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Eurovision Song Contest Betting 18th - 22nd May 2021

Great reviews slick and fair play on noticing the Portugal song right from the off - I entirely slept on that one and now it's knocking on the door of the top 10. And on the topic of ones I slept on, I agree on the Netherlands. The staging is great, his voice is flawless - I do think the juries will lap up that song and the Top 15 and top 10 odds are great.

So let me try some sort of betting summary, and top 10 prediction.

Winner

I think Italy win the public vote, with Ukraine tucked in behind. I think France and Malta top the Jury vote. Where does that leave things? Based on previous years, all other things being equal a strong televote song beats a strong jury song. I think Italy might be 4th or 5th coming out of the jury voting, and sweep to victory with a fairly mammoth televote score.

However the price is a bit skinny and I already have some ew bets on France and Malta, so I'm not getting too heavily involved in the winner market. Personal preference for a France win, but I worry it will fall short on the televote.

Top 4

Despite my ew bets on Malta from a while ago, I'm no longer convinced that they will get top 4. The second half of the contest is so strong that I think those in the first half will be somewhat forgotten, and the downloads/social media likes for Malta have been poorer than expected. Likely to get a good jury score, but I think this will get edged out by some hefty televote scores for its rivals like Ukraine. Still to decide on this one, but may lay Malta at odds on.

Top 10

Onto some markets that im more keen to get involved in. Unlike the top of the scoreboard where a strong televote song beats a strong jury one, the converse is true in the middle of the scoreboard. Televoters heavily reward a small set of songs, while jury points are more spread out. What this means is that a song finishing mid to lower top 10 with the juries has a good chance of staying there even with a poorer televote score.

Perfect candidate for me is Bulgaria @ 2.86 (betfair). Reportedly in good voice for the juries last night, I think this is 6th-8th with the juries. Likely to be much further down with the televote, but I dont think it will need too many more points to get there, and has enough friendly votes from the Balkans to get over the line.

On this basis you could make an argument for a small play on Greece @ 5.50. Its not inconceivable that the juries reward the slick, overall package of the sung, which is well sung, and the greek diaspora might do the rest and get it over the line for an unlikely top 10.

Portugal at odds against here I like also. It's strength in the downloads has been a real surprise.

Last, but by no means least, the Netherlands at a slightly scandalous 20/1 for a top 10, and 4/1 for a top 15. The host nation usually finds points a little harder to come by and this one is very much flying under the radar, but the vocal is flawless, the staging clean and professional, the draw is great, and the song is unlike any other in the contest. It's not a particularly chart friendly song which is a drawback, but I can see this being a top 10 with the juries. Likely to suffer in the televote, but as above a strong jury score can still lead to a high finish on its own (Czech Republic in 2019 finished 8th with juries and 24th with televoters, which was good enough for overall 11th.)

I also make Israel a good lay in the top 15 market.

Last Place

I make this a shootout between Spain, UK, Israel and Germany. The question to answer is where the points come from. Starting with the juries, I think the UK and Israel will snatch a few jury points on the basis that the songs are reasonably up to date and well structured, despite poor vocals. Germany will be bottom of a lot of jurors scorecards which will nullify the effect of any that like it - there's little musical or staging content to reward. Spain is a standard ballad but the vocal is poor. In the televote I struggle to see much of a reward for any of the 4. Germany's juxtaposition with Finland might work in its favour to scrape a few.

On that basis, my bets will be small plays on Spain to finish last @ 5/1 and Israel to finish last @ 14/1.

And just to look stupid, finish with a top 10 prediction:

1. Italy
2. France
3. Ukraine
4. Switzerland
5. Malta
6. Lithuania
7. Iceland
8. Bulgaria
9. Portugal
10. Finland

Last place - Spain

Good luck all!
 
Cheers for putting the hard yards in guys. Had a quick listen to the songs, but mainly going with what has been said on here. Ended up with the following bets -

OUTRIGHT - Netherlands at 1000

BOTTOM - Spain at 4

TOP TEN - San Marino at 15/8

PUBLIC VOTE - Portugal at 150
 
Such great tips. My bets so far.

SWITZERLAND winners @ 6/1 (poor odds I know took it months ago)
SAN MARINO EW @ 50/1 (Denise, top 4 pays)
SAN MARINO top 10 @ 2/1 (smarkets exchange)
NETHERLANDS top 10 @ 24/1(betfair exchange)
NETHERLANDS top 15 @ 4/1 (betfair exchange)
ISRAEL to finish last @ 12/1 (betfair sportsbook)

Tiny amounts on German and Netherlands to win @ 1000 for lols.

More to follow no doubt. Looking forward to it.
 
My outright bets appear to have gone tits up oddswise since I placed them :lol nevemind.
 
Finally found out the reason why we cant vote by text in the UK.

"BBC/Ofcom rules following the 2007 phone-in scandal. Need to send a confirmation receipt back to the texter; BBC say this is not feasible for them."
 
Put some some more on Holland for a top 10 finish odds now 20/1 bet365, I should have waited instead of taking 15/1 last night, saying that it looked a bargain at the time.
 
I was also thinking the same about Israel finishing last after the politics of the last couple of weeks, Nice Price that Jezza of 12/1, GL:thumb
 
Netherlands top 10 is gathering momentum, would turn me a nice profit regardless of anything else if it comes in.
 
SAMOAN said:
Cheers for putting the hard yards in guys. Had a quick listen to the songs, but mainly going with what has been said on here. Ended up with the following bets -

OUTRIGHT - Netherlands at 1000

BOTTOM - Spain at 4

TOP TEN - San Marino at 15/8

PUBLIC VOTE - Portugal at 150
Click to expand...

Good to see you back Samoan, hope you are well dude. looks like we are all hoping for Netherlands to do decent.
 
