Professional sports gambler James Holzhauer kept his winning streak alive on “Jeopardy!” Friday night bringing his total earnings to $1,275,587 in 17 days.
The 34-year-old from Las Vegas is only second to computer programmer Kenn Jennings, who won $2,520,700 over 74 games in 2004, USA Today reports.
Holzhauer recently revealed some of his tricks in an interview with the New York Times Wednesday, who says that it’s not just general knowledge that has gotten him this far in such a short amount of time.
According to the Times, his strategy consists of seeking the high value questions first and betting big on the Daily Double.
“I think the only time I ever deviated from it was a category about the U.S. Senate,” Holzhauer told the Times. “But other than that I’m going $1,000-1,000-1,000 whenever I can.”
The sports gambler says that the only way a player can make big bets like that on TV is if they’re comfortable.
“Some of the opponents I’ve been playing, you can see they are visibly shake by what’s going on onstage,” he said in the interview. “My comfort zone is very different than the typical contestant. I think that’s a huge advantage for me.”
Holzhauer also says that desensitizing himself to the prospect of losing a lot of money has worked in his favor throughout the game.
“I can write down $60,000 as the Final Jeopardy wager and not be trembling at the thought of losing that money,” he told the Times.
Besides the betting skills he picked up being a professional sports gambler, Holzhauer’s success also depends on his trivia knowledge and speed when buzzing in before the other contestants, CNBC reports “Jeopardy!” experts saying.
The Las Vegas native first made headlines after breaking his own record last week for the most single-episode winnings on the show. Holzhauer won $131,127 that episode, the previous episode record was set by Roger Craig in 2010 at $77,000.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.