"Amazing Race" Bets Eliminated

Thinking about placing a wager on the outcome of The Amazing Race 7? Think again.

Offshore bookie Sportsbook.com has halted betting on the show after receiving a disproportionately high number of bets on one team to win the whole shebang.

The betting site became suspicious and pulled the plug on Amazing Race wagers once a significant number of maximum bets came in over a 12-hour period from Mar. 3 to Mar. 4 from accounts originating in California and Massachusetts.

So far, only three teams have been eliminated from the show, leaving eight teams in the running--seemingly too many to make a sure bet on who the winners will be.

Unless, of course, the results of the pretaped reality show were already leaked, which is what Sportsbook.com is betting on. (SPOILER ALERT: We suggest you stop reading if you don't want to know the possible winners.)

"Sportsbook.com is no longer taking bets on The Amazing Race. In fairness to our customers, we will honor all wagers that have already been placed on this event," said Alex Czajkowski, marketing director of Sportsbook.com, in a statement.

Uchenna and Joyce, a married couple from Houston, seem to have the inside track to victory, if "thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars" of bets can be believed.

If the couple does win the Race, they have hinted they plan to use the prize money to pay for additional in-vitro fertilization procedures, after trying unsuccessfully for years to have children. Uchenna and Joyce have also mentioned their struggles after getting laid off by, respectively, Enron and WorldCom.

CBS refused to confirm or deny any speculations about the winners of The Amazing Race.

In the past, sketchy betting patterns have proven accurate on a number of reality shows, including The Apprentice 2, Survivor: Pearl Islands, Survivor: The Amazon and the Aaron Buerge edition of The Bachelor.

Offshore betting company BetWWTS.com stopped taking gambles on all the aforementioned shows after fishy wagering patterns emerged early in their seasons.

In each case, the predicted finalists and winners came through, ensuring maximum bet placers a tidy return on their investments.

Now that such situations have become fairly commonplace, betting companies such as Sportsbook.com and BetWWTS.com work to identify and shut down illicit gambling trends as soon as possible in order to avoid paying out huge sums to insiders who are already aware of the reality shows' results.

"We try to offer Sportsbook.com users betting options on every possible event. From time to time we understand, unfortunately, that situations such as this will arise and will have to be dealt with accordingly," Czajkowski said.

Apart from Uchenna and Joyce, teams still in the running include Survivor alums Rob and Amber, mother-son duo Susan and Patrick, brothers Brian and Greg, oldster couple Meredith and Gretchen, married couple Ray and Deana, former POW Ron and his beauty-pageant gal-pal Kelly and boyfriends Lynn and Alex, who have said part of their motivation for going on the show is to possibly get hitched in Amsterdam.

Longtime friends Debbie and Bianca became the latest team to be eliminated in Tuesday night's episode of The Amazing Race.

Hosted by Phil Keoghan, the show has proven to be a fan favorite, garnering monster ratings for CBS and winning the Emmy for Favorite Reality Competition Program the past two years in a row.