Bitcoin Forum

---

The Eurovision Song Contest is not only a great event overall and lots of fun, but also nice for some betting. I will update this thread regularly with the latest news and all stuff surrounding this years ESC. Hoping for a good discussion and good insights from people all over the world that visit this forum on a daily basis and are interested in this event. Maybe we can make some bucks here together, good luck ;)

I made this thread self-moderated. I don't plan to delete a lot of posts, but rather let a fruitful discussion unfold. If it gets too spammy, I will delete posts though. So just stay on topic, share your thoughts, discuss the entries and don't spam useless stuff.

For those who are not familiar with this contest, you could read this:
https://eurovision.tv/about/how-it-works

2019 winner: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YiIjuLRyinM

My current basket, "Fai rumore & Shaj." >> I wish for the English version so bad tho. I'll visit this thread occasionally and update my basket ;D

I think this kind of contest would be a bit biased since people like English-language songs more.

I haven't watched Eurovision in last few years, because I was disappointed about winners in recent years. I still didn't decided will I watch it this year. Most of countries still didn't announced their participants, so it's early to talk about favorites. It's interesting which crypto sportsbooks will give Eurovision lines. Cloudbet had it last year, can't remember about other websites.

I don't think that English language is big factor nowadays. If you look at recent winners, you'll see that quite many was non-English songs.
But it's biased contest with lot of politics inside. Many just vote for their neighbour countries and friebds, not for the song.

Is this event got covered or featured by some of the popular crypto-gambling betting sites before?

If none and for crypto gamblers reference, do you have any info if there are crypto-gambling sites that will feature this event? As you know, obviously, most gamblers here are lurking only with cryptos unless someone will open a P2P form of betting or Mutual Betting at this particular event.

Kind of OT but I can't believe that out of 41 countries, our country, that is known for being involved in the music industry and music events, locally and internationally are not taking part in this.

Yes, its "EURO" but there are other participants outside Europe.

EDIT: my bad! I misread "Austria" into "Australia".

That is why they introduced jury voting some years ago in addition to televoting and both count 50% each. It makes for a fairer competition in the end, but of course you still have a lot of neighbouring countries giving each other points. And then you have certain countries always getting a lot of points from country XY, because of some huge diaspora there. Romania always got a lot of points from Spain because of that for example.

I wouldn't always call it politics though, if neighbouring countries give each other points. Often times these countries have cultural similarities and thus also tend to like the same style of music. The Ex-Yugoslavian countries for example often exchange points among themselves. They are attached to some musical elements which is typical in these countries and so it's not surprising, that Croatians often like the serbian entry and vice versa.

The 2007 winner from Serbia, Marija Šerifović with the song Molitva, didn't catch me at all, but was very well liked in Ex-Yugoslavian countries (and lots of other countries). Different countries, different music :)

---

I am not sure about this, but there are enough crypto bookmakers being present in this forum, so you could ask them, if they are willing to add some market(s).


Europe and Eurovision are not the same ;) You have quite some non-european countries taking part in ESC (Israel, Armenia, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Australia), taking part in the past (Morocco) or maybe wanting to take part in the future (Kazakhstan).

It’s the same like in UEFA football, where you have non-european teams playing in UEFA competitions as well (the above mentioned apart from Australia and Morocco).

I'm not at all embarrassed to say I'll be watching this year's one (as I did last year), thanks to a young kid girl who actually got some mentions from Junior Eurovision stars AND that the venue is less than an hour away from me.

Me and the partner already wasted 2 days of our lives queueing up online for the tickets AND we didn't get it opening on 4 different devices (it's supposedly a random queue assignment but I suspect it's semi-rigged because right after it's gone, tickets are sold on those reseller sites).

One last ticket wave to go so I'd rather bet on myself getting even 1 ticket for the girl... I'd say my odds are 10/1? Or does anybody here actually have a tick? I don't even mind the Family or Jury show for the semis...

P.S. I happen to have my all-time fav Euro band representing Belgium (Hooverphonic). I've been listening to them ever since their cover of This Strange Effect hit my eardrums in the 1990s. So I actually have a band I support in this edition. If anyone wonders what 1990s triphop sounded like, without mentioning Massive Attack and Portishead: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nu2nSWSgFa8

P.P.S. @ty definitely delete the spammers. There's quite a few in this sub-forum who I suspect truly don't gamble at all. It's a reason I rarely read the EPL mega thread now =(

This is the first time I'm hearing of the Eurovision song contest. Thanks to the link posted by : @mu_enrico. Now I know what the contest is about and I'm thrilled to experience it. That said, I wanted to know if the contest won't be available on some betting sites or if there's anyone that will support the contest. If what everyone is saying on this thread is true, then I'm in for an entertaining contest.

