Jeopardy! Data Viz Helps You Find the Daily Double

In one graph, Flowing Data breaks down your chances of betting it all on national television.

by Beckett Mufson

March 3, 2015, 6:35pm

Screencap via

Alex Trebek raised me almost as much as my own parents when I tuned in every weeknight at 7:30 p.m., but the folks at Flowing Data learned more about the gameshow from simple analytics than I did in years of religious viewership. Their reproduction of the Jeapordy! clue board lays out the best bets for finding the Daily Double, or as controversial contestant and game theorist Arthur Chu might call them, "major elements of chance." As it turns out, there's less chance than it seems, since over a third of Daily Doubles are in the fourth row, with its first column spot offering 8% overall.

The data comes from 13,663 Daily Doubles, meticulously recorded by the unofficial J! Archive. Now that their pattern has been revealed, maybe those mysterious offscreen judges will switch up the board more often.