Your one-stop shop for novelty betting

Can you believe “Dancing with the Stars” will be finishing its eighth season after three more episodes? You know what that means (aside from that this show has been on American television one long-ass time already): This weekend marks the last chance to bet on the competition’s winner. Ready for a crash course?

GoGo went went early

First up are the odds, provided by bookmakers Intertops and Bet 365:

Gilles Marini: 23/20 at Intertops; 11/10 at Bet365
Melissa Rycroft: 5/4; 13/10
Shawn Johnson: 5/2; 14/5
Ty Murray: 30/1; 45/1

In terms of betting, note that *all* of Bet365’s odds for this proposition bet are longer. And while a winning wager on Marini (probably best known in the US as Samantha’s temptation in “Sex and City: The Movie”) only earns the punter some 5% more in returns, hey, five percent is five percent.

Though none of the remaining four couples are huge surprises, the household names that most reckoned would still be around – Belinda Carlisle, L’il Kim, Denise Richards, Lawrence Taylor and David Alan Grier – were, with the exception of L’il Kim, booted unceremoniously from the show waaaaaaaaaay early. Heck, something called Predictify.com had former GoGo Carlisle taking the entire competition and she was bounced in week one.

Resident Newsday expert Mark La Monica had all five finalists (including Kim, taken out in week eight) in his top 10, a pretty damn good finish. La Monica’s favorite among those remaining is Murray, a.k.a. Mr. Jewel, who could make the writer look very clever (and pretty rich) in a couple of weeks.

As far as the Os Man’s concerned, this one’s going to come down to Rycroft and Marini, even though Johnson is an world-class artistic gymnast and the Os Man realizes that ever since Emmitt Smith nailed the debut season should the token jock ever be counted out.

Frenchman Marini is teamed with Cheryl Burke; if his genetic dependency to elicit ooh-la-las isn’t enough, partner Cheryl Burke should be: She’s already won Dancing with the Stars twice. This couple has received five 10s from individual judges in competition thus far, tying Marini with L’il Kim in that statistic. Tough to beat.

With as much ammo as Marini appears to boast, Rycroft has the market cornered in one key area of “reality” television competition: karma. “Reality” TV junkies will surely recall the most despicable moment in the genre since Richard Hatch lazed around naked on the island, the denouement of The Bachelor’s 2008 season.  On that rubbernecking-fest, titular dude Jason Mesnick repoed the show-ending diamond engagement ring and marriage proposal to Rycroft in the final episode, leaving the audience shocked and attracting the attention of CNN.

For “Dancing with the Stars,” Rycroft was taken as a last-minute replacement for Nancy O’Dell. Given two days to practice for the first round, Rycroft survived … and survived … and survived. By week nine, she and partner Tony Dovolani were well beyond sympathy voting and good enough to score a perfect 30 in a samba number, just one of two perfect 30s this season. (Marini has the other, having scored the first 30 in Argentine tango in the show’s history.)

Rycroft’s secret? Maybe it’s her background as a Dallas Cowboy cheerleader, maybe it’s sheer will driving her on to throw success in Mesnick’s face, or maybe Dovolani really wants another chance at the top prize – he hasn’t stood on the podium since a third-place finish back in season two. No matter: This one’s Rycroft.

The Os Man’s advice: Take Rycroft for a few quid over at Bet365.com. Merde! (That means “break a leg” to a dancer – really.)