My girlfriend and I were wondering while watching the world’s greatest game show the other night: what is theoretically the most amount of money a single contestant could win on an episode of Jeopardy! (assuming Double Jeopardy! questions are chosen last and the maximum amount bid). And supposing the same contestant continued a maximum winning streak and became Champion, what would the total payout be?
“Proof is left to the students answer”:
((6*(200+400+600+800+1000)-200)2)+
(6(400+800+1200+1600+2000)-400-800)22)*2
whoops! That should be:
((6*(200+400+600+800+1000)-200)2)+
(6(400+800+1200+1600+2000)-400-400)22)*2
$1,060,000 in 5 days.
Let’s ask The Man Who and 5 time champ. 
Second question. Are $200 and $400 Daily Doubles possible? I don’t think I’ve ever seen them do them.
IIRC, there was a thread here a while back that cited a Jeopardy rule limiting your one-day winnings. (A search on ‘jeopardy and limit’ didn’t find it. Something else might.) Was it $50K/day?
This limit was not mentioned to me, in print or in person, when I was there.
Seeing how it’s rare that someone scores that high, I don’t think it’s much of a concern to the producers of the show.
The limit, several years ago, was $75,000 for your total run of up to 5 episodes, but there was not a single-day limit. That was raised to $100K, and has presumably been doubled along with all the other question values or has been eliminated.
On today’s episode, there was a daily double in the $800 row during Double Jeopardy (i.e., second row from the top). I don’t think I’d ever seen that before either, but no one mentioned it as being out of the ordinary.
I haven’t watched Jeopardy in a few years - did they change the amounts on each round again?
I used to figure this out in my head, and here’s the numbers I came up with (going with the 80’s - 90’s board values) - these are THEORETICAL maximums, based on the assumptions that one person would answer all questions right, get the daily doubles on the final question(s) on each board, at the lowest values on each board possible:
First Round: Highest possible score would be acheived by finding the Daily Double (DD) question on a $100 score as the last question in the round.
Each column is $1500 (100+200+300+400+500), there are 6 columns - 6 * $1500 = $9000. You have to subtract $100 then multiply the total by 2, which gives $17,800.
Second Round: Highest possible score acheived by finding the two DD questions on two of the $200 questions as the last questions of the round.
Each column is now $3000, so $3000 * 6 (columns) = $18,000. Add that to the previous total from the last round, and you get $35,800. Subtract $400 from that total (the combined value of the two DD questions), multiply that result by two (first DD question), then two again (second DD question), then two again (Final Jeopardy) - highest daily total would then be
$35,800 - $400 = $35,400.
$35,400 * 2 = $70,800.
$70,800 * 2 = $141,600.
$141,600 * 2 = $283,200.
$283,200 was the theoretical maximum for one day.
The theoretical maximum for 5 days was then $1,416,000.
If all the values doubled, then the theoretical maximum for one
day would be $566,400 and for 5 days would be $2,832,000.
K364, I see why you came up with a different answer. You have your groupings wrong. It should be
(((((((6 * (200 + 400 + 600 + 800 + 1000)) - 200) * 2) + (6 * (400 + 800 + 1200 + 1600 + 2000))) - (400 + 400)) * 2) * 2) * 2
for a single day’s theoretical max winnings.
Your grouping forgets to add the winnings from the first round to the second round before the final sets of doublings occur.
critter42
I meant to do that.