TYVM for this thread tyKiwanuka

Well, last year it was available at least on cloudbet.com, sportsbet.io and onehash.com
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5138706

Yes in fact the contest is open to all countries of the COE (Council of Europe) and few selected guests like Australia.

---

LOL WTF where are you living man?  :D
It's one of the biggest TV event in the world with the FIFA World Cup and the Olympic Games...

Went through the songs that were already confirmed and I am not really impressed so far ::)

My ranking:

Italy
Greece
Spain
Georgia
Albania
Czech Republic
Australia
Latvia
Austria

Italy is really way above everyone else so far. They are odds favourite for now, but not sure, if this song is enough to win ESC.

---

I just read that the ESC will be available in the US via Netflix this year. Not sure, if many people are interested in ESC over there though or even know what it is. ESC is a big thing in LGBT community, so they might get some viewers there.

---

I like this sound very much and now you made me curious what the belgian entry will look like (or sound like^^).

Hope you succeed in grabbing a ticket for the show :)

The weirdest thing about this band is their vocalist keeps changing, and I still like them, as the style or sound is maintained a lot. I've followed every album but the last -- though I attended a small concert last year (and they like doing really small intimate ones for super cheap) and I loved their new teenaged vocalist.

Thanks, I hope I get a ticket too, or my kid will be severely sulky watching at home on TV! Italy really does look like the favourite, and it's almost impossible to not identify the winner from early on if the competition was anything like last year's!

Go Belgium! =p

Eurovision is definitely popular event, but it's mainly popular just in Europe, it's not global thing like World Cup or Olympic games. Ask someone in US about Eurovision and he will have no idea what you're talking about.

Where have you seen that please? Do you have a source for this claim?
If Eurovision is not known in the US how do you explain that Madonna was a guest of Eurovision 2019?
If Eurovision is not famous outside Europe, how do you explain Australia is still participating every year since 2015?
How do you explain it was even broadcasted in China?

Online, the Eurovision Song Contest had 40 million unique viewers on YouTube from 225 territories, during the week of the event.
https://eurovision.tv/story/182-million-viewers-2019-eurovision-song-contest

There is a distinction between thinking you're right... and being right!
Eurovision is the longest-running annual international television song contest and one of the most-watched non-sporting events with an audience between 100 million and 600 million internationally, according to Wikipedia. A total of fifty-two countries took part in the actual song contest but it has been broadcasted in many countries that do not compete all over the world. For example in Canada, New Zealand, Japan, China and even in the United States. I deliberately left Australia out because she is one of the competitors. Weird, I know! ;D

And you know what, the world is a fair bit bigger than the US. Just because something is not popular in the US it does not mean that the rest of the world shares that opinion.

Reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurovision_Song_Contest

@Saint-loup, @Stalker22, I'm not saying that Eurovision isn't popular, but these 150-200 million people watching it mainly comes from Europe. While Olympic games or World Cup is watched by billions. And as you can see, Eurovision is far from being in the list of most watched TV programs https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most-watched_television_broadcasts#List
Yeah, Eurovision is shown outside Europe, but it's not on main TV channels with biggest ratings, maybe except Australia.
And I used USA just as example, there could be another country like Brazil, Nigeria or whatever you want. Until 2019 it wasn't shown there on big TV network, until Netflix bought it. And here is one of articles where it's explained why Eurovision isn't a thing in USA:
https://www.google.com/amp/s/qz.com/86543/five-reasons-why-americans-will-never-understand-the-point-of-eurovision/amp/
And yeah, Madonna was there, but obviously not because Eurovision is popular in States. She just got lot of money for performance, same like on her World Tours and that's all.

Romania will send Roxen to ESC. 20 year old girl with a very nice voice and appearance. She is quite popular in Romania from what I read. On March 1st she will present 5 songs and the best one voted by a jury and via televoting will be the song for Rotterdam.

Romania often had pretty good entries, but never won the ESC. I remember the song from 2017 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSHc7iDuBCQ), which was kind of crazy, but I liked it (for ESC standards) and even had a bet on them to win that whole thing; they finished 7th that year. Last two years Romania failed to qualify for the final, being eliminated in semifinals both times. Lets see what Roxen can do for them this year.

