ESC 2016 Subscription Offer
Eurovision 2016 season is starting to get into full swing, and the good news is Betfair has been busy opening markets on some of the most significant national qualifiers.
Time for a quick peruse of how things are shaping up across Europe though it needs to be stressed it is very early days and there are usually plenty of false early betting moves when it comes to the rollercoaster trading event that is the ESC Outright market on Betfair.
Sweden’s Melodifestivalen always receives massive attention. Getting underway on February 6, bookmakers have priced up Ace Wilder, who has the pimp slot in semi 1, and missed out narrowly two years ago to Sanna Nielson, and Molly Sanden, who has the pimp slot in semi 4, as joint favourites around the 7-2 mark.
Can hosts Sweden follow up last year’s Eurovision victory and draw level with Ireland as the winner of the contest 7 times? Despite not hearing a single MF 2016 snippet yet, the early Outright market on Betfair is keen on its chances as Sweden trades as current second favourite.
Early fav is Russia based on established pop star Sergey Lazarev being chosen as its artist and a strong team behind him. Russia has been pushing hard for a second ESC win in recent years and looks in it to win it again this year.
A springer has already emerged in the shape of 3rd favourite Malta. This would appear to be based on the expectation of Ira Losco winning Saturday’s national final there. She has 2 songs competing, the one generating most heat around the ESC fan sites being ‘Chameleon’.
Germany is next in the betting based on arguably one of the strongest national finals known at this early stage. There would appear to be 4 main contenders in that NF: Gregorian, Avantasia, Jamie-Lee Kriewitz and Ella Endlich.
It is always dangerous to second guess how domestic audiences will vote across Europe. What we do know is Avantasia’s song, ‘Mystery Of A Blood Red Rose’, has an uncanny resemblance to Meatloaf and may coalesce Germany’s metal fans, while Jamie-Lee won last year’s The Voice Of Germany and her track ‘Ghost’ has racked up impressive YT numbers since its early December release.
Denmark trades as current fifth favourite on Betfair. It had a shocker last year failing to qualify for the final. This year, strong favourite to win Dansk Melodi Grand Prix is 2013 third-placer Simone, trying again with ‘Heart Shaped Hole’.
Austria, Switzerland, Iceland and Finland’s songs are available in full as are snippets from Norway and the 6 Spanish songs competing in its February 1 national final.
Meanwhile, Estonia’s Eesti Laul has thrown up its usual selection of eclectic tunes you can listen to here.
Laura’s ’Supersonic’ and Juri Pootsmann’s ‘Play’ are the favourites which is a bit of a mystery as there appear to be far stronger songs among the 20 semi-finalists.
In Lithuania, Donny Montell, he of the blindfold and one-handed cartwheel at ESC 2012, looks the man to beat with this track.
Kallay Saunders is another returnee in Hungary and he is a strong contender in A Dal with this track.
So far we only know 3 songs from Albania, Ireland and Belgium, though we do know plenty of the artists representing various other countries.
Possibly most promising among the three is Nicky Byrne’s track ‘Sunlight’ though it is is worth remembering Nicky was a bit-part player vocally in Westlife so has something to prove as a solo live performer.
It is the Belarus national final tomorrow night and the allocation draw for the 2 semi-finals will take place on Monday in Stockholm. This year we will have semi-finals of 19 countries in one; 18 countries in the other, with 6 automatic finalists in the shape of hosts Sweden and the Big 5 – UK, France, Italy, Germany, Spain.
The UK national final will be on February 26, live on BBC4, with 6 acts competing for the ticket to Stockholm. The hope is, the BBC has managed to shortlist some better songs compared to last year’s abysmal effort.
The ESC 2016 subscription service is now available for signing up. This year it is being offered for the price of £60. For this price, subscribers will exclusively receive, via email:
– an ante-post analysis of where the betting value lies once we know the full 43-strong field this year, and the high street/online firms widely price up ESC 2016 (Russia was advised at 33-1 e/w last year).
– a pre-rehearsals betting analysis of the 2 semi-finals once the precise running order is confirmed and the high street/online firms widely price up the 2 semi-finals.
