Last week, Nicholas Petrilli, a Binghamton resident and employee at Tioga Downs Casino Resort, came in second place on the popular game show Jeopardy!

Petrilli faced off against two other contestants — Dargan Ware, the returning champion and an attorney from Bessemer, Alabama, and Amanda Tholke, a criminal defense attorney from Cincinnati, Ohio. After correctly answering the Final Jeopardy! question, Petrilli came in second place.

Petrilli’s love for Jeopardy! and trivia began at a young age. He told Pipe Dream that he would watch episodes of the game show with his great-grandmother “almost every night.” His passion for trivia only grew, as he did quiz bowl while in high school before attending Montclair State University, joining the Sigma Pi Fraternity while earning an undergraduate degree in history.

“I used to be very into the quiz bowl community and stuff like that,” Petrilli said in an interview with Pipe Dream. “I kind of got away [from] it for a long time because life got in the way. And I’ve kind of been slowly reconnecting with that, which has been very nice.”

Jeopardy’s application process begins with an online “Anytime Test,” which consists of 50 trivia questions from previous years, Petrilli explained. Those with a passing score, typically considered to be 35 out of 50 questions correct, are required to then take a proctored test on Zoom to ensure the validity of their score, followed by an interview to gauge if they would be a good TV presence. Only after completing these steps successfully are contestants invited to appear on Jeopardy!.

The contestants’ family members are invited to watch the show as part of the audience. Since multiple episodes are filmed at a time, Petrilli said the families of contestants often spend time sitting together while waiting for their loved ones to appear on the show. The day before Petrilli was set to appear on the show, Ware was on stage while his wife and Petrilli’s wife were seated together in the audience. Petrilli said they became “best friends” in that short time.

At the end of that day, however, they both learned that their husbands were set to face off. Petrilli said that his wife was “dreading” this because she found herself on the opposing side of her new friend.

“I did not expect to meet so many cool people that would be so interested in me as well, because you meet a lot of impressive people,” said Petrilli.

Last year, Heather Ryan, a Binghamton resident and health program director for the Broome County Health Department, who appeared on Jeopardy!, also came in second. [HYPERLINK: https://www.bupipedream.com/news/binghamton-woman-makes-jeopardy-appearance/158973/] One of the questions asked contestants to complete the rhyme “men seldom make passes …,” to which another contestant correctly answered “girls who wear glasses.” The question sparked national attention and Ken Jennings, the show’s host, apologized to Ryan and said it was “problematic.” Ryan, a woman who wears glasses, told Pipe Dream the question made people “a little uncomfortable,” adding that young girls in particular should not be insecure about wearing glasses.

Outside of the trivia world, Petrilli works in camera surveillance for Tioga Downs Casino in Nichols, New York. In 2019, he began as a surveillance operator and quickly climbed the ranks, becoming a dual-rate and surveillance supervisor before being promoted to manager. Before entering the casino industry, Petrilli was a part-time substitute teacher at Bloomfield Public School District in New Jersey. Additionally, Petrilli served as a night auditor and manager with a commercial real estate development agency.

Since 2014, Petrilli has applied to be on the show every year before being accepted. Although he did not win, Petrilli said he now has a greater “appreciation for people who’ve been runners up.”

“When you go on the show, it’s luck of the draw,” Petrilli said. “There’s nothing you can really do differently because you never know what’s going to happen. At the end of the day, it’s a game show. They’re not just testing who has the most knowledge. There’s a lot of different competitions that do that around the country, but with Jeopardy!, you got the buzzer involved, you got the board. You got two people competing against you and racing for questions as well, because most everyone knows the questions as well.”