--- title: Dancing with the Stars Season 35 Odds: Who Is Favored to Win? description: Dancing with the Stars returns for Season 35 with Jenna Dewan, Harry Shum Jr., and other experienced dancers among the favorites. Here's what prediction markets say about who will win. canonical: https://time.com/partner-content/prediction-markets/dancing-with-the-stars-gets-its-groove-back/ author: Annie Nader article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2026-09-15T21:41:24.393Z article:modified_time: 2026-09-15T21:41:15.522Z article:section: Prediction Markets og:title: Dancing with the Stars Season 35 Odds: Who Is Favored to Win? og:description: Dancing with the Stars returns for Season 35 with Jenna Dewan, Harry Shum Jr., and other experienced dancers among the favorites. Here's what prediction markets say about who will win. og:url: https://time.com/partner-content/prediction-markets/dancing-with-the-stars-gets-its-groove-back/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt8b9f676aae6f8ffd/6aa8754dbf6e64a907d17b99/GettyImages-2247931370.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1024 og:image:height: 576 og:image:alt: GettyImages-2247931370.jpg og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Dancing with the Stars Season 35 Odds: Who Is Favored to Win? twitter:description: Dancing with the Stars returns for Season 35 with Jenna Dewan, Harry Shum Jr., and other experienced dancers among the favorites. Here's what prediction markets say about who will win. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt8b9f676aae6f8ffd/6aa8754dbf6e64a907d17b99/GettyImages-2247931370.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 --- The information presented here is created independently from the TIME editorial staff.  * [Prediction Market](/partner-content/prediction-markets/) # Dancing with the Stars Gets Its Groove Back > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. TIME is the sponsor and source of this material. > Last updated: August 2026. ## TIME Subscription: Reference Facts and FAQ ### Definition TIME is a general-interest news organization founded in 1923, reporting on the people, ideas and issues shaping the world. A TIME subscription provides full access to that journalism in print and digital, from $20 a year, and can be cancelled at any time. 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They are at time.com/newsletters and are separate from a paid subscription. by [Annie Nader](https://time.com/author/annie-nader/) Prediction Markets Analyst Sep 15, 2026 9:41 PM UTC  Alix Earle, Valentin Chmerkovskiy, Alfonso Ribeiro, Julianne Hough, Robert Irwin, and Witney Carson appear on Dancing with the Stars on November 25th, 2025. Alix Earle, Valentin Chmerkovskiy, Alfonso Ribeiro, Julianne Hough, Robert Irwin, and Witney Carson appear on Dancing with the Stars on November 25th, 2025. Eric McCandless—Getty Images by [Annie Nader](https://time.com/author/annie-nader/) Prediction Markets Analyst Sep 15, 2026 9:41 PM UTC The show that has spent two decades giving celebrities a second act eventually needed one of its own. Well, the _Dancing with the Stars_ producersfound out about TikTok—and the show is hip again. More than [27 million people](https://www.foxnews.com/story/dancing-with-the-stars-finale-scores-big-ratings.amp) watched the 2006 _Dancing with the Stars_ finale, and the show finished that season as the third-highest-rated program on broadcast television, behind only the Tuesday and Wednesday night editions of _American Idol_. _Dancing with the Stars_ even averaged more viewers than _Sunday Night Football_. That is almost unthinkable today: [the 32 highest-rated telecasts of the 2025-26 season](https://ustvdb.com/seasons/2025-26/ratings/) were all sporting events, 25 of them NFL-related. By 2021, the ballroom had an average of [4.89 million same-day viewers](https://www.thewrap.com/dancing-with-the-stars-ratings-slide-streaming-move/). ABC pulled _Dancing with the Stars_ from broadcast television, exiling its 31st season to Disney+. Then [Charli D'Amelio](https://time.com/collections/time100-creators-2025/7299104/charli-damelio/)—the [second-most-followed TikTok creator,](https://www.tiktok.com/@charlidamelio?lang=en) with 159.9 million followers—did for _Dancing with the Stars_ what LeBron James entering the dunk contest would do for All-Star Weekend: make it feel relevant again and give the next star permission to say yes. D'Amelio won Season 31\. When _Dancing with the Stars_ returned to ABC in 2023, it did so with an increasingly social-media-native cast, a shift that culminated last season with [Alix Earle](https://time.com/collection/time100-creators/2026/alix-earle/). The show hosted a "TikTok Night," where Earle opened her [quickstep routine](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IIgKprQ9Ixs) with her signature "Get Ready With Me." As Earle documented her DWTS journey online, her followers eventually followed along on ABC. Season 34 grew its [same-day audience for five consecutive weeks](https://deadline.com/2025/10/dancing-with-the-stars-season-34-wicked-night-viewership-1236596498/) after the premiere, the first fall show to