Dancing With The Stars 17 Las Vegas Odds Going Into Week 8 —Hmmm, Interesting!

“I like to be against the odds.” ~Barry Bonds

Have you noticed the odds makers in Las Vegas have been wrong almost every week this Season (if you base it on a ranking)? Though this isn’t really anything new either, but, last season they seemed to nail it every week despite our protests. Then again, the odds are more of an overall prediction of who will win at the end (for what Courtney and Heidi are always good at explaining. It’s confusing. I know.). So, below are Sports Bovada’s new odds going into Dancing With The Stars Season 17 Week 8!! Note how the numbers have changed compared to the week before. They also have tied Brant and Jack in fourth with 16/1 odds which I think I agree with. Though I think Elizabeth should be tied with them with the same 16/1 odds too. The biggest change though is how they changed Leah’s odds from 100/1 to now 66/1. They also insist on giving Bill 100/1 odds again as in previous weeks. Though sadly, I have to say I think Bill’s time might be running out either this week or the next. So maybe these odds are correct this time? Though how I hope (again) it’s Leah to go first.

Corbin Bleu 6/5
Amber Riley 5/4
Elizabeth Berkley 6/1
Brant Daugherty 16/1
Jack Osbourne 16/1
Leah Rimini 66/1
Bill Engvall 100/1

Below are last week’s odds:

Corbin Bleu 5/4
Amber Riley 7/5
Elizabeth Berkley 6/1
Jack Osbourne 12/1
Brant Daugherty 16/1
Snooki 16/1
Bill Engvall 100/1
Leah Rimini 100/1

Heidi, Court…take it away….

Heidi: Well, technically, as someone who doesn’t know that much about betting…they aren’t really “wrong”, per se, as these are the odds to win the show. So, if their person with the lowest odds isn’t the one eliminated, then they are only wrong if their person that is the odds on favorite to win is the one eliminated. Otherwise, they just didn’t have long enough odds on the person eliminated. Courtney knows more about this than I do, but that’s the way I understand it. We are looking at is as a ranking, which I don’t know if that’s what the odds makers intended when they place the odds.  Besides all that, I think they have it right in one respect – I think the judges will continue to do their best to ensure Bill is the next one to go. Whether they are successful or not depends heavily on the scores of the other people.  Personally, I’m not sure why they have Leah so  low, currently, since Jack hasn’t been scoring as well as Leah and seems to be fading to the background.  Why does he get 16/1 and she gets 66? I personally think she’s not been worthy of better scores than Jack, but she has been getting them and I think she’ll continue to get them as long as Bill is around…possibly leaving the door open for Jack or Brant (or Liz or even Amber) to get eliminated. So, what are they seeing with regards to Leah? Who knows? All I do know is that we will probably see a meltdown of Hope Solo proportions when the judges DO get real on Leah…if they ever do.

Courtney: You are right about the odds – they are essentially just a prediction of how likely someone is to win, as opposed to being a “ranking” of who is the next to go.  That being said – I tend to interpret it like this: the odds are how likely someone is to stay until the end of the competition – so if someone’s odds of staying until the end are low, then by extension, their odds of leaving sooner (rather than later) are probably high.  And when you interpret it that way – it does sort of feel like a prediction of who might be the most likely to be eliminated next.  So applying those thoughts to the situation at hand – I think Bill has made a strong showing these past few weeks, but he is getting rather hosed by the judges in comparison…and I don’t expect this coming week to be any different.  The question is – can his viewer votes neutralize his crummy judges’ scores? One thing that struck me as I voted this week (and please forgive this brief segue away from the topic at hand), is that each week, we get fewer votes to work with per voting method – so unless people are motivated to create more accounts each week, as the weeks wear on, it gets harder and harder to pull a low-scoring couple out of a point deficit…and I’m sure the judges/PTB relish this fact, as it makes it easier for them to oust the “undesirables”.  So while we may have done enough to keep Bill safe in previous weeks – it only gets harder each week.  And I’m beginning to think the fact that there was no elim last week probably helped Bill to some extent, because it just created a huge points dump that made the margins a lot smaller.  I hope I’m just being skeptical, but I’m preparing for the worst.  As for Leah – ack.  I can’t decide if it’s padded scores or just a lot of former fans of King of Queens or The Talk feeling nostalgic, but she has got to go – the sooner, the better.  I’m beginning to think that there’s a very real possibility that, unless the judges stop drinking the Leah Remini “Anti-Scientology Not-a-Dancer” flavored Kool-Aid, she could end up bumping somebody out of the finale…and do you really want to see a freestyle out of her? Yikes 😯