‘Jeopardy!’ champion Caleb Groen from Thousand Oaks, California tops $300,000 after 10 wins

LOS ANGELES — Caleb Groen, a young man from Thousand Oaks, California, is the latest “Jeopardy!” super champion after winning 10 games in a row and more than $300,000. He is scheduled to try for his 11th win Thursday night.

Groen, a policy and law student, is interning in New York before returning back to Harvard Law School in the fall.

Asked how the winnings are changing his life, Groen said he may start with a practical purchase.

“I have a bike in Cambridge and it’s been broken for a while,” he said. “So definitely, I think, I put some money towards a new bike. But the remainder? I mean, it’s kind of enough that I’m thinking about maybe a down payment for a condo or a house or something like that. I think it would definitely be life-changing. I definitely want to up my charitable giving a little bit, this year for sure. But, overall, it’s just been something very unexpected and a huge blessing.”

Groen appears to have been preparing for “Jeopardy!” for much of his life. Before auditioning for the show’s college tournament in 2019, he was already learning on his own.

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“My parents told me that when I was three or four, I had a LeapPad toy where you have a book and you can interact with it,” he said. “By that age, I’d memorized the 50 capitals of the United States. So it began at an early age, definitely encouraged by my family and school and everything.”

His family has supported him throughout his run, including during the tapings.

“My brother and both my parents were able to come to all my games that I taped because they live in Los Angeles,” he said. “Or my parents do. My brother flew in. And so that was really special.”

Groen is now pursuing a law degree, but he once had a very different childhood dream: becoming a sanitation worker after watching the garbage truck come to his house.

“I’d say that dream lasted until I was around six or seven years old,” he said, “We even had a garbage themed birthday party one year for my fifth birthday, I think, where we gave out party favors that were in the shape of little recycling cans.”

Groen’s next “Jeopardy!” appearance airs Thursday on .

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