Jeopardy game maker and free board template.

How to play a Jeopardy-style game at home or in class

The TV show gives contestants clues “in the form of answers” and has them reply in the form of a question, per Wikipedia’s Jeopardy! article. For a family night or a classroom review, these house rules keep it moving:

1. Split into teams. Two to six teams works best. Give each team a name on the scoreboard and decide which team picks first.
2. Pick a tile. The team in control names a category and a value. Open that tile and read the clue aloud, or let everyone read it on the TV.
3. Answer. Decide how teams buzz in before you start: raised hands, a bell, or simply taking turns. Insisting on "What is…?" phrasing is optional; most families and classrooms drop it for younger players.
4. Score it. Tap the team that answered correctly to add the tile's value. If you play with penalties, a wrong answer takes the value away. Whoever answers correctly picks next.
5. Daily Double. If the tile is a Daily Double, only the team that found it plays. They wager before seeing the clue, then win or lose the wager.
6. Final round. When the board is cleared, show the final category, let every team with points write down a secret wager, reveal the clue, then add or subtract each wager. Highest score wins.

The TV format vs this maker

The show’s figures below are as Wikipedia describes them. The right-hand column is what you can set here.

Free Jeopardy template: the sample family trivia board

This is the filled-in board the maker loads by default: 5 categories of 5 clues, written for mixed ages. Use it as is, or as a model for your own. Answers are phrased as questions, show-style.

How this game maker works

• The board is 2 to 6 categories of 3 to 5 clues. Row values are the base value times the row number: 100, 200, 300 and so on, or 200 to 1,000 like the show’s first round, or 1 to 5 for younger players.
• Scoring adds a tile’s value to the team you tap. With the penalty rule on, a wrong answer subtracts it, which Wikipedia says is how the show scores misses. Undo steps back through every scoring change, and you can type over any score.
• The Daily Double, when switched on, hides behind one random tile that has a clue. Its wager limit mirrors the show’s: up to the team’s score or the board’s top value, whichever is higher.
• The final round asks each team with points for a wager from 0 up to its score, then adds or subtracts it.
• Sharing packs the board into the link after the # sign, compressed where the browser supports it. That part of a URL is never sent to a web server, so the board is not stored anywhere but the link and your browser. Anyone with the link can see the answers.

Jeopardy game maker FAQ

Sources

The figures about the TV show come from these pages, which we read in full. The sample board and house rules are our own. Last checked: November 6, 2026.

• Wikipedia: Jeopardy! — Clues given in the form of answers with responses phrased as questions; six categories of five clues per round; $200–$1,000 and $400–$2,000 values since November 26, 2001; one Daily Double in the first round and two in Double Jeopardy!, wagered from $5 up to the player's score or the round's top value; wrong answers deduct the clue's value; Final Jeopardy! wagers of any amount of a player's earnings; created by Merv Griffin, debuted on NBC on March 30, 1964.
• Jeopardy Productions, Inc.: Official site (trademark notice in the footer) — “JEOPARDY!” is a trademark of Jeopardy Productions, Inc.

The trademark notice is in the footer of the show’s official site. More free tools: the charades and Pictionary word generator, the white elephant game runner, the board game finder and the full tools list.