– a daily betting update during the 2-week rehearsal period in Stockholm, live from the press centre reporting directly from rehearsals, with betting recommendations flagged up exclusively to subscribers throughout.
Last year’s ESC subscribers enjoyed a profit of +90pts to a 1pt level stake, following the test run of 2014 which achieved a +84pt profit figure, a figure boosted by advising The Netherlands to win semi 1 at 50-1.
Since its inception in 2009, long time readers will know this site’s proven ESC record prior to this as well, including Germany advised at 16-1 in 2010, Azerbaijan at 14-1 in 2011, and Greece to win semi 1 that year at 50-1.
Sign up today and rest assured you will be receiving the very best value betting advice for ESC 2016 from a proven, long established Eurovision analyzer and trader.
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Welcome back Rob, looking forward to your analysis this year! Subscription might be a little pricy for me but I’ll see how it goes.
Thanks Ben 🙂
More details regarding Monday’s allocation draw: http://www.eurovision.tv/page/news?id=semi-final_allocation_draw_on_monday_pots_revealed
Monday Feb 22 – Ken Bruce will play the 6 UK songs on his R2 morning show, ahead of the national final on the Friday.
Hi Rob. I’ve been a Eurovision fan for many years, and look forward to hopefully making a profit this year by following your advice.
Hi James. I don’t know how seriously you have traded Eurovision in the past but I can tell from your Strictly analysis that it would be right up your street 🙂 Lots of different variables to analyze and lots of different trading angles because of the plethora of markets.
It requires some serious study over a period of many months leading up to the key 2-week rehearsal period but it is always enormous fun to follow and to try and solve.
Hi Rob. My Eurovision betting history is littered with too many near misses for my liking!
When it comes to betting on Eurovision, which bookmakers have historically provided the greatest variety of markets to bet on?
It seems to change yearly, James. bwin have usually been the ones to price up the most markets from an earlier stage than the UK bookies, but usually difficult to get much down with them, and they are usually very tight in terms of any value.
I think Paddy Power was the 1st UK bookie to price up the semi-finals last year. It is a case of who is willing to put their head above the parapet first. Boyles have been pretty good in the past.
In the end they all come to the party but it can require patience. Best to have accounts with as many bookies you see on oddschecker as possible.
IVAN to represent Belarus atm. He won the NF tonight but Belarus does have a history of changing artists on a whim:
https://youtu.be/hUnRL5dExgc
Hi Rob. Is is possible to pay for subscription using Skrill?
Hi Montell. Sure. I think if you can find rob@entertainmentodds.com on there it should go through fine. Drop me an email if you have any probs and I will try and figure out an alternative option. Thanks.
That’s great. I will contact you in spring.
Just signed up Rob…..haven’t really had a look at anything to do with ESC yet…..ill leave it to you to mark my card 😉
Thanks hems. Hopefully a fruitful ESC 2016 in store 🙂 Plenty happening already around the various national qualifiers. Maltese final tonight.
Ira Losco for Malta with ‘Chameleon’ though there is a clause whereby they can change her song for Stockholm:
https://youtu.be/UoU0JFdkP-4
Ira’s semi-final song that was eliminated: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9xnmfgT_gw
Allocation draw:
Semi 1 (18)
voting – Sweden, Spain, France
1st half:
Croatia
Finland
Moldova
Armenia
Greece
Hungary
Russia
The Netherlands
San Marino
2nd half:
Azerbaijan
Cyprus
Malta
Bosnia & H
Estonia
Czech Republic
Montenegro
Iceland
Austria
Semi 2 (19)
voting – Germany, UK, Italy
1st half:
Latvia
Belarus
Ireland
Switzerland
FYR Macedonia
Australia
Lithuania
Poland
Israel
Serbia
2nd half:
Albania
Bulgaria
Denmark
Georgia
Romania
Slovenia
Norway
Ukraine
Belgium
11 ESC national qualifiers now priced up on the Betfair exchange. And ESC semi-final markets also up.
Barei wins in Spain. She sounded better on the reprise. She needs to get better backing vocalists and a much better stage show happening with dancers joining her on stage:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7l4ZHQGK2zg
Love to see track 5 ‘We Agree’ chosen in Georgia:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=odujKuu_LPM
Hi Rob. ‘We agree’ on this one ;o). It’s certainly a song that would stand out from the crowd, which worked out well for Lordi and The Common Linnets.
