Luck took a good turn for Amy Schneider when the Californian won a huge sum of money on Jeopardy!, just days after being robbed. She’s now one of the most successful contestants ever in the iconic show’s nearly six-decade run.
Schneider earned $42,000 during her 28th consecutive win on Friday, bringing her total winnings to $1,019,001. The prize money has made her just the fourth contestant, as well as the first woman and the first transgender person, to win over $1 million in regular season play.
“It feels amazing, it feels strange,” Schneider, a software engineering manager in Oakland, said after the game. “It’s not a sum of money I ever anticipated would be associated with my name.”
The win came days after Schneider tweeted that she had been robbed, losing her phone and credit cards.
On the New Year’s Eve, she left a message apparently directed at people who make transphobic remarks.
“I’d like to thank all the people who have taken the time, during this busy holiday season, to reach out and explain to me that, actually, I’m a man,” Schneider tweeted. “Every single one of you is the first person ever to make that very clever point, which had never once before crossed my mind.”
In the iconic trivia quiz show, which was first shown on NBC in 1964, contestants earn and lose money by answering questions from the categories they pick on the dashboard. The quickest person to press a buzzer button gets to answer first.
In 2004, Ken Jennings was the first player to earn over $1 million after winning 30 consecutive games.