- Mattea Roach is a Canadian coach known for her time on the hit show, Jeopardy!
- She has won 23 games consecutively with a total of $560,983 in earnings.
- Mattea is set to compete once more on the Jeopardy! Masters game on May 8, 2023.
With over 20 Jeopardy! wins under her belt, Mattea Roach is easily one of the most impressive contestants in the history of the game. “It does get hard,” Mattea told Global News in Apr. 2022, after winning her thirteenth episode. “I didn’t watch Ken [Jenning]’s run all the way through as a kid because I was like, five, six years old when it was happening, but I’m sure that he must have really been scraping the bottom of the barrel by the end of it.”
Mattea, 24, is poised to make history once more. She’s already the winningest Canadian on the show and the youngest super-champ in the show’s history. Next, Mattea will compete alongside other impressive Jeopardy! contestants like Sam Buttrey, Matt Amodio, Andrew He, James Holzhauer, and Amy Schneider, on the May 8, 2023 Jeopardy! Masters game. As she continues to rack up the wins, here’s what you should know about this trivia superstar.
Mattea Roach Is A Tutor From Canada
Mattea grew up in Halifax, Nova Scotia, but currently resides in Toronto, Ontario. On Apr. 28, she extended her winning streak to 18-games, for a total amount of $438,183 US. “So my family thought it was very important that I say that I’m from Halifax,” she said in an episode, according to The Advocate. “I was there for the first six years of my life, and I also went to school there, but I’ve also lived in Calgary for a couple of years when I was younger and Moncton in New Brunswick, which is where I learned French. So I’ve been a little bit all over.”
If she wins the game on Apr. 29, she will tie David Madden and Jason Zuffranier for the sixth-longest streak in Jeopardy! history. David, an art historian, went on his run in 2005, earning $430,400. Jason, a math teacher, took home $532,496 in 2019, per Yahoo! Sports.
If Mattea continues her streak, she could pass Julia Collins, who took home $428,100 after a 20-game win streak in 2014. From there, Mattea would have a climb to beat James Holzhauer, whose 32-game winning streak in 2019 secured him all the Top 10 spots for highest single-game winnings. He took home $2,462,216 when it was all over.
Mattea Roach’s Winnings on Jeopardy
The bright 24-year-old has racked in an impressive total of $560,983 in winnings, per her official Jeopardy! bio. In May 2022, she was in first place on Final Jeopardy! with $19,200 in earnings, while Danielle Maurer was in second place with $11,400. “It feels still kind of like a dream,” she gushed at the time. “I really came down here hoping to maybe win one game and so I still can’t believe it. You know, it’s strange, obviously I didn’t come through in the last one, but I still feel so happy and so lucky to have had this experience.”
She Is The Latest ‘Jeopardy!’ Superstar To Make History
Home at last after an eventful two weeks in LA, Sonoma County, and the Bay Area!! So grateful to have had the chance to connect with many new friends (some pictured below) and see an awful lot of beautiful scenery (unfortunately not pictured) pic.twitter.com/ewnhOVwLYj
— Mattea Roach (@mattearoach) October 2, 2022
At age 24, Mattea is the youngest super-champion in Jeopardy!’s history, according to Good Morning America. She is also the winningest Canadian, according to the CBC.
Early in this season, Jeopardy! saw two epic, history-making runs. Matt Modio, a Ph.D. student from Yale, went on a 38-game winning streak, pulling in $1.5 million. His streak came to an end in Oct. 2021. His streak was then topped by Amy Schneider, who went on a 40-game streak that netted her $1.3 million. Amy is currently ranked No. 2 in most Jeopardy! games won, behind Ken Jenning’s 74-game streak from 2004.
Mattea Roach Is A Part Of The LGBTQIA+ Community
Mattea’s Twitter bio reads, “lesbian, Nova Scotian, 18x Jeopardy champ // everything that happens will happen today.”
NBC News came under fire when its official Twitter account tweeted that she was a “23-year-old lesbian tutor from Toronto,” with some fans arguing that her sexual identity shouldn’t be a factor in her success. Others made fun of the “lesbian tutor” phrase, suggesting that Mattea is tutoring lesbians. Others also said that NBC News was fair for highlighting how a member of the LBGTQIA+ community was kicking ass at Jeopardy!, and that this was a part of representation in media. The only person who hasn’t commented on this is Mattea, who seems focused on winning.
She Loves Talking Heads
With Mattea’s winnings, she could afford herself a ticket to see David Byrne’s American Utopia at the St. James Theatre in New York City. After all, Mattea is a massive fan of his former band, Talking Heads. “I really like the Talking Heads,” she said during one episode of Jeopardy!, according to The Advocate. “So I have, under both of my knees: on one leg I have ‘same as it ever was’ and on the other leg I have ‘how did I get here?’ both from ‘Once in a Lifetime.’”
She Is Proud To Represent Her Homeland
Back in the homeland so I had to pay a visit to some of my earliest hardcore supporters! pic.twitter.com/cOJw8ehi6L
— Mattea Roach (@mattearoach) May 5, 2022
Jeopardy holds a special place in Canada’s maple leaf-shaped heart since the show’s iconic host, Alex Trebek, was born in Greater Sudbury, Ontario, Canada. “To get to represent Canada on the ‘Alex Trebek Stage’ means a lot,” Mattea told Robin Roberts during an episode of Good Morning America. “As Canadians, we’re so proud of our homegrown celebrities who made it big in the U.S. And so, it didn’t occur to me as I was taping these shows that I had become the longest-running Canadian, but I’m really honored by the support that everyone across the country has shown me. It’s so meaningful, and it fills me with so much joy.”