rather than later. (LeVar Burton has recently dished on an exchange he had with Richards after his guest hosting that pertains to Richards’ own appointment, but we’ll save that for another article.)
After this, it was determined that Ken Jennings and Mayim Bialik, two of the most captivating guest hosts from the previous season, would switch off Jeopardy! hosting duties throughout season 38. But after all that ado, it felt as though the show was in turmoil. Thus, when long winning streaks began to appear awfully frequently this season (more on those in a second), unfounded rumors that Jeopardy! is rigged began to sprout.
Though I don’t agree with the theories that the show was rigged to distract from all the host-related drama, I understand why people might believe them. After all that Mike Richards drama earlier in the season, and with the show oscillating between Jennings and Bialik as hosts, Jeopardy! has not been stable television mainstay it once was.
Without Alex Trebek, worries that the show’s ratings would plummet were mounting. These worries were eventually proven unfounded: in January, during Amy Schneider’s streak, Jeopardy! became the most watched non-sports television show, surpassing 60 Minutes. And it continued to lead this into May, when Mattea Roach was competing.
So, there’s some background as to why these rumors have surfaced in the first place. Now, let’s get to what really made people skeptical.
Season 38’s Unusual Streaks
The main reason why some believe Jeopardy! has begun to be rigged has to do with the wildly long winning streaks that have been prominent this season—namely, how so many people have managed to stay on the show for weeks on end. Four contestants this season have had winning streaks that have put them in the top ten consecutive games won. The five-game rule was revoked in 2003—before this, contestants were automatically taken off the show after five games—so it isn’t like contestants have had the show’s entire 38 season history to best, but still, that’s quite a few wins for a single season.
Much of the disbelief in the show’s integrity arose during Amy Schneider’s winning streak, which lasted for 40 games. This disbelief often turned into insult or downright vilification when expressed in online forums, social media comments, and tabloid articles. Schneider is a trans woman, and the first trans person to have so much visibility on Jeopardy! and perhaps on any game show. LGBTQ+ individuals, specifically trans women, are often subject to verbal abuse regarding their identities, so some nasty comments, as unfortunate as they are, were to be expected. However, folks expressed their hatred so far as to doubt the legitimacy of her months-long winning streak.
Additionally, fans were fuming in comments sections in all corners of the internet after 23-year-old Mattea Roach won Final Jeopardy with a question about the Canadian national anthem. Roach, who hails from Nova Scotia, was on her 21st episode when this happened; her winning streak only lasted for two more games after this one. Surely, the show’s writers would have thought to change that Final Jeopardy question if they’d wanted to, right? Roach had already been a clear winner for weeks at that point; they could have foreseen this and changed the question to something one player wouldn’t have had such an obvious advantage in answering. And yet, the question remained, allowing her to win the game.
This isn’t the first season that Jeopardy! watchers have been skeptical about winning streaks. Viewers have also speculated about James Holzhauer’s 2019 appearance on the show being rigged, especially after he only came up $58,000 (“only” is relative, I guess) short of Ken Jennings’s earnings record in 2019. Holzhauer was a bigger winner than Jennings episode by episode, averaging $77,000 of earnings per episode as opposed to Jennings’ $34,000. Had he continued, he would have swept Jennings’s earnings crown out from under him.
But has Jeopardy! really been rigged for Amy? Or for Mattea? Or any of the other many contestants (Matt Amodio, Jonathan Fisher, Ryan Long) who have won game after game this season and in previous ones?
The answer? A nearly definitive no.
Skeptical viewers tend to underestimate what an undertaking rigging the show would be. If Jeopardy! was rigged, contestants would have to study up on which questions to choose from the board, as well as those that they needed to answer correctly or botch purposefully.
And the folks on Jeopardy! are no actors—you’ve probably witnessed enough funny mishaps and awkward host-led interviews to know that. While the contestant’s trivia abilities are enviable, it would probably be a lot more obvious if Jeopardy! was scripted and they were just reciting lines, or overly-edited to make it look more interesting.
