TV host and actor Patrick Leonard Sajdak is known simply as “Pat Sajak” in the United States. Sajak is well known to viewers as a longtime host of Wheel of Fortune. Pat Sajak has been nominated for 19 Daytime Emmys for Outstanding Game Show Host over his career presenting Wheel of Fortune, and he has won the award three times.
Wheel of Fortune has been hosted by Pat Sajak for 84 years and continues to attract massive audiences as grandparents and parents everywhere are too slow to turn off the TV after Jeopardy! So, yes, our homie Pat is very rich now. What exactly is hiding in his bank account is rather debatable, but here’s what we do know.
Pat Sajak: early life
Patrick Leonard Sajdak was born on October 26, 1946 in Chicago, Illinois. He is better known as Pat Sajak. He is the son of Joyce Helen and Leonard Anthony Sajdak and grew up in Chicago. His paternal and paternal grandparents were all Polish.
When Tap was young, his father died and his mother later married another. Sajak graduated in 1964 from Farragut High School. He attended Columbia University and now works as a receptionist at the Palmer House hotel in Chicago.
The net worth of Pat Sajak
Pat Sajak has amassed a net worth of $70 million through his work as a television weatherman, actor, game show presenter, and other related fields. As a longtime host of “Wheel of Fortune,” Sajak has become a household name. Pat’s salary for “Wheel” is $14 million a year.
| Net value : | $70 million |
| Salary: | $14 million |
| Date of Birth: | October 26, 1946 (75 years old) |
| Genre: | Man |
| Height: | 5 ft 9 in (1.77 m) |
| Occupation: | Game show host, talk show host, actor, radio personality, film producer, television producer |
| Nationality: | the United States of America |
As we will see below, this is not Pat’s main source of annual income. White people earn more every year from licensing their likeness to slot machines in casinos than from hosting the game show itself.
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Career
Sajak got the newscaster job at WEDC after hearing about it from his college broadcasting professor. He submitted an application and now has the 6 a.m. slot at the station. In the midst of the Vietnam War, Sajak enlisted in the US Army in the same year, 1968. He was a DJ for Armed Forces Radio while in the military.
He was a DJ, and he always started his concerts with “Hello, Vietnam!” as Robin Williams’ character did in the hit film of the same name. Sajak was the afternoon host on a Nashville radio station in the early 1970s.
His shift was from 3:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. Sajak moved to the Los Angeles area in the late 1970s in search of a career in the film and television industry. After graduating from college in 1977, he worked as a part-time meteorologist until he landed a full-time job with KNBC-TV in Los Angeles.
The game show “The Wheel of Fortune”
Game show mogul Merv Griffin approached Pat in 1981 to replace Chuck Woolery as host of Wheel of Fortune. Unfortunately, Fred Silvermanthe president of NBC at the time, turned down the idea of hiring Sajak because he was “too local”.
Thus, Merv Griffin canceled the series and refused to shoot any more episodes until Sajak was recruited. For more than 30 years, Sajak chaired Wheel of Fortune broadcasts on syndicated daytime and primetime shows. In 2018, Sajak overtook Bob Barker as the longest-serving host of any game show.
Guinness Book of World Records recognized him as such on March 22, 2019. Pat Sajak is locked in as host of Wheel of Fortune until 2022. Pat received three Emmy Awards and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for his contributions to the Show.
Salary of Pat Sajak
Wheel of Fortune host Pat Sajak is reportedly grossing $14 million a year. Vanna White, on the other hand, earns $10 million a year. The average monthly check-in schedule for Wheel of Fortune is four days. They record every other Thursday and every other Friday.
They both show up at 8:30 a.m. on shooting days and work until lunch. Three performances are seen by the same audience, followed by a meal break. Three other recordings are seen by a second audience.
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Salary distribution
In a typical month, Pat and Vanna record for four days. An annual salary of $15 million requires working only 48 days, while a salary of $10 million requires working only 36 days. Assuming a full day’s work, Vanna would bring in $208,333. Pat’s daily wage rate is $312,500. In terms of how much they earn per episode, Pat Sajak pulls in $52,083 and Vanna White pulls in $34,722.
Private life
In December 1989, in Annapolis, Maryland, Sajak married photojournalist Lesly Brown Sajak. Before his current wife, he was married to a woman who remained anonymous in the media from 1979 to 1986. Together, Pat and Lesly had two children: son Patrick Michael James Sajak (b. 1990) and daughter Maggie Marie Sajak (born in 1995).
Maggie has recorded three songs and is trying to make it as a country singer. The couple have residences in Severna Park, Maryland, and Los Angeles, California. Pat Sajak has made his skepticism of climate change clear. Additionally, he provides financial support to the Young America’s Foundation, an organization whose stated mission is to sponsor conservative lecturers at universities nationwide.
Sajaks attend various Christian congregations. Pat had to undergo emergency surgery to clear a blockage in his intestines in November this year. While he rested, Vanna White hosted in his place. After taking a leave of absence for his family, he returned to work on December 5, 2019.
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Casino License Earnings
The “Wheel of Fortune” salary is not Pat Sajak and Vanna White’s main source of income, despite popular belief. Pat and Vanna’s licensing deals for their casino slot machine likenesses make far more money than the game show itself.
In fact, the very first licensed entertainment property to be used on slot machines was Wheel of Fortune. The first slot machines with the Wheel of Fortune The trademark was introduced to Las Vegas casinos in 1996. Extreme popularity led to licensing in casinos around the world. Within a decade, slot machines bearing the wheel of fortune logo were considered the most lucrative in most casinos.
Around the world, casinos are home to around twenty thousand “Wheel” slot machines. The annual gross revenue of Wheel of Fortune slots in Las Vegas is over $1 billion. Over $2 billion has been won by the machines so far. Both Pat and Vanna receive at least $15 million a year in royalties, license fees and other payments for the use of their faces and likenesses in slot machines.
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