8 Fascinating Facts About Jeopardy! Champion Scott Riccardi (Including His Recent Major Win)

Jeopardy! champion Scott Riccardi has guaranteed his spot in the Tournament of Champions, and is now a seven-game winner, and there are a lot of fascinating facts to know about him. Jeopardy! contestants automatically qualify for the Tournament of Champions after winning five games. If there aren’t enough five-game winners, then contestants with high paydays who’ve won fewer than five games are considered.

In addition, winners of other tournaments, including Celebrity Jeopardy!, are automatically guaranteed a place in the Tournament of Champions. So far in Jeopardy! season 41, five players, in addition to Scott, have qualified. They are Laura Faddah (eight wins), Andrew Hayes (six wins), Liam Starnes (six wins), Josh Weikert (six wins), and Ben Ganger (five wins). In addition, as the Celebrity Jeopardy! champion, W. Kamau Bell is also a guaranteed contestant.

Scott’s Jeopardy! winning streak has been especially exciting because it came a few games after a 13-day run of one-day champions. It’s been thrilling to see Scott continue to win and to have a shot at having the most wins of the season. As Scott competes for his eighth Jeopardy! win, here’s what to know about him.

1 Scott Riccardi Had An Extraordinary Jeopardy! Payday

Scott Achieved Something That Hadn’t Been Done In Two Years

During the Jeopardy! episode that aired on July 4, Scott brought fireworks to the stage when he earned the biggest payday that the show had seen in two years. In his second game, Scott wagered $24,000 of his $26,400 in Final Jeopardy!, which earned him a whopping $50,400. It was a gutsy move that astounded everyone.

The Final Jeopardy! category was “Geography,” and the clue was, “In 2023, these 2 nations agreed to redraw part of their border near the Matterhorn due to melting glaciers.” Scott gave the correct answer of Switzerland and Italy, and his wager stunned host Ken Jennings, who shouted, “Holy cow!” and “What a win!,” as well as the audience who first gasped and then broke out into loud cheers. It was an electrifying moment for Jeopardy!, and proved that Scott was something special.

No Jeopardy! player has earned such a large payday since 2023, when nine-game winner Ben Chan took home $60,000 in a single game. Scott was the first contestant in two years to win over $50,000 in one game. This was an outstanding achievement, and part of the reason that his total winnings are the highest out of all of the other season 41 Tournament of Champions qualifiers, at $182,901 after seven wins. And now Scott has the potential to earn even more money in future games.

2 Scott Is A New Jersey Native

Fans From The Garden State Were Disappointed When He Missed A Certain Clue

Scott is from Somerville, New Jersey, and he even chose to stay in the Garden State for college, graduating from Rutgers University in 2021. However, when it came time for a New Jersey-based Sopranos clue on the show, Scott disappointed fans, who took to social media to lament that he didn’t buzz in on a clue about a show that took place in his home state.

On the July 7 Jeopardy! episode, a clue read, “Ten years in prison have not accomplished any rehabilitation for Richie Aprile in Season 2 of this show.” The clue included a photograph of actor David Proval, who starred as Richie in the show. Fans were shocked that Scott didn’t know that the answer was The Sopranos, but it just goes to show that not everyone from New Jersey was a fan of the HBO series.

3 Scott Is A Mechanical Engineer

Scott Graduated From Rutgers University

Scott graduated from Rutgers University in 2021 with a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering. According to his Linkedin profile, Scott’s educational background has a prominent focus on mechanical design and 3D Computer Aided Design (CAD). He also spent some time in the field of energy engineering.

Scott has worked as a Solar Project and Product Development Engineer, a Junior Energy Engineer, a Design Engineer, and currently works as a Support Engineer. He began his career working as an Undergraduate Staff Engineer at the Rutgers Center for Advanced Energy Systems.

Although Scott’s background is in engineering, he’s been a well-rounded Jeopardy! contestant who knows a lot about a wide range of topics. Both his natural intelligence and his knowledge of trivia have served him well in his seven games so far, and will certainly be an asset to him in future games, including in the Tournament of Champions.

4 Scott Is One Of The Youngest Jeopardy! Season 41 Champions To Guarantee His Place In The Tournament Of Champions

Scott’s Achievements Are Impressive For His Age

At 26 years old, Scott is one of the youngest Jeopardy! season 41 champions to advance to the Tournament of Champions. Liam is the youngest at 20, and Andrew is also 26. Considering that many Jeopardy! contestants are much older than Scott, and therefore have much more life experience, it’s very impressive that he was able to win seven games so far. Other young contestants have also had incredible Jeopardy! runs this season, including Liam who was a sensation and became a fan favorite.

In an interview on the Jeopardy! Winners Circle podcast (shared via the Jeopardy! YouTube channel), Scott pointed out that Liam is only 20, “so it’s going to be really cool to see all of these young champions going head-to-head eventually.” Scott is right that it’ll be thrilling to see young people represented in the Tournament of Champions, and to watch them prove that they can hold their own against their more seasoned competitors.

