Ben Affleck and Jamie Ding win $1 million on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire

Ben Affleck and Jeopardy! champion Jamie Ding won $1 million for charity on Wednesday’s episode of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, correctly naming the presidentially pardoned turkey Spaghetti & Meatball with host Jimmy Kimmel‘s help.

TL;DR

• Affleck and Ding claimed the $1 million top prize on the Wednesday, July 29 episode of ABC’s Who Wants to Be a Millionaire.
• The pair used two lifelines before trusting Kimmel’s guess on the final question.
• The winnings go to Affleck’s charity, the Eastern Congo Initiative.
• The victory lands almost exactly one year after Matt Damon and Ken Jennings won the same prize.

A trivia champion pays off in the hot seat

Affleck, the two-time Oscar-winning actor and director, teamed up with Ding for the season five premiere of the ABC game show. Ding is fresh off a 31-game run on Jeopardy! that ended just three months ago, according to Deseret News.

The duo’s game began on the July 22 premiere, where they reached the $250,000 question before the episode ended on a cliffhanger, according to TV Insider. Their run resumed and concluded a week later.

Kimmel’s guess seals the win

The million-dollar question asked which turkey names had never been pardoned by a U.S. president, with Spaghetti & Meatball among the options. Affleck and Ding used their Ask-the-Host lifeline on Kimmel, who said he wasn’t entirely certain but offered Spaghetti & Meatball as his answer.

The pair also called Ding’s trivia partner, Stephen Morrison, who declined to guess. Affleck said he’d rather trust Kimmel’s instinct than leave it to chance, and the team locked in the host’s answer.

It proved correct. Confetti fell as Affleck and Ding embraced, according to Variety.

$1,000,000 Prize claimed by Affleck and Ding on the season five premiere event Source: Deadline

Eastern Congo Initiative reaps the reward

The full $1 million will go to the Eastern Congo Initiative, the charity Affleck founded to support advocacy and grant-making for communities in eastern Congo, according to Deadline.

Wednesday’s episode also featured Jason Alexander and Wayne Knight, plus Tig Notaro and Pete Holmes, as part of the same season five rollout.

A Good Will Hunting rematch, one year on

Affleck and Ding are the fifth celebrity pairing to win the top prize since Kimmel revived the format in 2020. The win falls almost exactly a year after Matt Damon and Jeopardy! host Ken Jennings won the same prize on July 30, 2025, for Damon’s charity, Water.org.

Kimmel, who has hosted the celebrity format since its 2020 debut, told Variety in July he wasn’t sure Affleck initially realised he’d been paired with a Jeopardy! champion. Reality-TV prize money is a recurring theme on the celebrity charity circuit, as seen in how Survivor winners have spent their own winnings.

Why UK fans need a workaround

Who Wants to Be a Millionaire is not broadcast on any linear channel or streaming platform in the UK. Viewers there typically need a VPN on a U.S. server and a Hulu subscription to watch, according to Tom’s Guide. The irony is not lost on British fans: the American format is itself an adaptation of the original UK game show.

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Reported from publicly available interviews and verified press sources. Last reviewed July 30, 2026.