Do the second- and third-place contestants on Jeopardy! get any money? Or is it just the winner?
—Marjorie Pagano, Hollister, Calif.
Nobody goes home from Jeopardy! empty-handed. The winner takes home the amount of money he or she has earned answering questions—or "questioning" answers!—while the second-place contestant walks out with $2,000, and the third-place finalist gets $1,000. After his six-month-long, 74-game winning streak on Jeopardy! came to an end Nov. 30, 2004, a 30-year-old software engineer from Utah, Ken Jennings, went away with $2.52 million, making him the biggest winner in television game-show history.