The show’s writing rooms and production meetings are, quite obviously, incredibly under wraps—no one is privy to the conversations that take place in them, and all are under contract to remain tight-lipped. This makes sense and is common across the board in the industry—it’s assumed that any game show would lose its appeal were its secrets to be revealed to the world.
Not only is the rigging of Jeopardy! extremely unlikely, it’s probably very illegal. Contracts of game show employees, from the most powerful producer to the simplest staffer, tend to have loads of stipulations to prevent this from happening. Even if there was a way to “rig” Jeopardy!, the people behind the scenes would have no incentive to do it—if they did, it would probably result in immediate job loss.
Would rigging the game to promote the same winner even be a good move for Jeopardy!? Sure, publicity drives viewership up, but plenty of viewers get bored watching the same person easily win episode after episode, week after week, anyway.
Sexism, Transphobia, and Trolls, Oh My
We all know the internet well enough by now to be aware that trolls are always lurking. Whether they’re naysaying the hosts or being cruel to contestants, plenty of folks have got something to say, and will hid behind a silly user handle to give a piece of their mind. Sadly, a lot of these trolls resort to bigotry when making their comments.
And the internet trolls have come out in droves this past season. A lot of their comments can be boiled down to plain old sexism and transphobia, plain and simple.
Though it’s upsetting to acknowledge, we already know sexism can play a part in Jeopardy!’s viewership trends. For example, the episodes that Ken Jennings has hosted this season have averaged over 9 million viewers per episode, while Mayim Bialik’s episodes averaged less than 6 million.
This disparity is large enough that misogyny is surely at least in part to blame, as both Jennings and Bialik have ample experience on camera and know how to keep it chatty with the contestants and the crowd. Considering that many Jeopardy! fans switch the TV off when they see a woman hosting, it’s no surprise that there’s some pushback when they see a woman winning many episodes in a row.
Additionally, if you’ve been perusing the forums (avid Reddit users, I’m looking at you) looking for other skeptics to back your claims, you’ve definitely witnessed some serious sexism. Ever wonder why no one is calling Matt Amodio or Ryan Long’s wins into question, but why Amy Schneider and Mattea Roach both have tabloid coverage that explicitly called their wins into question? Uh-huh. Clearly, that has nothing to do with these contestants’ performances and everything to do with their gender.
Schnieder and Roach are both queer women—Schneider is trans and in a lesbian relationship, and Roach identifies as a lesbian as well as gay. It’s important to acknowledge their visibility and that their wins are immeasurably important to the LGBTQ+ community from which they hail—representation matters, folks! However, a lot of news media outlets exploited these basic facts about their identities to minimize their wins. Furthermore, plenty felt as though they were only winning because the show was being fixed in their favor, in an effort to seem more inclusive.
Newsflash to anyone who needs to hear it: straight white guys aren’t the only people who are able to succeed on Jeopardy! Amy didn’t stay on Jeopardy! for over 40 episodes because it was rigged—she’s just that good.
Same with Mattea—though she quickly became a fan favorite, that wasn’t because the show was tipped in her favor. The question pertaining to “O Canada” was an unfortunate coincidence that instilled doubt in Jeopardy! viewers, but is only one of hundreds of questions that Roach answered correctly in her 23 episode tenure.
The game isn’t rigged—it’s Jeopardy!’s contestants that have changed due to the ever-changing landscape around them. An increase of time spent at home during the pandemic led to an enormous influx of applications to be on Jeopardy!. This totally tracks—people who had previously always been busy working now had time to study up for the Jeopardy! admissions test.
In this way, the pandemic may have evened out the playing field for potential Jeopardy! contestants. Women specifically, who before may have been putting in more hours to try to move up—specifically in jobs where men have historically not had to work as hard to get recognition—were now on the same plane as their male counterparts. The silver lining of quarantine lay in how everyone had seemingly been demoted, forced inside. Now, new folks who had never had the chance to before could try their hand at Jeopardy!. Indeed, both Amy and Mattea have stated that having so much time to study in quarantine was part of the secret to their respective successes.
