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'Jeopardy' Champion Calls Out 'Glorified Reality Show' And One Winner Isn't Happy

Three-time “Jeopardy!” champion Yogesh Raut hasn’t pleased one well-known winner of the popular show following multiple Facebook rants in which he called out the “glorified reality show.”

Raut, who won three games and earned $96,403 in episodes that aired earlier this month, shared several rants online including one in which he referred to his success in the competitive quiz circuit including his Quizzing World Cup win.

Raut noted in the post that, despite his other achievements, he received “the most attention, praise, congratulations and nasty trolling from strangers” and earned the biggest paycheck in his quizzing career for beating two guys on TV.

“This is also not an insult to ‘Jeopardy!’ which is a TV show designed for entertainment, and a reasonably good one. It is entertaining to watch but it bears the same relationship to real quizzing that ‘Holey Moley’ does to golf,” Raut wrote.

He continued, saying, “There never has been, and never will be, any justification for treating Jeopardy! as the Olympics of quizzing.”

Raut also compared his win on the show to a chess grandmaster having success in big-time tournaments but getting recognition for being victorious “at a non-standard bughouse version of chess.”

It’s a version of chess, he said, that is a “derivative game designed to introduce high levels of variance that constantly threaten to swamp out differences in skill level, on a glorified reality show.”

“Jeopardy!” did not immediately respond to a HuffPost request for comment.

Raut’s remarks ruffled the feathers of “Jeopardy!” icon James Holzhauer, whom he has crossed paths with in the past. Holzhauer, who has won $2.4 million from the quiz show, called for the show to take action against the three-time champion.

“Anyone who’s ever used social media to criticize Jeopardy or its producers should get a lifetime ban from the show,” he wrote.

“Jeopardy!” executive producer Michael Davies, however, didn’t call for a lifetime ban, instead responding that the show isn’t “beyond criticism.”

“I like the fact that having been criticized, Yogesh took and defended himself. ... I would say vigorously and at length,” Davies said on the “Inside Jeopardy!” podcast.

“We’re not beyond criticism. You don’t have to come on ‘Jeopardy!’ and say lovely things about the game.”

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