The Usual Suspects

Jan 26, 2026 by Rob

Plenty of early trading action on the Betfair Exchange’s Eurovision 2026 Winner market. After all the controversy and withdrawals, Israel is in and it’s the early favourite due to its considerable televote power in the politically-mired ESC of recent years.

Noam Bettan will be the Israeli artist and his track record is mainly ballads like this. We might expect something with English lyrics and some Hebrew. A peace song wouldn’t surprise given KAN’s audacious track record.

Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu won’t be going on Instagram requesting his followers vote 20 times for Israel like last year – votes per person are now capped at 10, one of the EBU’s rule changes to try and counteract the social media promotion of the Israeli artist – but rest assured Israel will still be as cunning as possible seeking to ramp up support.

Juries are back in the semi-finals so at least we won’t be seeing a repeat of Israel and Ukraine winning 100% televote semi-finals due to political voting power which has started to make the modern Contest, supposedly an ‘apolitical’ event, look farcical. But both nations have lucked upon second half draws in the two semi-finals.

Finland has become the annual fan hype ESC entry ever since ‘Cha Cha Cha’ in 2023. Some hugely optimistic, or perhaps patriotic, gamblers have backed Finland down to as low as 6.2.

This has looked like early season trading lunacy. Of course, we’ve seen it all before – Erika Vikman traded in single figures last year. A new word in the ESC lexicon has emerged to help explain this modern-day phenomenon: finw*nk.

Linda Lampenius & Pete Parkkonen bring the drama with ‘Liekinheitin’. Breaking Erika’s streaming record has been more than enough to convince some punters this is a major contender for ESC 2026 but it’s very much style over substance. Finland usually finds entries with big televote appeal and forgets there’s a jury component as well.

The high production values of UMK can cover a multitude of sins so the money may pile on even more once it’s seen in the UMK final, and if it wins there. However, the truth will out at ESC as evidenced by Erika missing the top 10 last year.

Denmark has been attracting money because of another political hot potato: Greenland. It looks a stretch to think Europe is going to vote en masse for Denmark due to Trump threatening the NATO alliance but welcome to the modern ESC trading world.

The Dansk Melodi Grand Prix 2026 line-up is more interesting than usual but this is a nation that has failed to qualify in four of the last five years and if people think Sissal is the answer again with ‘Infinity’ then it’ll be goodnight Vienna.

In studio form Myrkur’s ‘Touch My Love and Die’ with its elements of folk and metal offers a rare edge in what is usually an anodyne DMGP final.

In Sweden, Melodifestivalen gets underway on Saturday and it’s the usual mix of past Swedish representatives trying again, and up and comers that have gone close to winning MF previously. Sanna Nielsen (third at ESC 2014) has the pimp slot in the final heat which is often a show of producer favour.

We know Sweden will seek to unearth its strongest contender and in the last ten ESCs it has only missed the top ten once, landed two wins, and had a further five top 5 placings. It’s become repetitive and annoying but that’s why the market always treats Sweden with the utmost respect and it currently resides as fourth favourite.

Jerry Heil is the favourite to win Ukraine’s Vidbir with ‘Catharticus’. ‘Teresa & Maria’ finished third for Ukraine in 2024 and Jerry was the star turn in that duet. Go_A’s Kateryna Pavlenko brings her solo project, Monokate, with ‘Tyt’ and she looks the main threat.

Go_A came fifth at ESC 2021 with ‘Shum’ and there are strong echoes of that with ‘Tyt’. It looks advantage Jerry in terms of running order (9/10) compared to Monokate (3/10). Neither track screams Eurovision winner but Ukraine can work wonders with staging.

At Sanremo this year, Arisa is top of the solo female list trying to defy the male bias. The male duet of Fedez and Marco Massini, Tommaso Paradiso, and Ermal Meta (who teamed up with Fabrizio Moro at ESC 2018 and finished 5th) may have the edge on her according to the odds compilers.

Again, Italy earns market respect because of its impressive ESC form figures. In the last ten Contests it has only missed the top 10 once and has finished in the top 6 eight times including its 2021 victory with Maneskin.

Greece is now third favourite to win ESC 2026 looking to build on its sixth place last year (Klavdia). The reason for this is Akylus’s ‘Ferto’ which has gone viral in Greece and seen the Greek price drop like a stone, currently trading around 9.4.

Marseaux’s ‘Hanomai’ and Good Job Nicky’s ‘Dark Side of the Moon’ look Akylus’s main competition but ‘Ferto’ could be the Greek answer to ‘Konstrakta’ (fifth for Serbia in 2022).

