As a gambler, I hold myself to an especially high standard of honor, and it disgusts me when people try to cheat at games.

When I watched 'Jeopardy!' as a kid, I would primarily watch with my grandmother. She was the most beautiful person the world has ever seen. Her first language wasn't English, so she couldn't follow along well, but she wanted to share this experience with me since she saw it was something I really liked.

Nobody likes to lose.

Anytime you learn something new, you're just trying to file it away - might be useful one day.

My source of income is sports betting. I have some investments also.

In gambling we say you are 'on tilt' when your mood gets in the way of making your best decisions. And nobody plays well on tilt.

Easily the hardest 'Jeopardy!' categories to study in the kids' section are the so-called 'trashy' pop culture ones.

Like Dave Mustaine, I ain't superstitious.

There were times in school where I would say, 'I should go to class.' But I could make $100 playing online poker if I didn't go.

I spent almost no time studying categories like geography and sports, even though they came up frequently on 'Jeopardy,' because I'm already strong in those subjects.

I'm a pro sports gambler. You have winning days and you have losing days. But you know if you've got the right strategy, you're going to get it in the end.

I've already begun giving to children's nonprofits in the Las Vegas area.

It definitely helps that I can bet big with ice water in my veins.

I really like not having to justify my decisions to anyone else, as well as the freedom to vacation whenever I want.

I went to Illinois. Most people think I went to Princeton or something. But I was never a diligent student.

Parenting is much more nerve-wracking than 'Jeopardy!'

I think the best way to quickly describe my personality is that I'm a maximizer rather than a satisficer, i.e. I want to squeeze every drop out of an opportunity rather than settle for 'good enough.'

There are big advantages to having a lot of chips early on in a poker tournament. You can make plays that other people can't.

I know life goes on if you make a big bet and you lose. But if you don't give yourself the best chance of winning, you're going to kick yourself tomorrow.

I kind of didn't look at anyone else's strategy for 'Jeopardy!' I thought, I'm going to build this from the ground up... If I had never seen a 'Jeopardy!' game played before, what would I have to do to play it to maximize my winnings, maximize my chances of winning?

When I was a kid, I would turn on the television as soon as I got home from school.

As a sports fan, I like the one-and-done playoff setups of the NFL and NCAA, but a best-of-seven gives the favorite a much better chance of prevailing in the end.

It is exciting for me to see the stats guys winning the battle and getting into MLB front offices.

I bet sports all the time and very rarely get in a spot where someone offered me even money on something I'm going to get right five out of six times.

If you believe in yourself, you don't have to do things the same way everyone else is doing it.

There's nothing better for my interests and talents than combining math and sports for profit.

I want to not lose what makes me be me.

It's one thing to skip class to play poker, but if I'm learning how to think in the real world playing poker, then maybe that's more valuable than a college education could've been.

Fame came at me a lot quicker and stronger than I imagined.

Holzhauer Haters' is pretty catchy, but I have not encountered too many haters. I'm sure they are out there, but I don't spend my free time looking up every person's opinion of James Holzhauer.

There are times when you'll only have one or two seconds to decide if you're going to bet on something and you need to be decisive. You need to do math quickly in your head.

I've got a family and job that I really love with super flexibility.

I think there's a mental block for betting big amounts that doesn't exist for me but it does for other people.

Jeopardy!' is a bigger deal than I realized.

The first bet I remember was on the Chargers in Super Bowl 29 with my classmates. I lost a lot of weeks' allowance.

I have no special knowledge of markets, so I invest solely in low-expense index funds, plus some cryptocurrencies.

I wouldn't recommend sports betting as a career. It requires a ton of effort and mastery of many different skills, and successful bettors are unwilling to teach you because you would be their competition.

The aggressive betting on the daily doubles is one of my trademarks.

I've found that in an adult reference book, if it's not a subject I'm interested in, I just can't get into it. I was thinking, what is the place in the library I can go to to get books tailored to make things interesting for uninterested readers? Boom. The children's section.

Baseball was my goal from a young age, but gambling had significantly fewer barriers to entry.

I sketched out what I believed to be my optimal strategy for 'Jeopardy:' Play fast, build a stack, bet big, and hope for the best. In my mind, playing a seemingly risky game actually minimizes my chances of losing.

The fact that I win and lose money all the time helps desensitize me, so I can write down $60,000 as the Final Jeopardy wager and not be trembling at the thought of losing that money.

As a general rule, the less time a bookmaker has to set his odds the softer the odds are going to be.

The last real job I had I was 16-years-old slinging fried chicken in my hometown of Naperville, Ill.

I was always good at video games like 'Guitar Hero,' which require the player to press buttons at precise times.

In gambling, you usually start to go wrong when you deviate from your pregame strategy.

Getting onto 'Jeopardy!' was a pet project my whole life, so it was something I was willing to work really hard on.

Ryne Sandberg was my favorite player growing up.

I'm from Naperville.

It was always my plan to go big on 'Jeopardy!,' and I'm glad I was able to stick to the plan under pressure.