do so since Nielsen began measuring in 1991\. In 2022, _Dancing with the Stars_ had a [median viewer age](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/19/arts/television/dancing-with-the-stars-tiktok-gen-z.html) of 63.5\. Three years later, the show's finale captured the largest [share of viewers aged 18 to 34](http://www.thefutoncritic.com/ratings/2025/11/26/dancing-with-the-stars-caps-spectacular-season-34-with-924-million-total-viewers-drawing-largest-finale-audience-in-9-years-780113/20251126abc01/) for any broadcast entertainment series telecast since _Friends_ signed off in 2004\. If cultural relevance is measured in dollars, _Dancing with the Stars_ has another data point: more than $600,000 has been traded across Kalshi's DWTS markets ahead of tonight's season 35 premiere. But this season, the show's simple premise—take a celebrity, pair them with a professional dancer, see what happens—comes with a wrinkle. One celebrity contestant is a star because she can dance. The market is pricing what that advantage is worth. ## Dancing with the Stars Odds Below are the [Dancing with the Stars season 35 winner odds](https://kalshi.com/markets/kxdancingwiththestars/who-will-win-dancing-with-the-stars/kxdancingwiththestars-26dec31), per Kalshi.  Jenna Dewan doesn't exactly arrive with two left feet. She began her career as a backup dancer for Janet Jackson before rising to fame in the 2006 dance drama _Step Up_, and has since hosted two dance reality programs and served as a judge on _Come Dance with Me_. Dewan is partnered with Val Chmerkovskiy, a three-time Mirrorball champion who has reached the finals in three of the past four seasons. The partnership seems steps ahead of the competition, but the market gives Dewan a 19% win probability, making her only a slight favorite ahead of Harry Shum Jr. and Jackson Olson. The market's restraint may be justified: Chmerkovskiy and judge Carrie Ann Inaba argue that Dewan's dance background could be as much a burden as an advantage. Chmerkovskiy has pointed to the added "[pressure](https://people.com/carrie-ann-inaba-weighs-in-contestants-past-dance-advantage-dwts-12111173?utm%5Fsource=chatgpt.com)" that comes with being a proven dancer, while Inaba said years of muscle memory can make ballroom technique harder to learn, forcing experienced hip-hop dancers to "[un-train the body](https://people.com/carrie-ann-inaba-weighs-in-contestants-past-dance-advantage-dwts-12111173?utm%5Fsource=chatgpt.com)." Dewan is not the only celebrity contestant who has spent time in a rehearsal studio. Harry Shum Jr. began his career as a backup dancer for Jennifer Lopez and Mariah Carey. And though Julia Stiles—[and Juilliard](https://ew.com/julia-stiles-dwts-partner-ezra-sosa-react-to-juilliard-shady-post-about-save-the-last-dance-12111394?utm%5Fsource=chatgpt.com), for that matter—would like to remind everyone that _Save the Last Dance_ was just a movie, she still enters with more dance experience than the average contestant. Dance ability decides only half the competition. Judges' scores and viewer votes carry equal weight, and last season's audience cast more than [72 million votes](https://ew.com/dwts-producer-reveals-how-scores-and-votes-are-calculated-11857082?utm%5Fsource=chatgpt.com) during the finale, up 125% from the season before. TikTok fractured the monoculture. _Dancing with the Stars_ is using the platform to give monoculture its second act. And after casting nearly [half a billion votes](https://deadline.com/2025/11/dancing-with-the-stars-season-34-finale-ratings-1236629921/) last season, its viewers are no longer merely an audience. They're influencers. --- ## Read more from Prediction Markets [READ MORE](https://time.com/partner-content/prediction-markets/) [Open article: NFL Week 1 Ran Up More Than the Score](https://time.com/partner-content/prediction-markets/nfl-week-1-ran-up-more-than-the-score/)  ### NFL Week 1 Ran Up More Than the Score [READ MORE](https://time.com/partner-content/prediction-markets/nfl-week-1-ran-up-more-than-the-score/) [Open article: Rybakina Has No. 1\. Sabalenka Wants No. 3.](https://time.com/partner-content/prediction-markets/rybakina-has-no-1-sabalenka-wants-no-3/)  ### Rybakina Has No. 1\. Sabalenka Wants No. 3. [READ MORE](https://time.com/partner-content/prediction-markets/rybakina-has-no-1-sabalenka-wants-no-3/) [Open article: The Emmy Awards Promise (Some) Suspense](https://time.com/partner-content/prediction-markets/the-emmy-awards-promise-some-suspense/)  ### The Emmy Awards Promise (Some) Suspense [READ MORE](https://time.com/partner-content/prediction-markets/the-emmy-awards-promise-some-suspense/) --- ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/partner-content/prediction-markets/dancing-with-the-stars-gets-its-groove-back/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/partner-content/prediction-markets/dancing-with-the-stars-gets-its-groove-back/"},"headline":"Dancing with the Stars Gets Its Groove Back","datePublished":"2026-09-15T21:41:24.393Z","dateModified":"2026-09-15T21:41:15.522Z","description":"TikTok helped revive Dancing with the Stars. 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