Keep score while you play along with the Jeopardy television show

Jeopardy moves so fast that it's almost impossible to keep up with the game if you try to calculate your score as you play along. This page provides two ways to keep score: an online calculator and a downloadable Excel worksheet.

Online Jeopardy play-along score calculator

Instructions:

1. Press Start to begin a new game.
2. For EVERY question a contestant chooses, click the appropriate dollar amount button even if you don't plan to answer. If you make a habit of this, you're less likely to forget sometimes and fall behind.
3. Decide whether to answer the question. If you answer, do it before the contestant does.
4. If you answered the question, click the RIGHT or WRONG button to update your score. If you didn't answer, don't click any button. Your score remains unchanged.
5. For Daily Double and Final Jeopardy questions, click Daily Double / Final instead of a dollar amount, and enter your wager in Current Wager. Your maximum allowed wager is the amount in Your Score (although the program does not check this).
6. For Daily Double and Final Jeopardy, you MUST answer and press the RIGHT or WRONG button after you answer.
7. Undo (if clicked immediately after making a mistake and before answering the next question) will undo the changes made by your most recent click of the RIGHT or WRONG button, leaving your score as though you had passed on (not answered) the question. You can then click the other button (RIGHT or WRONG) to correct the mistake. You can also update numbers manually in the boxes.

What is a perfect Jeopardy score?

The total dollar amount winnable in one Jeopardy column is 200 + 400 + 600 + 800 + 1000 = $3000. There are 6 columns on the game board, so the total dollar amount is $18,000. However, one of the squares is a Daily Double. If we assume that the Daily Double is in one of the $200 squares (to minimize its impact on regular winnings), it reduces the dollars on the board to $17,800, but it also allows you to double your score. Assuming that you were the only person who answered all the questions, and you got them all right, and the very last square you hit was the Daily Double, and you wagered your entire winnings on it, the most you can win in single Jeopardy is $35,600.

In Double Jeopardy (the second half of the game) the available winnings on the board are 400 + 800 + 1200 + 1600 + 2000 = $6,000 per column, times 6 columns = $36,000. There are two Daily Double squares, which we will assume are in two $400 slots, reducing the available dollars to $35,200.

Assuming again that you have swept the board the entire game, you have won $35,600 from Jeopardy, plus $35,200 from Double Jeopardy = $70,800 at the time you hit the first Daily Double. Wagering all your winnings and answering correctly doubles your winnings to $141,600, and correctly answering the second Daily Double doubles them again to $283,200. 

In final Jeopardy, you once again wager all your winnings and answer correctly. You win a total of $566,400, a perfect game!

Jeopardy.xls score-keeping Excel worksheet

This Microsoft Excel worksheet keeps score for you. When a contestant chooses a question, click the corresponding dollar amount button. (See screenshot below.) Answer the question before the contestant does. Then click the RIGHT or WRONG button, depending on how you did (or neither, if you didn't answer). The worksheet does the math. It also handles Daily Double and Final Jeopardy.

After the game, press the Archive Score button, and the ending data is transferred to the MyScores worksheet.

By showing how your answers affect your real score, this worksheet can help with strategy. One tip: If you don't know, don't guess.

The worksheet uses macros for its calculations. In the Excel 2003 version, they are signed with my personal "code-signing" digital certificate, which is only valid on my computer. Your computer will not recognize it and might prevent macros from running. If it blocks the macros, you'll need to review them (they're simple) and then sign them with your own code-signing certificate. See the note about that here.

Download:

jeopardy.zip (about 35 KB)

The zip file contains the Excel 2003 and 5.0 versions. The two are identical. Rename the one you want to JEOPARDY.XLS after download.