When Jeopardy! Masters returns to the 2025 TV schedule, there will be two bad guys amongst the six contestants. James Holzhauer, of course, has long self-identified as the game show villain, not only on Jeopardy! but The Chase as well, and now he’s got some competition in that arena. Matt Amodio, another of Jeopardy!’s biggest winners, advanced to Masters after winning the JIT, and his takeaway from tournament season is exactly what I like to hear.
In a dominant performance in the Jeopardy! Invitational Tournament (and no matter how much you hate hearing Ken Jennings say, “JIT,” it seems the acronym is here to stay), Matt Amodio swept the finals by beating opponents Roger Craig and Juveria Zaheer twice in a row. That’s probably the most villainous thing he’s done since deciding to try out the persona of a big bad, and from what he told the Inside Jeopardy! podcast, he’s trying to take his knowledge to even scarier heights:
With a full-time job, it does have to take a bit of a back-burner, but it will never be further back from that, because it’s just fun. I am obsessed with learning and knowledge, so it’s just a pleasure to have extra reason to do this.
It should be truly frightening for the other Jeopardy! Masters contestants that someone who’s seen as much success as Matt Amodio continues to have such an obsession for knowledge, but that’s exactly what I wanted to hear. Amodio probably doesn’t need to brush up on his trivia, and with a full-time job, he’s got plenty of excuses not to.
However, he’s not resting on his laurels as he prepares for a rematch against last year’s Masters top 3 — Victoria Groce, James Holzhauer and Yogesh Raut — as well as Tournament of Champions winner Neilesh Vinjamuri and a yet-to-be-decided producer pick. In fact, if anything, Matt Amodio is hitting the books even harder, as he said:
I think I'm mostly doing the same things as always, but with the caveat that now I know I'm in tournament life for the rest of my Jeopardy life. I know I can raise the obscurity level on the trivia one level higher, because when I come on this stage, things that may have seemed too obscure for the regular Jeopardy, or in Masters or in JIT, that’s bottom-row material, so I keep the eye out for a tougher level.
Not only is Matt Amodio continuing to quench his thirst for knowledge — he knows he’ll likely be a regular on postseason Jeopardy!, where the clues get harder, so he’s really diving deep into subjects (and likely taking in some Pop Culture Jeopardy! with his Amazon Prime Video subscription to brush up on those categories).
Matt Amodio has secured his place in the record books of one of the best game shows of all time, currently ranking fourth overall for highest earnings ever with over $1.8 million coming out of the Jeopardy! Invitational Tournament. He’s also third in most consecutive games won with 38, falling behind only Ken Jennings (who thinks his 74-game streak can be broken) and Amy Schneider (40).
He’s got nothing to prove to Jeopardy! fans, and yet he’s continuing to show up — not just to exchange some barbs with a fellow game show villain but to actually present himself as a threat to James Holzhauer and defending champion Victoria Groce.
We’ll be keeping an eye out for that Jeopardy! Masters premiere date, but in the meantime, check your local listings for regular episodes airing in syndication.
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