- Jenna Dewan has reclaimed the betting favorite spot to win “Dancing With the Stars” Season 35 at +200 odds.
- Harry Shum Jr., who led the market earlier this week, has fallen back to +250 odds.
- Giada De Laurentiis is favored to be eliminated during the two-night premiere after injuring her toe in rehearsals.
- ABC and Disney+ carry the Season 35 premiere across two nights, Tuesday and Wednesday at 8 p.m. ET.
LOS ANGELES – Jenna Dewan has reclaimed the favorite’s spot to win “Dancing With the Stars” Season 35 at BetOnline’s entertainment betting market, sitting at +200 odds four days before the show’s two-night premiere. Harry Shum Jr., who briefly led the DWTS odds, has fallen back to +250 odds in the nine days since ABC locked in the season’s pairings.
A Nine-Day Round Trip
Reality-TV props are among the fastest-moving corners of legal sports betting right now, and BetOnline’s “Dancing With the Stars” winner market has proven it twice since the Season 35 field was set Sept. 2 on ABC’s “Good Morning America.” Shum, who trained as a professional dancer before “Glee” and “Crazy Rich Asians,” closed his first session at 4 cents on Kalshi, climbed to 21 and has since given most of the run back.
Dewan, a former Janet Jackson backup dancer, moved the other way and is back on top at +200 odds, with Olympic figure skater Amber Glenn next closest at +700 odds. Anyone who rode Shum to the peak and stayed in now sits on a paper loss with the show still four days from its first live dance. Dewan’s price, treated as a fade candidate during the worst of the backlash, has instead proven to be the discount.
Kalshi, one of the prediction market apps now pricing reality-TV outcomes, has Shum trading level with actress Julia Stiles rather than clear of the rest of the field, a sign traders are not yet convinced his slide is over.
The Backlash Hasn’t Faded
Dewan’s price cratered after fans argued her years as a professional dancer, plus turns hosting “World of Dance” and judging “Come Dance With Me,” amount to an unfair head start against castmates with no formal training. Dewan pushed back in comments to Entertainment Weekly, saying, “I do not know how to ballroom dance. Let’s be clear. It’s two different languages,” and that the transition involved “a certain sense of unlearning” for her.
The same complaint sank a comparable ringer, former Beyoncé backup dancer Heather Morris, who went home midway through Season 24 even after producers mounted the same defense. That precedent is the reason Dewan’s price has stalled at +200 odds instead of running away, even as bettors now rate her the strongest contender in the field.
De Laurentiis Favored For A Premiere Exit
A separate Kalshi market on which pairs go out during the two-night premiere has Giada De Laurentiis at 44 cents, well clear of Taylor Hanson’s 28 cents for the next-most-likely exit. The chef told fans about the toe in a Sept. 6 Instagram video recorded at practice alongside partner Alan Bersten, per Just Jared: “I had a great day at rehearsals today, but sadly, I busted my toe…it’s quite purple, and it wraps all the way around.”
She said the toe “hurts, but we’ll figure it out tomorrow.” With no dance background to fall back on, De Laurentiis now needs a clean recovery just to survive a market that already has her more than 15 points clear of Hanson.
What’s Next
All 16 celebrity-professional pairs dance live for the first time when the premiere opens Tuesday, and each episode hits Hulu a day later. Every price on the board right now, including the Dancing With the Stars winner and elimination markets, is a preseason number. The premiere’s first live vote gives Dancing With The Starts bettors their first real data beyond dance pedigree and partner resumes, the same kind of shift that has already flipped the winner favorite twice since the cast reveal.
