Who has won the most prize money in a Big Brother season?

After 90 days, Big Brother 26 came to an end. We saw some history with Chelsie Banham becoming the first female winner to win by a unanimous 7-to-0 vote, taking home the $750,000 on Oct. 13 as Quinn Martin, T’kor Clottey, Leah Peters, Angela Murray, Kimo Apaka, Rubina Bernabe, and Cam Sullivan-Brown all voted for the 27-year-old from Rancho Cucamonga, California to win.

The runner-up and winner of $75,000 this season was 22-year-old construction project manager Makensy Manbeck, a suburban Houston resident who made allies early on with Chelsie and Cam and made it to the Final 2 by winning 11 competitions over the AI-themed season in Studio City.

The affable Tucker Des Lauriers was voted as America’s Favorite Houseguest, beating out the fan’s second choice, Angela, and third choice Quinn. Tucker won $50,000 for being named AFP on Finale night after the 30-year-old marketing/sales representative from Brooklyn, New York won $20,000 in the AI Instigator twist, an amount voted on by the fans and which he received on Day 45 when he was evicted.

So who has taken home the most money from an American Big Brother season? And how much? And how does the grand prize money on Big Brother stack up against what the winners receive on other comparable popular reality shows? Let’s take a look here.

Taylor Hale, a 27-year-old personal stylist from West Bloomfield, Michigan had a record haul of $800,000 when she won Big Brother 24 on September 25, 2022.

Taylor became the third winner from the Great Lake State, following in the footsteps of Dan Gheesling (Big Brother 10), who lived in the Detroit suburb of Dearborn when he first entered the house, and Nicole Franzel, a resident of tiny Ubly and the winner of both Big Brother 16 and Big Brother Reindeer Games last winter.

How Taylor Hale won her $800,000

Taylor won the $750,000 grand prize for winning Big Brother 26 when she defeated runner-up Monte Taylor by a 8-to-1 vote and was also voted America’s Favorite Houseguest and the $50,000 prize, totaling $800,000.

She was nominated six times during the 82-day season and won two HoHs (Week 6, Week 11) and became the first black woman to win the civilian version of Big Brother (Tamar Braxton won Celebrity Big Brother 2 in 2019). Taylor also finished in second place on Big Brother Reindeer Games.

When did Big Brother increase the grand prize money?

After rewarding the show’s winner with a $500,000 grand prize for the first 22 seasons, CBS decided to increase the amount for winning the show by $250,000 to $750,000 starting with Big Brother 23.

The first Houseguest to win the $750,000 was Xavier Prather, who won BB23 by a unanimous 9-to-0 vote over fellow The Cookout alliance member Derek Frazier—the son of heavyweight boxing legend Joe Frazier—to become the show’s first African-American victor.

The then 25-year-old contestant from Milwaukee nabbed three HoH wins and three PoV wins and was nominated for eviction five times in his season. Like Michiganders Nicole and Taylor, Xavier competed in BBRG where he finished in a tie for third place.

How does the top Big Brother prize compare to other shows?

Only one comparable reality TV show to Big Brother sees just one contestant winning each season, and that’s fellow CBS franchise Survivor which has rewarded its winner—the Sole Survivor—with $1,000,000 since Season 1 and Survivor Borneo in 2000 when Richard Hatch won the prize.

The runner-up on Survivor gets $100,000 while the third-place finisher is awarded $85,000. Sandra Diaz-Twine won $2,000,000 from winning the show the first two times she was on it, on Survivor: Pearl Islands (Season 7, 2003) and Survivor: Heroes vs. Villains (Season 12, 2010).

Season 48 of Survivor is scheduled to debut in February or March of 2025 with Season 49 expected to premier in the fall of 2025 with Jeff Probst and Survivor 50 coming to your televisions in 2026.

On The Amazing Race, another CBS adventure reality show that has aired since 2001, the grand prize for the winners is also $1 million, but there are always two members to a team, meaning each contestant takes home $500,000 (before taxes). 

The Amazing Race 37, filmed from May 16 to June 14, 2024, will air on Wednesday nights and is scheduled to premiere after Survivor 48 on Wednesday nights in the spring of 2025.

The new Peacock hit, The Traitors, saw Season 2 winners CT Tamburello and Trishelle Cannatella win over $200,000 CT Tamburello and Trishelle Cannatella win over $200,000 in the Alan Cumming hosted show from a Scottish castle which will see former Big Brother players Britney Haynes and Danielle Reyes competing on The Traitors 3 in January 2025,

The grand prizes in MTV’s successful franchise The Challenge vary from season to season, and the show has awarded $1 million prizes to teams and even an individual player in its storied reality TV show history.

Four players from The Challenge have eclipsed $1,000,000 in total winnings in CT Tamburello ($1,375,000), Johnny Bananas ($1,222,720), Jordan Wiseley ($1,131,000), and Ashley Mitchell ($1,121,250), who won $1 million on the Final Challenge.

It's doubtful CBS will ever raise the BB grand prize to $1 million

It took CBS so long to raise the big prize in Big Brother from $500,000 to $750,000 that it is doubtful we will see the grand prize jump to $1 million anytime soon. But if, when the powers that be decide to up the ante, expect it to indeed be raised to $1,000,000, and possibly for another future Big Brother All-Stars season.

With shows like Big Brother’s prime time big brother Survivor and The Challenge already having had $1,000,000 prizes for their winners, our favorite reality show should get to that lofty point, but remember the expenses involved, the importance of ad revenues created from the ratings, and the big budget BB has to produce this wonderful and voyeuristic show based on the original Dutch version created by John de Mol Jr. way back in 1997.

The largest grand prizes in reality TV history

Two new streaming shows serve up the largest grand prizes to their sole winners and you will be very surprised by the grand prize amounts if you don’t already know.

The British reality competition show Squid Game: The Challenge debuted on Netflix in November of 2023, and saw some 456 contestants—the largest field of players in reality TV history—compete for the $4.56 million (£3.57 million) grand prize.

The annual salary of the president of the United States is $400,000.

The winner of season 1 of Squid Game: The Challenge—based on the popular Netflix South Korean drama series of the same name—was 56-year-old Mai Whelan, an American immigration adjudicator working for the Department of Homeland Security. 

Mai, who moved to the US from Vietnam, beat out Philip Cain and Samuel Wells to claim the then-largest prize in reality TV history. Netflix announced a second season of Squid Game: The Challenge in December of 2023.

The largest grand prize on a reality TV series will be in the upcoming Beast Games on Amazon Prime Video, with a new record $5,000,000 cash prize to be awarded by MrBeast (YouTuber Jimmy Donaldson).

The show, produced by Amazon Prime in a massive $100,000,000 deal, sees a record 1,000 contestants fighting for the $5 million prize, Beast Games is scheduled to be on Amazon Prime Video later this year.