Remember earlier how I mentioned that Jeopardy! was viewed far more often this season when a man hosted than when a woman did? Yeah, it seems like those who are turning the TV off when Mayim Bialik comes on are the same ones being hateful towards Schneider and Roach. It’s not a good look for the show, frankly, when its viewers are being so openly sexist in the comments they write online.
Plenty of the complaints surrounding this season of Jeopardy! were just discriminatory, and I’m not here to defend them, in any way, or to defend complaints of any sort that echo their prejudiced sentiments, for that matter. But it’s understandable that some would believe that this season above all others was the one that was rigged, simply because it set such an unusual precedent for streaks after such a tumultuous era behind the host’s stand.
HOWEVER, that assumption has only served as an excuse for bad behavior online, where anyone can hide behind a screen name or avatar to express their vitriol and hatred. The trivia community is such a vibrant one, full of passion for learning and bonding over learning new things and, by extension, new perspectives. It’s so disappointing that many of its members fall prey to being rude and hateful towards brilliant Jeopardy! contestants.
Are the Buzzers Rigged?
Over the years, there have been some questions from Jeopardy! viewers regarding the validity of the buzzers used on the show. If the contestants aren’t actors, then could the buzzers be electronically rigged to lock out certain players and help out others?
Nope! The buzzers are actually controlled by a single Jeopardy! staffer, not by a computer or any sort of electronic system. That removes the option for any sort of pre-programmed bias from the competition. That staffer must be a super careful one who’s been trained really well!
It’s feasible that, if that buzzer staffer was harboring some serious bias, they could rig the buzzers in favor of one contestant over the others, but since they have such an important job, any moves to manipulate the buzzers would probably come into question pretty quickly. Therefore, it’s safe to say that Jeopardy! is not rigged by way of buzzer.
Final Words
The winning streaks of season 38 of Jeopardy! have been unprecedented, to say the least—but what hasn’t been lately? These streaks are no more indicative of Jeopardy! being rigged than any of the other funny phenomena that have popped up on the show throughout its near four decades on the air (not including, of course, Saturday Night Live‘s Celebrity Jeopardy! which likely was scripted). It’s likely that the winning streaks just the symptom of the shifting world around the contestants—around all of us, really.
As always, the show will continue to morph and adapt to reflect the abilities of its contestants. We look forward to watching—and believing in—future contestants who continue to win and thrive game after game, day after day.
Jeff says
Thanks for the article. I’ve heard a theory that the contestants could be ranked based on their performance in the testing process. Those rankings could then be used to schedule weak competition for a popular champion or strong competition for an unpopular one. This might not even be strictly considered “rigging”, as the contestants are not being helped or hindered. Is there any information about the scheduling process that would refute this theory? Thanks
JD says
Despite all that stuff you’ve “unpacked”, it still seems there was something fishy going on.
Mattea and Amy, specifically, were playing against players that didn’t answer many questions.
Normally, 2nd and 3rd place contestants finish with $7,000, $8,000 or more.
Amy and Mattea were often playing against people with totals of $1,000 – $2,000!
One of the Mattea games finished with both contestants not making it to Final Jeopardy, which is almost unheard of. Something funny was going on indeed.
dan says
Wouldn’t this happen if one of the players was much better than the other two?
JD says
True, but the way Jeopardy normally is, you have three contestants who are all presumably good at trivia. To level the playing field, there are hard questions mixed with easy ones. There are always chances that someone who is not as smart could win a game by being quick on the buzzer, or by luck. To win once would be tough, a few games, even tougher. But before last year, 20 – 30 game streaks were very rare. Look at the top 10 all-time Jeopardy winners. They are almost all from the last couple seasons. So the question is, what has changed?
Wanda says
Nope. Sitting here watching as one contestant constantly is ringing in sooner but the champion gets to answer. Those buzzers ARE rigged!