Offshore sportsbooks started taking bets on the "Jeopardy! Greatest of All Time" tournament in November, shortly after the game show announced that three legendary champions would face off in a prime-time TV event to air in January.
The odds were up for a month before betting was suddenly halted.
Three weeks ago, in the days after the GOAT tournament was taped, a flurry of bets showed up on one contestant, who we'll call Contestant X to avoid spoiling the outcome. Bookmakers on the receiving end of those bets are convinced there was a leak.


The bets on Contestant X could be winners or losers, sharp (pro) or square (public); we don't know either way. All we know for sure is that in mid-December, savvy bettors, armed with what they believed was the inside scoop, unleashed enough bets on Contestant X that multiple sportsbooks decided to take the odds off the board.
Welcome to the wild world of novelty betting, where leaks and nonsense rumors fuel a low-stakes, international market that produces more wild stories than massive scores. It's a world that, for the most part, state regulators require U.S. bookmakers to avoid.
Taking bets on prerecorded, rehearsed or scripted events is unsurprisingly risky, because some folks will know the outcome before others.