Las Vegan James Holzhauer wins ‘Jeopardy!’ tournament match

Las Vegan James Holzhauer evened the “Jeopardy! The Greatest of All Time” tournament with a victory in the second match Wednesday.

The game show’s three all-time leading money winners are competing in a special format for the prime-time event. Each match consists of two full games of “Jeopardy!” with the scores combined to determine the winner. The first player to win three matches wins the tournament.

Holzhauer, a professional sports bettor, won both games Wednesday, amassing 82,414 points. He edged Ken Jennings in the first game with 44,314 to 40,000, then added 38,100 in the second game. Jennings trailed by 1,600 in the second game heading into Final Jeopardy, but he missed and finished with 17,400 for a total of 57,400.

Jennings won the first match Tuesday.

Brad Rutter again finished third with a total of 14,400, all accumulated in the first game. He had negative points in the second game and did not participate in Final Jeopardy.

The match continues at 8 p.m. Thursday on KTNV-TV, Channel 13.

The winner will earn $1 million, and the runners-up get $250,000 apiece.

Contact Jim Barnes at jbarnes@reviewjournal.com. Follow @JimBarnesLV on Twitter.