No Betting Markets on "Flip This House" Man Sam Leccima YetGambling911.com scoured the Net on Saturday looking for betting markets on "Flip This House" ultimate home flipper Sam Leccima, to no avail.
intrade.com (see website here) which typically offers betting markets on legal adversities did have odds up for Conrad Black, Tom DeLay and I. Lewis Libby. BetUS.com (see website here) - one of the leaders in online entertainment betting odds - fell asleep at the wheel all week long, failing to even get those A-Rod divorce odds up. Bodog.com (see website here) was in the process of considering our request to get Sam Leccima odds up.
His story is picking up steam nationwide in the US this weekend following extensive press in the Atlanta area.
Sam Leccima of A&E's popular reality series "Flip This House" was reportedly arrested for fraud, though FlipThisLawsuit, which has been devoted exclusively to Leccima and "Flip This House" since last year, claims he has not yet been arrested.
"A call to the Atlanta Department of Corrections indicates that Mr. Leccima remains, at this time, a free man," confirms that site's webmaster.
Lecimma is accused of faking the home renovations shown on the cable TV show and claiming to have sold houses he never owned.
"This is, indeed, a con artist," said Sonya McGee, an Atlanta pharmaceutical representative who says Leccima took $4,000 from her in an investment scheme.
McGee and others say Leccima's episodes of "Flip This House," A&E's most popular show, were elaborate hoaxes. His friends and family were presented as potential homebuyers and "sold" signs were slapped in front of unsold houses. They say the home repairs -- the lynchpin of the show -- were actually quick or temporary patch jobs designed to look good on camera.
Leccima says he never claimed to own the homes. While not acknowledging his televised renovations were staged, he didn't deny it and suggested that A&E and Departure Films, the production company that makes the show, knew exactly what he was doing.
"Ask anybody who works in television how a reality show is made and you'll find that ours was a very typical approach," Leccima said in a telephone interview.
A&E has removed any episodes featuring Leccima from the air.
Fox's I-team has investigated Sam Leccima and found a number of angry investors who have complained to state regulators and in lawsuits that Sam took their money. These reports aired in mid-May and A&E promptly removed episodes of their hit show featuring Leccima off the air.
"This is one of my favorite shows and one would expect betting markets on Sam Leccima's future by this week," says Payton O'Brien, Senior Editor of Gambling911.com. "This was the second hottest story here on Gambling911.com following the A-Rod hoopla and interest in this matter continues to grow as more and more fans of the show find out what is transpiring. We only learned of this event yesterday (Friday)."
The sagging housing market makes for good television.
Apparently it doesn't matter that annual rate of home sales nationwide are down 10.7 percent: The real estate boom is alive and well on cable TV, according to Mary Umberger of the Chicago Tribune.
"The real estate obsessed can choose from at least two dozen shows. From "Property Ladder" to "Flip This House" (not to be confused with "Flip That House") to "National Open House," the list is long and getting longer."
"Flip This House" ranks among A&E's most popular reality programs.
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Also See: Entertainment Betting Odds
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Christopher Costigan, Gambling911.com
Originally published June 2, 2007 11:08 pm ET
