Who’s Going to Win Eurovision?

Who’s going to win Eurovision? I don’t know, but I do have some idea. I’ve learned that there are strong clues in the betting markets. I’m fascinated by the intensity of Eurovision betting, and because I’m obsessed with analyzing numbers, I set myself to study how close the betting markets were to the Final results.

The data I had available was 2015-2024 (nine years), except for 2020 when the contest was suspended due to COVID. During my research, I discovered that somebody else as nerdy as me about numbers and Eurovision had studied data between 2007 and 2014 (eight years). I won’t bore you with the differences between our methodologies and available data. However, I creatively combined the outcomes of both studies, and the results were very interesting.

Here are four things you need to know about the past 17 years of Eurovision betting:

• The betting market favorite was the winner in 10 of the 17 years, or 59% of the time. 
• Related to that, the betting market favorite ALWAYS finished in the Top Three.
• Entries that were the second or third in the betting odds won five times.
• Upset winners, i.e., outside of the top three betting favorites, only won twice.

So what does all of that mean for this year? The three favorites are, in order:

What do I think about this? None of them made my list of favorites. Here are my scores for these Top Three (using U.S. Grade Point Average scoring) and my initial reactions to their Official Music Videos.

Sweden: 0.0; “They are dead to me for defeating Mans Zelmerlow (Revolution) to represent Sweden.” https://youtu.be/WK3HOMhAeQY?si=Sd_E2oq_RMPTmezE

Austria: 2.0; “Operatic? EDM? What is this?” https://youtu.be/-ieSTNpxvio?si=HBg7qpdggv1ap7ns

France: 3.0; “Very French (dramatic), hard not to like.” https://youtu.be/Pj2DTSLcNnI?si=ZVlrbqoGW7yvc6BY

Should Sweden win, it won’t matter that much to me. I will have consumed so much glorious Eurovision content by the last announcement of points that it will be merely another drop of water in the ocean. I will have enjoyed another journey, regardless of the outcome. Bring it on.