Exactly right, James. It can pay to be different.
2 strong contenders in Ukraine:
Hardkiss: http://vk.com/wall-3320130_14095
And Jamala: http://vk.com/wall-3320130_14092
Hi Rob, what did you think of Greta Salome’s performance in the Icelandic heat? I personally was just immediately put off by what seemed like a jarring amalgamation of Euphoria and Heroes meets BGT’s Attraction, that didn’t go with a twee, stuffy and complex song…
But then giving it a second watch I find the whole thing quite cool entirely on its own merits, and the song doesn’t sound quite so complex when you have the visual distraction. I have to wonder though if the public will be similarly unimpressed with the copycat nature of the staging, or can a song with essentially the same staging gimmick win Eurovision twice in a row?
Hi Ben. It seems we have increasingly moved into a new era of ESC when it’s becoming much more about the visual trickery accompanying songs (looking at Greta and Ace Wilder in Sweden). If this is the start of things to come, as someone who loves music and would rather see songs rated on song quality alone, I’m not keen on the road ESC is going down.
Greta’s staging does look like a copycat of ‘Heroes’ with some ‘Euphoria’ thrown in for good measure. I like the song. When we have songs at ESC that sound too similar to a successful song the previous year, they usually seem to be penalized. This is probably the case with staging too so I think Greta could suffer due to the parallels.
Swiss winner: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQEHUpuGBAc&feature=youtu.be
Danish winner: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ma1syL24BGI&feature=youtu.be
A highlight in semi 1 of Eesti Laul tonight: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6M7ukv2aFgk
And Ukraine semi 2 (got any Fleetwood Mac?): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXvHZ3rkg6A
I like your taste, Rob. 😉 Mick was brilliantly staged. I had been looking forward to seeing him but I didn’t expect it to be quite that good. Alas, I doubt we’ll be seeing him in Stockholm. I have my fingers crossed for I Wear*Experiment or Anett Kulbin. Too many class acts in Eesti Laul this year for them to just default back to Sven Lohmus or Stig Rasta again.
I quite like Pur:Pur in Ukraine too. Nice melody. Fleetwood Mac are just slightly before my time but she does remind me of a few other alternative artists I like, or perhaps Royksopp or Goldfrapp. Jamala’s song just sounds to me like a ghastly morbid noise over a beat that Michael Jackson would’ve rejected in the 90’s, so I’m hoping the Crimea narrative won’t carry her too much further.
Hi Ben. ‘Seis’ and ‘Patience’ are streets ahead of the rest at Eesti Laul this year imho, though like you I also rate Anett Kulbin’s ballad and she has a lovely timbre to her voice. Any of these 3 would be much better selections than the perceived front-runners Juri and Laura.
As I read someone post somewhere, Eesti Laul is like 6Music compared to MF being ‘Heart’ 🙂
Sadly, it’s often the way the more middle-of-the-road stuff defeats the edgier tunes in these NFs, including Eesti Laul.
What a lot of delegations and TPTB at these NFs making decisions regarding which songs to promote fail to acknowledge is that it often pays to be brave with your ESC selection and back something that is different if the quality is there sonically in the instrumentation and the vocal. Domestic televoting audiences can often be lousy judges too, as can supposed professional jury members.
Completely agree with all that. 🙂
Looking like this will be Francesca Michielin’s song for Italy:
http://www.rai.tv/dl/RaiTV/programmi/media/ContentItem-37d5e6cf-99ac-47b2-8e8f-3e688dc4265d.html
Slovenian snippets: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQUISnjwZc4&feature=em-uploademail
Sounds like the Melodifestivalen way of doing things: http://www.eurovision.tv/page/news?id=biggest_change_to_eurovision_song_contest_voting_since_1975