‘Ferto’’ carries significant USP and is a leftfield track. The clear concern is the jury side of the equation, which damaged ‘Konstrakta’. But perceived televote titans like this can go very short in the market. Akylas is rated a 9-20 shot to win in Greece with b365.

Estonia’s Eesti Laul has some vaguely decent songs as much as the favourite Ollie’s ‘Slave’ sounds like a mediocre Linkin Park album filler.

Vanilla Ninja’s ‘Too Epic To Be True’ also has plenty of heat around it but it’s very uninspired MOR pop. Getter Jaani brings ‘The Game’ which is a marked improvement on Rockefeller Street (24th, ESC 2011).

In Latvia, Emilija is fav to win Supernova (1.75 with Unibet) with ‘All We Ever Had’. Atvara looks solid competition with her haunting ballad, ‘Ena’.

Alex Rybak is back competing again in Norway and looks in pole position to win there with his track ‘Rise’.

He’s fondly remembered for the seminal ‘Fairytale’ in 2009 but then blotted his copybook somewhat with the poor ‘That’s How You Write A Song’ in 2018. That holds the record as the only ever semi-final winner performed from the one slot. The context that needs to be applied is, that second semi-final in 2018 was probably the weakest we’ve seen in the last 15 years.

‘Rise’ is better than that 2018 effort, and we can probably expect to see Rybak playing the violin during the refrain. Alex brings charisma to the stage and there will be some good will at play here despite Rybak already earning plenty of fan hate. It was Mans Zelmerlow last year and now Rybak is the kicking boy.

In Poland, it looks like Alicja may hold the key with her song, ‘Pray’, which looks like being the last song to be revealed there. She’s an excellent live vocalist and would have represented Poland at the Eurovision that wasn’t in 2020.

At Croatia’s Dora Lelek are back to try again with the impassioned ‘Andromeda’, the lyrics of which touch on the pain of mothers seeing their sons being conscripted, and having to go and fight in pointless wars.

Last year’s effort, ‘The Soul of my Soul’, was arguably better than this and didn’t win. There’s always the chance of a ludicrous selection at Dora, like last year’s ‘Poison Cake’, but the pimp slot in semi one might hint that TPTB would like to see Lelek go to Vienna.

In Luxembourg, the two favourites there didn’t even make the superfinal and it was Eva Marija who won with ‘Mother Nature’, the chorus of which bears a remarkable resemblance to Birdy’s ‘Keeping Your Head Up’.

It has a certain timeless charm and no surprise ‘Only Teardrops’ co-writer Thomas Stengaard had a hand in the writing, and seeing its Emmelie de Forest-inspired stage presentation. But its not pulling up any trees and could have a task on its hands just to qualify from its first half draw in semi two.

Malta chose Aidan with his ballad ‘Bella’. It has some echoes of Salvador Sobral with its lilting melody, sending the listener back to a bygone age. The issue as things stand is the complete mismatch between how Aidan presents himself on stage and the song.

They’ve clearly taken from Barbara Pravi’s staging of ‘Voila’ at ESC 2021 but it could do with Aidan ditching the leathers with a song that’s very old Hollywood, and is crying out for more of a classy, matinee idol look in seeking to generate an emotional pull among TV viewers.

Moldova has highlighted again why its participation in Eurovision is always a good thing with Satoshi’s ‘Viva, Moldova!’. This is the type of entry Moldova does best and there should be a solid televote lurking.

Montenegro and Albania are already known and they are both solid if unspectacular entries. Montenegro brought a jury-pleasing song to last year’s semi-final when we didn’t have juries, and failed to qualify. Now juries are back, it has chosen a more televote-leaning entry in Tamara Zivkovic’s ‘Nova zora’.

Alis’s ’Nân’ has a certain epic quality with Alis going very Neo in The Matrix with his styling.

Bzibeki will represent Georgia and they won Junior Eurovision in 2008 with this. Veronica Fusaro will represent Switzerland; Antigoni will represent Cyprus.

The German line-up is known. Nothing there is screaming contender at an early stage though Ragazzki’s ‘Ciao Ragazzki’ is likely to be latched onto by fans as having vague Tommy Cash/Joost Klein novelty appeal.

In Portugal, only two of the competing acts have gone on record as saying they would be happy to go to Vienna, one of which is Bandidos do Cante with ‘Rosa’.

Lots of nations still to show their hand. We seem to have less and less contenders turning up each year so inevitably attention turns to the same old suspects.

Switzerland and Austria weren’t on many people’s radar, pre-reveal, in the last two years so hope springs eternal we will see some strong entries emerge. It’s always much better for all ESC markets if there is strength in depth and solid competition around.

But as per, one of those usual suspects is about to take centre stage, and attention will inevitably turn to Sweden on Saturday evening when Melodifestivalen kicks off with heat one.