5 Scott Is A Jeopardy! Superfan

Scott Even Had a Jeopardy!-Themed Birthday Party

Scott is a Jeopardy! superfan, who even had a Jeopardy!-themed birthday party. When he turned 25, two of his friends took him out to brunch, after which they surprised him with a custom Jeopardy! board. The friend who planned the party even dressed up as late Jeopardy! host Alex Trebek for the occasion.

Scott shared that they competed in a bunch of Jeopardy! games, but he wasn’t allowed to answer any of the questions about himself. The winner of Scott’s Jeopardy! birthday tournament didn’t take home any prize money, but instead they were awarded “a framed photo of me piping pastry cream in a very stressful situation.“ Scott’s friends planned the perfect party for Scott, and it’s exciting that he’s now a Jeopardy! champion.

6 Scott Has Come Up With Innovative Ways To Save Himself From Sticky Situations

Scott Knows How To Get Out Of A Jam

During his mid-show Jeopardy! interviews with Ken, Scott shared two different stories about how he had saved himself from precarious situations by coming up with innovative solutions to his problems. When he was in college, he was locked out of his house, and he needed to get his roommates’ attention. Scott called, texted, and even threw rocks at the windows to no avail.

Then, Scott came up with an inventive solution to his problem, using his knowledge of technology. He streamed his phone to the TV, and played the Curb Your Enthusiasm theme song at full volume, wanting to “convey a whimsical predicament.” When that didn’t do the trick, he played a clip of Eric André pulling on the bars of a fence and screaming, “Let me in!,” from The Eric André Show. Scott joked that that didn’t work either, but it would’ve been terrifying if it did.

In another Jeopardy! interview, Scott shared that he once had to go up on the roof of a store for work in order to make a repair, and ended up getting trapped. He had to call someone at the store next-door in order to get help. Scott’s ingenuity has gotten him out of jams before, and it’ll certainly be a great asset to him as he continues to compete on Jeopardy!.

7 Scott Is A Musician & Composer Who Specializes In Percussion

Scott Doesn’t Have A Strong Quiz Bowl Background

During one of his mid-show Jeopardy! interviews with Ken, Scott shared that he wanted to buy a marimba. After his first year of high school, he started composing a percussion piece for marimba, vibraphone, xylophone, and a few other instruments. Scott stated that he worked on it for a good six years, not really ever wanting to finish it. After six years, he was only able to make it about six minutes long.

However, Scott revealed that he thought that it would be “cool” to use his Jeopardy! winnings to find some way to rent or buy enough of the instruments to record a performance of his piece in some capacity.

During his Jeopardy! Winners Circle interview, Scott admitted that he’s “definitely intimidated” by his fellow Tournament of Champions contestants. This is because he knows that some of the multi-day champions come from Quiz Bowl backgrounds, but he only did that type of thing in high school. In addition, Scott usually couldn’t go to his high school meets because they were at the same time as concerts and rehearsals in which he participated.

Scott didn’t compete in Quiz Bowls at all in college, so he’s worried that he’ll be competing against contestants who have “all this stuff kind of built-in.” He added that, if people are older than he is in the Tournament of Champions, then they’ll have “more just built-in, lived-in knowledge, which could be really tricky.“

While this might be true, Scott has held his own against 14 other contestants in his seven-game streak, and they’ve been all different ages. Scott has a high chance of doing the same during the Tournament of Champions.

8 Scott’s Original Goal Was To Win One Jeopardy! Game

Scott Didn’t Know If He Could Beat Two-Day Jeopardy! Champion Jason Singer

Scott’s original Jeopardy! goal was to win one game because “it’s hard enough to do that.” However, he was worried that it might not happen when he saw his competition. Scott admitted that, during rehearsals, the two-day Jeopardy! champion at the time, Jason Singer, who’d broken the 13-day curse of one-day winners, had beaten him badly.

Scott admitted that he “immediately” felt that he didn’t want to play Jason because he was “really good.” However, Scott ended up besting Jason during their actual Jeopardy! game, which was the first of his wins that led to him making it into the Tournament of Champions. It’s thrilling that Scott went from hoping he’d win just one game to having the highest winnings in a single game in two years and the most money earned of all of the season 41 champions.

After seven Jeopardy! wins, Scott has the potential to become the season 41 contestant with the most wins who qualified for the Tournament of Champions. He’s a very interesting person who’s already taken his place in Jeopardy! history with his $50,400 win. He’s definitely one to watch and he’s made Jeopardy! must-see TV again. Scott is on his way to becoming a Jeopardy! legend, during both his streak and in the Tournament of Champions.

Jeopardy! airs weeknights. Check local listings for time and channel.

Sources: Jeopardy!/YouTube, Jeopardy!/Instagram, Rutgers University/Instagram, Scott Riccardi/LinkedIn, Jeopardy!/YouTube