If you don’t start every sentence with “what†for the rest of the day in celebration, we don’t know what to tell you. Matt Amodio has become the third contestant in Jeopardy! history to cross the $1 million prize-money threshold, with the Yale Ph.D. student amassing a new total of $1,004,001 on the show’s September 24 episode. Specifically, he netted an extra $48,800 on his 28th win. The only two other contestants to reach the millionaires club are noted Twitter troll James Holzhauer and Amodio’s personal hero Ken Jennings, who earned $2,462,216 over 32 victories and $2,520,700 over 74 triumphs, respectively. Amodio, who told us last month that he’s been a lifelong fan of Jeopardy!, said that he went into the show with the goal of winning just one game.
“Being on the show is a tremendous accomplishment, and I don’t want to denigrate that at all. But once you win, you’re a Jeopardy! champion,†he explained at the time. “You can call yourself a Jeopardy! champion. Not a Jeopardy! participant. That’s something nobody can take away from you.†Amodio also said he would be depositing his winnings right into a savings account. “I’ve been living from small Ph.D. paycheck to small Ph.D. paycheck for a long time now,†he said. “It’s going to be awesome to have a cushion and a rainy-day fund that I hopefully won’t have to dip into for some time. It’ll definitely ease the stress.†We hope he splurges on at least one Cristal bottle, though, or his long-conceptualized Jennings foam finger.