American Idol: Kellie Pickler pays out a whopping $1200!!

Kellie Pickler manages to do the impossible by making Jessica Simpson look semi-intelligent.  But where she lacks in brains, Pickler more than makes up for it in talent. 

Slowly but surely, she's starting to get noticed and turned out one of the better performances among the females this past week. 

The betting public and linesmakers at Canbet (See Web Site Here) are hardly impressed however.  Kellie Pickler is listed with odds at 12 to 1 of going all the way.  This translates into a $12 payout for every $1 bet or a $1200 payout for every $100 bet.  That places her within the bottom half of the competition.  Surprisingly, young Lisa Tucker is also listed rather low with 10 to 1 odds.

American Idol Season five has become the most bet on nonsporting event in the history Gambling911.com with more an more online sportsbooks offering odds on the event.

Canbet (See Web Site Here), a company based in Australia and licensed both there and in the United Kingdom, is the latest online betting establishment to feature odds on the hit television show.

Hailing from Albemarle, North Carolina (population 15,680) Kellie's mother abandoned her at age three, and her father is incarcerated. She lives with her grandfather and is a waitress at Sonic. She has also worked as a Wal-Mart associate in North Carolina, and was crowned "Miss Stanly County".

The 19-year-old first auditioned for American Idol in fall 2005 in Greensboro, North Carolina. During this audition, she sang both Kelly Clarkson's "Since U Been Gone" and Martina McBride's "A Broken Wing".

The whole family is pulling for Kellie said Jean Thompson, Picklers great aunt. Shes a good girl and we are just really thankful that shes our niece. We love her.

Some people aren't buying Kellie Pickler's niavity however.  Lisa Streeter of the PalmBeachPost included:

I used to think that the talented Kellie "Hey, Y'all!" Pickler was merely a pleasantly naive little girl. Now, I think she is the Ellie Mae Clampett version of Edward Norton's supposed hick murder suspect in "Primal Fear." Not that she's a murderer. I mean, I think she's genuinely awed by the big lights and all, and she'd be weird if she wasn't. I just think she's laying on that "I ain't never been nowhere and don't know nothing but I'm as shiny as a shrimp in grits to be here and swim in your see-ment pond!" thing a little thick. And I ain't buying it.

I am still marveling over her Hee Haw-fied handling of Melissa Etheridge's "I'm The Only One," which was note-perfect but just wrong-headed. See, to sing that song right, you've gotta sound desperate to the point of almost being obsessively stalky. You gotta sound like you're willing to smack down that skank who's shacked up with your man, pull her off him by her hair and threaten to cut her if she doesn't slink out of town like the dog she is, right now.

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Gambling911.com News Wire

Originally published March 12, 2006 1:18 pm ET