Eurovision 2024 Odds: Semi-Final Betting Preview
Eurovision week has already gotten into full swing, with Rehearsals starting last week and with the second Semi-Final happening on Thursday I’m going to run through some of the key moments to look out for in the coming week, some of the relevant rules changes this year and who currently has momentum in the odds.
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The First Dress Rehearsal and Jury Show happened yesterday. The big news there was the meteoric rise of Ireland’s “Doomsday Blue”, moving up the collective odds from 16th place on April 12th to 5th place as of the time of writing. Bambie Thug’s sensational staging was seen for the first time by the press in the Dress Rehearsal and then by some of the public in the Jury Show. The cinematic, electric and sometimes controversial show received almost universal acclaim from both groups, winning the press poll and coming second in the largest audience poll. Ireland is a tough country to call in Eurovision, as there is so much betting coming from the UK and Ireland, and sometimes I wonder if that could skew both countries' winning odds. Ireland were 3rd in the odds to win in 2018 and ended up coming 16th without a single 12 points. Keep in mind that in a few competing countries you cannot bet on Eurovision, so there could be less of a national bias when those countries are higher. But while Bambie Thug’s staging is undeniably one of the strongest that we have seen so far, the song is more divisive, and so its chances of winning may be scuppered by the jury. In any case, there’s no doubt that Ireland is starting off this week with the greatest growth in momentum of anyone.
The first step to being a Eurovision winner for most though is qualification, and today the 1st Semi-Final will decide the first 10 countries to join the 6 automatic qualifiers in the final. The big ones to watch in Semi-final 1 are Croatia and Ukraine, who both perform in the first half of the Semi-Final. Both have exceptional staging and tonight will be the first chance to see the general public’s reaction to the songs.
Croatia’s Baby Lasagna has been getting stronger with every performance during the pre-party season and this finished product is well capable of winning. There is little doubt that the casual fans will love his neon farmyard animals and viral dance moves, the key thing here though will be whether he can get enough jury points. Prior to rehearsals, he was 2nd in the odds, but now he has a sizeable lead at the top at roughly 3/2 now that his full show has been seen. The hype and excitement from Croatia around this song is absolutely gigantic.
In a new change this year, the automatic qualifiers will be performing their entire show during the live Semi Finals for the public to see. This change was brought in by the show’s producers, to allow for another new change in that televoting in the Grand Final will open from before the 1st song. So, punters will be able to speculate with full information about the Big 5 and Sweden, in comparison to previous years when the first screening of their performances would be in the live Grand Final show.
In Semi-Final 2, the previous winner’s odds number 1, Nemo from Switzerland, had a warm reception to their rehearsal pics, but their full show hasn’t yet been revealed to anyone. The press will see this tomorrow at ~4.30pm CET, so it will be worth checking out the reaction on social media. The preview photos and 30 second snippet looked dynamic and exciting, so I’m expecting this to climb back up towards Croatia once the full staging is revealed. Switzerland’s staging producer is the same one who did Finland’s staging last year, which came 2nd.
Tomorrow will also be the first time to hear reactions to the full shows of Netherlands, France and Italy, who currently sit in 6th, 7th and 3rd in the combined odds right now. I expect Joost Klein from the Netherlands to climb up here. His team showed almost the bare minimum in the rehearsal photos, and I suspect they are sitting on some risky and big staging that they want to save for as late as possible.
Also keep an eye out for the running order draws that happen immediately after both Semi-finals. Previously, countries were drawn to compete in the 1st or 2nd half put this year there has been another change, and there will only be six slots allotted for the first and second half, with the other 13 slots being allotted as “Producers Choice”. This means that the show producers can put the songs wherever they want, in order to produce the best show possible. The automatic qualifiers have already drawn their slots; UK and Germany will compete in the 1st half, France in the 2nd half, Italy and Spain are “Producers Choice”.
The final Grand Final running order will be revealed in the early hours of Friday morning. In the last 10 editions of the contest, 6 of the winners have been from the 1st half, but they have always been slot 9 or later. The producers will almost always give a favourite a late slot if they draw 1st half.
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