Welcome to a new column here at The Jeopardy! Fan, where I answer questions emailed to me from fans and viewers! I received some excellent questions over the past week—and I couldn’t get to them all, mostly because I wanted to do some more research on some of them before I answered you! Don’t worry, though, I’ll get to everything I want to answer eventually!
As always, if you have a question you’d like answered in the column, email them to mailbag@thejeopardyfan.com!
When Is Mayim Coming Back?
Jim asks:
With the writer and SAG strikes both being settled now, have you seen or heard any rumblings about if and when Mayim might be returning to the podium?
There are a couple of misconceptions that I’d like to address straight away. Firstly, as of this writing, the SAG-AFTRA strike technically is not settled yet—the deal still needs to be ratified by the membership at large, and I have seen pockets of dissent within the SAG-AFTRA membership towards this contract. I would not 100% guarantee that this deal will get ratified. Secondly, the SAG-AFTRA strike has nothing to do with Jeopardy! anyway—Jeopardy!‘s deal with SAG-AFTRA is under the formerly-AFTRA half of the organization (the deal is known fully as the SAG-AFTRA National Code of Fair Practice for Network Television Broadcasting); that contract does not expire until June 30, 2024. Thus, any strike action that Mayim Bialik would have felt morally obligated to take would have been in solidarity with the WGA and not because SAG was on strike.
That being said, when will Mayim return? People are being tight-lipped about this. I think most of us expect Ken to host through to the end of the “postseason,” with Mayim returning to host all of the regular-play games in Season 40. However, I would also expect Mayim to be “on standby” just in case Ken becomes unavailable at the last minute for a taping; with some of the quick timelines that the show is working with, having to cancel tapings at this point would be disastrous for the show’s schedule.
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Are you going on the show and looking for information about how to bet in Final Jeopardy? Check out my Betting Strategy 101 page. If you want to learn how to bet in two-day finals, check out Betting Strategy 102. In case the show uses a tournament with wild cards in the future, there is also a strategy page for betting in tournament quarterfinals.
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An Unbreakable Record?
Aiden writes:
What are the chances that someone beats Ken Jennings’ 74 games?
The short answer: Not impossible—but I think it’s very unlikely.
The long answer: Basically, for someone to have a 50% chance of winning 75 games in a row, you have to have a 99.0801% chance of winning any individual game. To have a 30% chance of winning 75, you have to have a 98.4075% chance of winning any individual game. And, to have a 10% chance of winning 75 in a row, you have to have a 96.9765% chance to win each game. According to the data dating back to 2004 that my prediction model uses, a score of $34,221 going into Final Jeopardy has a 99% chance of winning a game. That isn’t too difficult for an upper-echelon player—at least, on the surface, it isn’t.
The issue, though, is variance. Ken Jennings won as much as he did because, in 2004, his opponents weren’t introducing enough variance into the game to unseat him as champion. Everyone was content to play categories top-to-bottom, and Ken would win on the strength of significantly superior signaling device timing and a sufficiently large knowledge base. However, in the intervening years, game strategy has been refined significantly. Players are much more likely to hunt for the important Daily Double clues in their attempt to play “giant killer”. Because of the hunting, there’s a lot more variance in top-level Jeopardy in 2023–24 compared to 2003–04, which makes it a lot more difficult to build a 74-game win streak.
So, in conclusion, we’d need another James Holzhauer-type player who also catches a break or two along the way to approach 74 victories. Could it happen? Sure. I’d love to see it if it does. But I don’t think it’s likely.
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How Is Travel Being Handled?
Bill writes:
I believe in the past you responded to a question about game shows assisting with travel and/or lodging for out-of-town contestants by saying that Jeopardy did that for participants in the Tournament of Champions. Did they do the same for players in the Second Chance competition, and/or, the Champions Wild Card competition? I’m curious because Tyler, the USMC officer, who was in Thursday’s Wild Card quarterfinal, was announced as being stationed in Germany. So if he came to the competition from his duty station, he potentially had an expensive trip—if he flew civilian. I hope Jeopardy at least assisted with his travel.
This was confirmed to me early this season by a Second Chance contestant—the show is covering all travel and accommodations for this season’s competitions and tournaments. This is consistent with the show’s past policy—if the show invites you to a competition or tournament, it will pay for your flight and lodging.
In Conclusion
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Thank you for your answer, Andy.