‘Jeopardy!’ champ Mattea Roach says buying a home in Canada in her 20s only realistic because of game show windfall


Before a record-setting game-show run changed her life, Mattea Roach had been feeling all the pangs of anxiety about her financial future that are typical for millennials and members of Generation Z.

At 23 years of age, she was doing pretty well paying rent in Toronto and getting by with various part-time and contract jobs, but student loans hung over her head, and the dream of owning a home one day seemed maddeningly far off.

She would even joke with her friends about how, any time they heard a story of a young person who was able to afford to buy a house, there tended to be wealthy parents or family members giving a sizable gift in the background.

“The secret is that they got, like, $100,000 from their parents,” she said.

Roach now knows she is now a lot closer to the dream of owning a home than she was just a few months ago — even though her path to financial security has been anything but ordinary. And she thinks her story of her says something about the pervasive anxieties those her age face of her.

“In my case, the ‘rich parents’ is just ‘Jeopardy!’ That’s going to be how I get on the property ladder,” she said. “On some level, it’s a little bit grim that I had to go on a game show — and not just appear on a game show but be one of literally the top contestants to ever be on that show — to feel like I have now some chance at like having financial security in my twenties.”

Roach, who as of Tuesday afternoon was on the longest ‘Jeopardy!’ winning streak of any Canadian, has racked up $352,781 (US) in winnings over the course of 15 games, and may win even more money if her streak continues.

Prior to “Jeopardy!,” Roach said, she was feeling financially stable — with an asterisk.

“It felt stable for now… all these things were going reasonably well for me, but there was always this constant sense of well, if the bottom falls out at any point I could be really screwed if I’m not careful.”

That sense of caution showed up in her game strategy. Roach said she was fairly conservative with her winnings de ella, never betting more on the Final Jeopardy! topic that she felt comfortable losing.

She said that’s because winning money felt good, but the fear of losing money she had already won in any given game was also ever-present. Roach said that even though she does n’t want to focus too much on the money she’s won, she thinks it’s worth pointing out how that generational anxiety factored into her play.

“Most people that I interact with in my day-to-day life are between the ages of like 22 and like 27. And these are the concerns that animate the daily life of like basically everybody that I know,” she said. “And so I think it’s important like to not ignore that piece of it.”

One tax expert says she may be in a better position to keep a lot of her winnings than an American contestant would be. Jason Ubeika, an expert in US personal taxation for the accounting firm BDO Canada, said all the winning on “Jeopardy!” would be subject to a 30 per cent withholding tax taken at the source.

Beyond that, however, Roach will not be required to pay any income tax on her winnings in Canada, unlike American citizens who would have to pay federal and state tax.

“Taking a step back and looking at it, making that amount of money and only paying 30 per cent is pretty good,” Ubeika said. “Mattea could end up noticeably better off than other American ‘Jeopardy!’ champions.”

Income tax on the same amount of money in Canada would be much higher — she would be required to pay about half of her winnings so far in income taxes if it had been money she earned working rather than playing a game on TV.

For now, Roach said, she plans on paying off her student loans from her undergraduate degree, paying tuition on future education, and investing what remains, in the hopes of making a home purchase one day.

“Knowing that I have now what’s basically a huge financial cushion I obviously want to maximize the value that I can get out of it,” she said. “Anytime somebody asks me what are you going to do with the money it’s like, well, I don’t have a fun answer for you.”

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