Entertainment Last Updated Sep 16 2025, 8:15 AM

Dancing With The Stars: Dance Types Leading To The Most Eliminations Revealed!

VegasInsider Staff Sports Betting Expert

2 minute read

Ahead of the start of the 34th season of Dancing With The Stars, VegasInsider has analyzed 33 seasons and 20 years’ worth of data to find out which dance types have led to the most eliminations in the competition and on the other hand, which dances have led to the most progressions to the next round.

THE MOST ELIMINATED DANCE TYPES

According to an analysis of 2,700+ dance numbers spanning 20 years, 33 seasons and 500+ episodes, the most eliminated dance type is Cha-cha-cha, which has led to 38 eliminations, followed by Tango with 33 eliminations and Paso Doble with 32 eliminations.

You can see the top 15 most eliminated dance types in the table below:

THE “SAFEST” DANCE TYPES

On the other hand, the safest dance types, thus dance types that have led to the progression to the next round most often are Jive and Quickstep which are currently tied for 1st place with 199 progressions to the next round each. The third safest dance is Foxtrot which has led the contestants to safety 191 times in the last 33 seasons.

You can see the top 15 safest dance types in the table below:

NEGATIVE POINTS RANKING

When also taking into account bottom two, bottom three and bottom five placements in addition to eliminations (assigning proportionate points for each of them), the top 3 most “dangerous” dances to perform are: Tango (178 negative points), Cha-cha-cha (170 negative points) and Rumba (166 negative points), respectively.

The following values were assigned and subsequently summed up: bottom 5 - 1 point, bottom 3 - 2 points, bottom 2 - 3 points, elimination - 4 points.

You can see top 15 dance types with the most negative points below:

Feel free to also have a look at our odds predicting the winner of the upcoming 34th season of Dancing With The Stars as well as our Bet MGM bonus codes.

METHODOLOGY

The latest analysis update: September 2025
The analysis is spanning 33 seasons of DWTS (starting with 2005)
In total, 3400+ dances were analyzed, but only 2700+ of those dances were leading to elimination/progression to the next round/bottom 2,3,5 placements; dances that did NOT lead to any specific result (such as group dances or dances in weeks where nobody was eliminated) were not analyzed
The following categories of results were part of the analysis: elimination, safety, bottom 2, bottom 3, bottom 5, immunity, withdrawal, fifth place, fourth place, third place, runner-ups and winners
In case of negative points, the following values were assigned and subsequently summed up: bottom 5 - 1 point, bottom 3 - 2 points, bottom 2 - 3 points, elimination - 4 points
In instances where two dance types were part of one dance number, they were each counted once separately (for example, if the dance type of a given couple was Cha-cha-cha & Foxtrot and they got eliminated, both Cha-cha-cha and Foxtrot were counted as one elimination each)
The data was collected from the Wikipedia pages of DWTS
The results of all dances and the categories can be found here