Jeopardy! contestant becomes first woman to win over $1 million
Jeopardy! has run for over 38 seasons on television with many accolades and memorable moments in between. Years later, however, Amy Scheider becomes the first female contestant to win more than $1 million in regular-season winnings. She is only the fourth person on the show to reach the $1 million milestone. This is how it happened.
The monumental Jeopardy! win
The monumental win comes after Scheider became a fan favorite for weeks! She received national attention after her winning streak continued to increase throughout the entire season. She has 28 games this season and has won more consecutive games than any female contestant. When asked how she feels to reach the milestone by host Ken Jenning she said, “pretty good”. Jennings has also won over $4.3 million on the show. Her winnings now total over $1,019,600.
I then, as I knew I would, had to go do some promotional stuff. As that was getting set up, Michael Davies, the EP, said that this was the ~15th (I don't remember the exact number) time he had given someone a million dollars on TV, and that it never got any less fun to do it!
— Amy Schneider (@Jeopardamy) January 9, 2022
She has also received attention for her gender identity and has been a proud activist for gender representation.
In an interview with the Associated Press, she said: “There’s a lot of fear for their loved ones who are trans, and worry that they might be limited in life. To be able to go out there and show that I can be successful in a very mainstream type of way has, I think, made a lot of them feel better about the people in their lives.”
Amy has also spoken out about being passionate about learning throughout her entire childhood. She has credited her curiosity to learn as one of the driving factors that led her to reach this milestone on Jeopardy! She also offers it as wisdom for anything wanting to do good on the show.
She wrote in an essay for Defector: “Knowledge is a shield and a sword, a joy and a duty, and while you may never remember things quite as easily as I do, or win a bunch of games on ‘Jeopardy!,’ if you have the desire, not just to know but to understand, then you will grow more and more powerful every day, and nobody will be able to stop you.”
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