# The Jeopardy thread \[was James Holzhauer\]\[contains spoilers\] **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** reality-or-game-show\ **Created:** [April 17, 2019, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-jeopardy-thread-was-james-holzhauer-contains-spoilers/832696 "2019-04-17T21:53:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 269
**Author:** ![commasense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/commasense/32/3017_2.png) [@commasense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/commasense)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2019, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-jeopardy-thread-was-james-holzhauer-contains-spoilers/832696/269 "2019-05-06T15:54:49Z")
> [@Tired\_and\_Cranky](#): > > Does anyone think producers are rearranging the board to lower James’s earnings? It seems there are more Daily Doubles in the $1,000 row, which means that James is more likely to pick them early in the round before he has built up a huge pot to wager. This reduces his potential winnings a bit (though it doesn’t interfere with his streak). I wonder if producers will start making the FJ questions tougher just to reduce his daily winnings further. As others have mentioned before, it would be a violation of Federal law if they made any changes to help or hinder a specific contestant. They start every tape day with multiple sets of “material” (the answers and questions, including which clues are Daily Doubles), and the set used in each episode is selected randomly just before taping starts, to prevent any form of cheating. I haven’t heard anything about how the writers/producers decide in preparing the material which clues will become Daily Doubles. But apparently the placement of DDs on the board is \*\*not \*\*strictly random, because there are hot spots, and a couple of places that have \*\*never \*\*had DDs. (Someone on Reddit made heatmaps of DDs. [Jeopardy DDs](https://i.redd.it/fyk05etk5ad11.png). [Double Jeopardy DDs.](https://imgur.com/V3rtLS5)) I assume that if it were purely random, after more than 7,800 games every spot on the board would have received 3.33% of the DDs. Is my grasp of statistics incorrect? And if not, why is it not random, and how are the places selected, if not randomly? Anyone? In any case, if it could be shown that they were in any way changing their normal procedures in response to Holzhauer, they could face Federal charges. --- _[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-jeopardy-thread-was-james-holzhauer-contains-spoilers/832696)._