The beauty of the contest for me (as a betting opportunity) is that you have very experienced bettors with a wealth of stats at their disposal studying the contest for weeks/months, and you have jury finals taking place before the contest meaning half the points are already allocated - and yet still everyone struggles to predict the contest with any real certainty due to the intangibles of feeling, emotion, viral potential. Finland a near even money favourite on finals day and never really came close. Long may it continue. Bulgaria also demonstrates that staging really is everything and can elevate a song on the fringes to the title.
On that note, a good learning from this year is to watch the staging myself prior to bets. Its more difficult now due to the limited rehearsal coverage, but various esc pundits were gushing about the Greek staging being a masterpeice, and I bought into the hype (to be fair, many of those pundits I generally trust to be very level headed about this stuff.) When seeing the full staging in the semi final, it looked a bit of a mess.
Also worth stating, there is still a whole lot of dodgy business going on behind the scenes. Some countries are very clearly still manipulating the jury vote (Malta's 3 12s from Ukraine, Bulgaria, San Marino in amongst very little else looks very sus), others still blatantly sharing their max scores with each other (Greece/Cyprus as always), and Bulgaria's jury score in the final looks very peculiar alongside the fact it only came 5th with juries in the semi final
They didnt need it in the end but wouldnt surprise me if their delegation was up to their old tricks again and calling in some favours when it mattered. Still, factor it in and bet accordingly!
Anyway, i'm rambling into the void. Great winner for the contest, Israel would have been a nightmare for so many reasons.
And more importantly, win or lose it's just great to share betting chat on the contest. An annual tradition that I hope never dies, betnod or no betnod. It's been 20 years since I plugged my headphones into a computer in the uni computer room and listened to the entries prior to the 2006 contest because people like Komp and MP were posting about it, and every one since has been memorable in its own way. 2008 when MP and I were all in on Israel top 10 is particularly special - I don't remember ever being as nervous in my life as when it was their turn and hearing his voice pierce the air, and I still get a fuzzy feeling when I watch that performance. You are so right about it being such a shame they aren't here to share in the fun.
See you all here next year
if Betnod dies, find me on X at @beanie_esc (i dont post on that account, but may start if nowhere else to share chat) or just message me for Whatsapp or something!
But also accept im getting on a bit, and the streaming/social media buzz is fairly active for it, and the diaspora also behind it. Unfortunately just didnt build any momentum this week.
