The Creative Arts Emmys awarded the 2025 Outstanding Host for a Game Show to Jimmy Kimmel.

The host won the award at the 76th Creative Arts Emmys for hosting Who Wants to Be a Millionaire on Sunday, Sept. 7. In his acceptance speech, Kimmel acknowledged the series’ original host, Regis Philbin, and recalled his own first hosting gig on Win Ben Stein’s Money, which he hosted from 1997 to 2000.

“Regis was the best at this,” Kimmel told Gold Derby in the press room following his win. “I don’t think this show would still be on the air if Regis hadn’t hosted it to start with. And he was such an unusual pick at the time. I don’t think people remember that because it became such a big sensation, not just the hit, but a cultural phenomenon, that I don’t think people thought about the fact that Regis was a very unlikely choice as host for this show that became this big deal.”

He added, “Regis was somebody who was very nice to me and who I liked a lot, and it is exciting to have this and to know that he has this same Emmy somewhere in his family’s collection as well.”

He told IndieWire he still has “terror” when asked to answer a question. “Most of the game, I’m sitting there kind of twisting, hoping they don’t ask me to answer the questions I don’t know,” he told the outlet. “But the good news is they do seem to have a sense that I’m not that bright, and that the best case is to ask me a question about who won the Super Bowl or how many hit singles Madonna had in 1985.”

The other nominees included Elizabeth Banks for Press Your Luck, Steve Harvey for Celebrity Family Feud, Ken Jennings for Jeopardy! and Colin Jost for Pop Culture Jeopardy!.

In August, Kimmel opened up about returning to his roots to host Who Wants to Be a Millionaire.

“​​I started as a game show host,” he recalled during an interview with Variety last month. “My first television job was as the co-host on Win Ben Stein’s Money on Comedy Central. In our first year, Ben and I won the Emmy for best game show host. We’d never been to an award show of any kind. We couldn’t believe we were even nominated.”

“I think the only reason we were nominated was because there weren’t that many game shows on the air,” Kimmel, 57, said. “The idea that we would beat Alex Trebek and Pat Sajak — we had no thoughts planned, no delusions. We were just excited to be flown to New York for the Emmy Awards. And then when we won, I gave my Emmy to Susan Lucci, who — when you talk about losing streaks — is the most famous actress with one of all time.”

“So when I won, Ben had used all the time talking, and I just said, it’s ridiculous that we’re here for the first time and we won the Emmy and Susan Lucci is sitting there, and she doesn’t have one,” he added. “I walked down, she was in the front row, and I handed her my Emmy, and went back to my seat.”

Kimmel — was also received nominations for Outstanding Talk Series for Jimmy Kimmel Live! and Outstanding Game Show for Who Wants to Be a Millionaire this year— has been nominated for 24 Emmys and won three in the past.

In the press room following his win, he opened up to PEOPLE about what TV has meant to him throughout his life.

“TV is more important to me than anyone in my family. I love television,” he said. “My wife gets angry because I put a television in every room in our house.”

He then recalled “one of the great moments” of his life “was claiming the 12-inch black and white TV we had in the living room, when we finally went to Sears and got a color TV, as soon as that new TV went in, I grabbed that little TV and I ran upstairs and I plugged it in and my parents and I would watch TV.”

He remembered watching Hill Street Blues then “reviewing” the show with his parents. Having his own TV is also “where I discovered David Letterman,” he added. “So it’s very special to me.”

Banks, who also serves as an executive producer of Press Your Luck, recently opened up about the challenges of hosting the game show.

“It’s one of the hardest jobs, but I love it,” she admitted of the revamped version of the 1983 game show in an interview with Variety last month. “It’s very taxing, though. It’s a lot of tea and lozenges. Honestly, after the first two seasons, I realized I can only shoot two days and then I need a day off because I lose my voice. I’m screaming, we’re literally jumping up and down.”

“I’m losing my mind with them, and I keep losing my voice,” she added. “So I have started to really take care of myself on those days. I preserve a lot of energy backstage. I do a lot of mindfulness, and I am very zen in the hair and makeup chair, and then go out and put it all out on the stage with everybody.”

One goal remains for Banks, 51 — giving a contestant the elusive $1 million prize. She shared, “I dream of giving someone a million dollars. That’s our biggest dream. Believe me, we test out the cannons and the confetti every season just to make sure we’re ready.”

Banks scored her first nomination in the Outstanding Host for a Game Show in 2025 after previously being nominated in the Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series categories for her roles on Modern Family and 30 Rock.

Harvey, 68, scored another nomination for Celebrity Family Feud after snagging nods in 2024 and 2023.

Last year, he shared his recipe for being a successful game show host during a conversation with Variety.

“I think the key to being a great host is you’ve got to be gracious; you’ve got to be willing to laugh at yourself,” he explained at the time. “But then you’ve got to know the line of how far you can push the joke with a contestant. You can’t make the audience think you’re being harsh with them. But at the same time, you’ve got to have fun with them.”

For Harvey, that means that he has “taken a game show and turned it into a comedy show, really.”

“Family Feud is a show about the survey of what a hundred people think,” he said. “Nobody cares what a hundred people think anymore, because we’ve got Google, we’ve got YouTube, we can find out what you think. They gave me the leeway to do it my way, so it’s not so much the question and answers, it’s more the relationship between the contestant and the host. And that’s what makes it pretty fun.”

Four years after the death of Alex Trebek, Jennings — who was nominated in the same category in 2023 and 2024 — revealed how he has slowly become more comfortable taking the reins of Jeopardy!

“It was very tricky after Alex passed because, of course, we all missed him,” he told PEOPLE in April of taking over for Trebek. “No one had seen anybody else host Jeopardy for nearly 40 years. It was a tricky adjustment, and I didn’t want to be there.”

“I wanted Alex – like he was my guy, but luckily I had seen him host enough that I kind of had this internal sense of what would he do here, and that’s really the only thing that got me through,” Jennings, 51, continued. “And a few years on, I’ve gotten enough reps that I feel a little more comfortable out there.”

However, fans shouldn’t expect any major changes to the show’s format in the near future. Jennings said, “I think Ryan [Seacrest]‘s doing Wheel [of Fortune] now, so there’s unlikely to be big changes on my watch. I’m a fan first and foremost. I want to see the Jeopardy I grew up on.”

Jost, 43, admitted that he had some nerves about hosting the spinoff Pop Culture Jeopardy! on the Jeopardy! set.

“It’s kind of intimidating being on that set; he [Trebek] did it so well; [Jeopardy! champion and host] Ken [Jennings] does such a great job; you don’t wanna mess it up. You don’t wanna like disgrace this hollowed ground,” he said on Today in December.

It turned out the experience was nothing but positive for Jost. He said, “It was great, the energy was really fun…They all had their weird personalities a lot of them had very insane costumes they wore. They auditioned as a team they have to all take quizzes [to get on the show]. I think it was something like 70,000 people applied, and only 90 people made it, so it was really crazy selective.”

Jost is also up for Outstanding Writing for a Variety Series for Saturday Night Live and Outstanding Writing for a Variety Special for SNL50: The Anniversary Special at this year’s Emmys.