Amy Schneider continues streak as highest-earning and longest-winning woman in “Jeopardy!” history

“Jeopardy!” star Amy Schneider is continuing to break game records. On Tuesday, Schneider became the highest ranked female contestant for consecutive games won — a streak that continues with 21 straight victories to date. Last week, she also broke the record for highest female earner of all time. 

Since starting on the game show, Schneider has surpassed Julia Collins for consecutive wins and Larissa Kelly for highest earnings by women. Among all contestants, she now places fourth in both categories. She is 11 games away from passing James Houlzhauer as the third-ranked contestant ever in consecutive wins. 

Schneider, who is transgender, is an engineering manager from Oakland, California. 

To date, Schneider has won $806,000, according to the”Jeopardy!” leaderboard. And she’s not stopping there. 

“Twenty wins!” Schneider tweeted Wednesday. “It happened months ago for me, and I’m still trying to take it in. In my highest of high hopes, I never dreamed of matching Julia’s streak. It’s hard to say how I felt: proud, dazed, happy, numb, all those things. But along with all that, I was also ready for lunch!”

To honor Collins’ record, Schneider wore a sweater in tribute for her 20th game, calling her time on the show extremely meaningful. 

While not the first transgender contestant to do well on the game show, on Thanksgiving, Schneider became the first trans “Jeopardy!” contestant to qualify for the Tournament of Champions. 

“The fact is, I don’t actually think about being trans all that often, and so when appearing on national television, I wanted to represent that part of my identity accurately: as important, but also relatively minor,” she tweeted last month, referring to a transgender pride flag pin she wore on the show.  “But I also didn’t want it to seem as if it was some kind of shameful secret. While it’s gratifying to know that people didn’t necessarily know I was trans until they read about it, I do want people to know that aspect of me. I think being trans is really cool!”

“I am a trans woman, and I’m proud of that fact, but I’m a lot of other things, too!” she continued. 

Schneider hopes to continue her streak in her next game, which airs Thursday night.