The Eurovision Song Contest is held in Europe since 1956, which makes it the longest running televised music competition. It is held once a year, usually in May, and has taken on different formats over the years. Traditionally the winner of the contest is obliged to host the competition the following year.
There are a number of countries which qualify automatically, as they make the largest financial contribution to the event. These are France, Germany, Spain, Italy and the United Kingdom. All other countries must qualify with semi-finals taking place in the days leading up to the main event.
Last year’s winner was Ukraine, but due to the current circumstances they are unable to host this year’s event. Therefore, the United Kingdom, who finished second were able to step in and host it, with the event taking place in Liverpool on May 13th.
Liverpool is the fifth largest city in the UK and has a well established connection to the world of arts, especially music. Despite this, the fact they are hosting it appears to have gone down well and there is genuine enthusiasm in the city of Liverpool. There are 37 countries participating in this years contest, including long distance entrants Australia, who have been part of the Eurovision since 2015.
Previous Eurovision Winners
There have been 27 countries that have won the Eurovision Song Contest, with the most successful overall being Ireland with seven wins, followed by Sweden with six. This year’s hosts, the United Kingdom, have won it five times so far.
The UK also has the highest number of second-placed finishes, having come in as runners-up an impressive sixteen times. On the flip side, Norway have come last more than any other country, on four occasions. There have been some notable winners of the Eurovision over the years, none more so than ABBA, who won back in 1974. Celine Dion is another world famous winner, she performed for Switzerland back in 1988.
Other famous winners include Johnny Logan for Ireland, Lordi from Finland and last year’s runner up Sam Ryder, who has used the Eurovision as a platform to move on to wider fame.
The Eurovision has been largely dominated by various versions of pop songs over the years but there have also been some unique entries. On occasion, a country will choose to send a song that is unique to their traditions and tastes, although this rarely works out well.
The early years of Eurovision were dominated by lyric-driven songs, a far more classical style. The 1970’s up to the 2000’s were dominated by dance and disco style combined with light pop music with catchy instrumentals. Since then, a number of niche entries have appeared, including heavy metal rockers, Russian grannies and Balkan music.
Eurovision Voting Process
Selecting the winner has changed over the years, as the organisers try to fine-tune the competition to end up with the most relevant winner. On many occasions it has become clear that countries vote for their neighbouring countries, friendly nations or other ways other than what is surely the better song.
The current system is made up of a combination of viewers’ votes and votes from a jury from each country. First up, one set of votes is announced and once that is complete the second set begins, so the final result can vary dramatically as the opinion of the public and the jury are not always in line.
Predicting the winner
Over recent years, the betting markets have been pretty good at predicting the winning song, but not so good at predicting the top ten overall. In recent years, the favourites have won three of the last four, with the exception being Maneskin from Italy who won in 2021.
In 2018, Israel were strong favourites and ended up winning and in 2019 the Netherlands were correctly listed as favourites to win the contest.
2021 was a surprise as Malta were favourites but ended up finishing seventh whereas the winners on the day, Italy, started as fifth favourites. Last year, Ukraine were strong favourites and won, whereas second-placed UK were fourth favourites going into the contest.
Analysing 2022
Ukraine had the biggest odds to win the event, with the understandable reason being the political situation. In such situations, it is tricky to evaluate how well the song actually did, but the majority of people went into the contest knowing that Ukraine would be victorious.
High finishes were predicted for the UK and Sweden and these were correct, but Spain were a disappointment. Seven of those in the top ten when it came to odds did actually finish there, with Poland, Netherlands and Australia falling below their expectations. There were a few surprises in 2022 as Serbia were not expected to do well but finished 5th and Moldova finished 7th when they were 25th in the odds.
Predictions for 2023
If we look back at the last few years, it can be said that the odds have been largely correct when predicting the outcome of the Eurovision Song Contest, with three of the last four winners being correctly picked.
There have been a few misses though, including Maneskin in 2021. The record of 78% in semi-finals is very good, but at the same time allows some of the less fancied countries some hope of getting through. If one goes back a bit further there have certainly been surprises, with the 2017 favourite ending in sixth spot.
If we take a look at this year’s contest we can see that it appears to be a two horse race to pick the winner. Sweden are current favourites, given a 39% chance of victory and they are followed by Finland with 23%. The third favourite, France, are some way behind on 8%. Ukraine are once again fancied to get significant backing and they are fourth favourites, with a 6% chance of success.
It seems unlikely that this year’s hosts, the United Kingdom, will be hosting again next year as they are currently in tenth place and given odds of 50/1. Ireland, the most successful country in the history of the Eurovision is a long shot at 150/1 and some big names like Germany and the Netherlands are not receiving much support at this stage.
Betting markets
When it comes to placing a bet on the contest, one can choose which country will win as well as other types of selections. Since the contest first has to go through the semi-final stages, one is able to select the winner of each of the two semi-finals as well as whether or not a particular country will make it through to the final or not.
Moving on to the main event, the most obvious market is the winners market. This is simply a list of countries that have the chance to win the contest, although this will change depending on the results of the aforementioned semi finals.
As mentioned, Sweden are favourites, currently at a price of 1.80, followed by Finland at 2.95 and France at 9.0. Another option is to put two countries against each other in a head to head and back the one that you believe will come out on top.
The odds will reflect each country’s position in the overall betting market, so if we take Sweden versus Finland as an example, the odds are 1.48/2.45 in favour of Sweden. A final option on the table is picking the top country in a group, such as the top Nordic country, top country from the Big Five or Baltic country. There are also a number of special markets available for both qualifying and the actual event itself.