Yogesh Raut competed in last year's Tournament of Champions , going head-to-head with Ben Chan and Troy Meyer. Yogesh ended up winning the $250,000 grand prize, but admitted it was due to Ben's "bad luck".
"Like with any other kind of achievement, it feels good," he said about winning the tournament . "I didn't come in with any kind of expectation. I played many practice games. I knew it was a game based on both skill and luck.
"When I succeeded, it was a combination of skill and other people’s bad luck. At any point, until and including game six of the final, things could have gone so many different ways."
Speaking to The US Sun , he explained that Ben could have taken home the grand prize if he had realized what category he was in on the Daily Double. Both Ben and Yogesh were one win away from the three victories needed in the finals when Ben misread the category in the deciding match.
Jeopardy! host Ken Jennings has referred to the match as "the most dramatic first round in history". Fans had been divided about Yogesh's appearance on Jeopardy!.
He was criticized by some viewers for his buzzing technique and his stories which some said came across as "braggy". However, he remained defiant amid the negativity.
Yogesh said: "I don't think I put much pot into it. If people find it funny, that's their business; if people find it entertaining, it's a TV show, and that’s fine."
He added: "Maybe if I changed it, I would have done worse. I find it hard to believe I would have done better. I don’t know that I have any obligation to harm my own play because people find the way I treat an inanimate object objectionable."
He also has faced backlash for slamming Jeopardy! in numerous interviews and Facebook posts. He hit out at the show for not being "important" and that it has fostered an environment for "racists, misogynists, and outright sexual harassers".
"Jeopardy!' is not the problem; its centrality to American society is. There will never be a healthy quizzing culture in this country until we learn to stop pretending that 'Jeopardy!' is important," he wrote in a post following his first appearance, which has since been deleted.
"The fact that actual quizzing continues to be a fringe subculture in the shadows is what allowed racists, misogynists, and outright sexual harassers to thrive in collegiate quizbowl for so long."
He then slammed the show for being "not good" while speaking with Buzzfeed.
"I have a master’s degree in film and television studies. I know how a television show works. It’s a business," he told the outlet. "But … Jeopardy is not good for quizzing. You only have to be smart enough to pass their written test, then it doesn’t matter how good at knowing things you are,” he told BuzzFeed News. “It matters how telegenic you are."
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