UPDATE: JAMES HOLZHAUER NOW UP TO $2.25 MILLION IN WINNINGS
GAME TO FAME – NAPERVILLE–Wagering his way with thoughtful acknowledgements to treasured family members, James Holzhauer, a Naperville native, used birthdays, such as his daughter’s November 9, 2014 birthday to coin $110,914, to help pave the way to becoming the second person in the history of Jeopardy! to win more than $1 million in regular-season play on the hit TV game show ……and he’s still in the game with 29 straight wins and $2.5 Millions in earnings as of May 28, 2019 and he's still going strong.
As a professional gambler living in Las Vegas with his wife and daughter, Holzhauer is use to taking big risks, and when he combines his grit with his brains, he appears unstoppable at possibly taking over the top Jeopardy! record holder, Ken Jennings, who won $2,520,700 during a 74-game winning streak.
Naperville is holding strong to its ties to Holzhauer hailing as a Naperville North graduate who is remembered fondly by his teachers for succeeding on the school’s math team. Albeit he didn’t do his homework, he did manage to lead the team to a first-place finish in the Illinois State Finals Academic Challenge and was known to be quite the math prodigy most of his young life.
His parents, Nachiko Ide Holzhauer and Juergen Holzhauer, who live in the Carillon Retirement Community in Naperville have shared with various media sources that their son’s exceptional math abilities were recognized as early as age four when he was highlighted in the Chicago Tribune. His brother, Ian Holzhauer, an Attorney in Naperville, is very proud of his brother’s accomplishments and said he grew up watching Jeopardy! every day with his grandmother. Holzhauer’s second love is baseball and he is a lifelong Cubs fan. In fact, rumor has it that MLB Teams might be interested in hiring him, after his game-show run, to use his analytics-based approach to assist them with their statistics.
As of pres stime, the exciting run on the game to fame continues for the newly nicknamed, “Jeopardy James”, and our west suburban community will be watching history in the making.
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