Rigged as always, and as usual the exchanges showed the winner as odds on when they were miles behind on the show. See you all next year.
 
Thought that was a good final - good to see a slightly different genre and country win. Big televote song beats big jury songs again.

The good bets: Malta missing top 4 and Greece top 10 @ 4/1. Ireland did indeed finish last in semi 1! Israel missing top 15...although still a wierdly high jury score.

The bad: bulgaria/portugal missing top 10 (11th and 12th!) and a bad misread on the netherlands...was sure they would get some jury love but nope...ugh.

And missed 10/10 in semi 1 by just a few points...Norway 10th and Croatia 11th :cry

And the UK largely got what we deserved. Hopefully we take it seriously next year.

See you in Rome 2022?
 
Very bad read on the Netherlands, I still think it was one of the better songs though.
Next year I'm just going to follow the betting on the betting markets during the final as it's pretty obvious a lot of info is being released early.

It looks like the real betting is to be on songs getting out of the semis.

Big thanks to Beanie and Jezza for making this one of the best threads of the year, thoroughly enjoyed it.:beer
 
Beanie said:
Thought that was a good final - good to see a slightly different genre and country win. Big televote song beats big jury songs again.

The good bets: Malta missing top 4 and Greece top 10 @ 4/1. Ireland did indeed finish last in semi 1! Israel missing top 15...although still a wierdly high jury score.

The bad: bulgaria/portugal missing top 10 (11th and 12th!) and a bad misread on the netherlands...was sure they would get some jury love but nope...ugh.

And missed 10/10 in semi 1 by just a few points...Norway 10th and Croatia 11th :cry

And the UK largely got what we deserved. Hopefully we take it seriously next year.

See you in Rome 2022?
Click to expand...

Got really unlucky with some of those bets Beanie. I did my bollocks but loved it as usual, will definitely be back next year! Netherlands top 10 was a 25/1 shot and really fun to be on, it also traded at 10/1 during the show so I think you had a good pick there. Thanks again for the huge contribution in this thread, you and Slick really made it.

slick said:
Very bad read on the Netherlands, I still think it was one of the better songs though.
Next year I'm just going to follow the betting on the betting markets during the final as it's pretty obvious a lot of info is being released early.

It looks like the real betting is to be on songs getting out of the semis.

Big thanks to Beanie and Jezza for making this one of the best threads of the year, thoroughly enjoyed it.:beer
Click to expand...

See above for my thoughts on the Netherlands Slick, and thanks again for the great reviews in this thread. You make a good point on the betting markets during the final. I did some research and noted some times. Heres my thinking/what I found out.

The betting on the outright market appeared to be reasonably fair for most of the night as the songs were being performed. Even when the televote closed and the results were being announced it stayed fair for the start of it. Italy were trading around the point they "should" have been (2/1-6/1), However at 11.25pm UK time, around 20 minutes before the official result was announced Italy suddenly crashed to 1.75 on the exchanges and continued to get shorter very quicky. On the show they were lying in 6th and looked like a bit of an outsider still. Clearly a individual or group of people were passed the final result or at least the telephone vote result around this time. I did see this at the time but didn't have the guts to back it as there has been cases in the past where people have been passed fake info to flush out leaks (not eurovision but similar things in football). My opinion

1) The safest time to place bets and when you should put the majority of your money on is before the Jury final. I assume the results of the Jury final are known by some people once its happened and although its certainly not conclusive it gives the people in the know a substantial edge you cant overcome.

2) Its probably still reasonably safe to place bets up until the phone voting opens. Switzerland won the Jury vote and were long shots on the night so point 1 actually didnt seem to come into effect.

3) I def wouldnt place bets once phone voting is open. It's been obviously shady for years, just I noted the timing of it all this year. The key time the info got given out beyond the person in charge seems to be 20 minutes before the end of the show (this matches with 2019) but it could happen at any point. I will be watching next year for it happening again. What you do if it happens again is up to you but personally I will not be betting on it. I can see the temptation but if there is a backlash about this behind the scenes they might deliberately give out wrong info to some (straight out of the Pep Guardiola school!).

It might be possible to find out what group got the results early, if I had to hazard a guess it was probably favoured journalists (so they had articles ready to upload the second the result was announced).
 
I actually thought that the in running betting markets looked fairly sensible Jez. The pre final consensus was that Italy would smash the televote, with possible threats from Ukraine and Finland (less so). The chances of the jury friendly songs (Switzerland, Malta, France) relied on them getting far enough ahead in the jury vote to nullify the anticipated Italian televote.

Italy had also smashed the twitter stats on finals night, further suggesting they would crush the televote.

Finishing #1 in the televote is almost always worth more points that #1 with the juries, so it needed either Italy to bomb with juries, or Switz/France/malta to smash the jury vote.

Switzerland scored very heavily with the first few juries, and their price bounced into 4/1 with italy moving out to 3/1. However, Italy picked up steady jury support and only trailed by 60 odd points by the end, and comfortably ahead of any country that might have threatened their televote score, so them going odds on towards the end of the jury vote looked reasonable to me based on their expected televote score.

The most frustrating element was that I backed Italy heavily for a trade after their performance based on their twitter stats. They initially did come into under 2/1 but then lengthened back out during the public voting, so traded most of that bet back for a loss.

Anyway, fascinating year as always. Moldova almost certainly cheated looking at some of the strange voting patterns in semi 2. :cry

All kicks off in December again with the National Selections so only 6 months to wait to get it all going again!
 
Beanie, in the past I remember you wete betting the Scottish League ..... Is it just eurovision nowadays ?
 
Yes mate - I used to be a season ticket holder and go to Scottish games every week, but stopped betting when i stopped going, so really just reality TV/Eurovision now. What about you?
 
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