Doesn't look like Romania has any chance this year, I don't really like the song choice either.

As far as I'm aware, Romania has never won the Eurovision song contest and they are unlikely to win either.

I'm going to put an equal bet on Spain and Czech Republic to win outright for now, but will wait and see what Germany and the UK bring before making my final selections.

Edit: Where are you guys betting on this?

Huh, the song wasn't announced yet - how do you know you don't like it ?


Germany and UK (and Spain and France) always perform very poor ranking wise. Czech Republic doesn't impress me, but what do I know in the end ;D I would wait for more songs to be announced before placing bets, unless there is some super strong one.


I will bet whereever I find the best odds, but some crypto books should at least offer markets for outright winner.

Oh, I misread your post and I thought you said this was going to be the song choice this year: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSHc7iDuBCQ

Which platforms are you looking at? I can't find any that are taking BTC deposits for Eurovision markets.

I don't think any crypto bookie has markets for ESC yet. Even only a few fiat bookies have odds. My modus operandi is, that I make my mind up first, what I want to bet and what odds I would like to have for that bet. Afterwards I will look around at the bookies and see, which bookie has the right offer for me. This can be a fiat bookie or a crypto bookie, I don't care about that.

Yes, ESC is quite popular in Germany as well. It's just a shame we haven't had a good representative since Lena (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lena_Meyer-Landrut) in 2010.  :D

It takes place once a year while it's only every 4 years for FIFA world cup and Olympic games... So it's 200 millions viewers every year.
As I understand you're not american, that's why you think american people have no culture and don't care about Europe and the rest of the world, but you're wrong.

---

I agree with you for France, and this year it's even worse than the previous years, it's a totally unknown folk/blues singer(in fact his father is a famous humorist) singing in english. If I can bet France not reaching the top 10, I will do it  ::)

Odds for that will be pretty low ;D France had only two Top10 in 16 years and if their song for this year is a bad as you suggest, you will maybe get a 1.1 to 1.2 for that.

The Big Five apart from Italy always perform equally poor ranking wise. Those four countries need a VERY good song and performance to have a chance to win or finish something like Top5, which is a very good result then.

Looking at the results since 2000, we have this average rank:

Country	Average result since 2000
__________________	__________________
France	16.45
Germany	15.95
Spain	17.40
UK	18.95

Italy always has very good and well liked entries, I always like them too, not sure what it is with Italian music. They had a long break with ESC and only started participating again since 2011, but they finish in 7.88th place on average - very impressive.

Armenia had their national selection tonight and it will be Athena Manoukian with the song "Chains On You" representing them at Rotterdam: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bgT9EjD_0No

Not the music I like, but it can of course still be successful in ESC. Armenia is a country that tend to be very succesful in ESC anyway. They have yet to get a Top3, but in 13 participations, they finished Top10 an impressive seven times (54%). Last two years they failed to make the final though and by my judgement they will fail for a third time in a row.

Some more countries had their national selection finals today. Lithuania will send group The Roop with song ''On fire'' - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awmMoVeqxlY. I think it's good choice, I like this song and I think we can get to the Eurovision final this year. Though I also liked song which finished second in our national selection.

Yes, one of the better entries so far for my liking, has some 80´s vibes, especially that sequence starting at around 1:16. That trousers from the frontman are hilarious though ;D


Yes, Norway selected their entry as well. Ulrikke with "Attention" has won the Melodi Grand Prix and will go to ESC: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYI_FrDixLY

The intro is great, but then a bit lame that whole song. It's missing some climax and/or up-tempo. Only in the very end, there is some more "action", but maybe it's liked by the people. Norway is another country that is always doing quite well and often has very good and perfectly arranged songs.

---

Edit: Looks like the song from North Macedonia is now known as well, but I can't find it on Youtube.

They are just distributing the prize to different participating countries rather than the good ones. It has never been about the song or singer.
So, it certainly would not be the Netherlands, Israel, Portugal, Ukraine or Sweden.
Most probably the winner would be from Baltic or even the new participating country Australia. Or the middle European countries and UK and Ireland too would have a chance. Iceland too have not won it and they are a sound place to organize another event.

I have always been a major fan of Eurovision though I haven't attended a live show yet. But I've literally watched it with my family every year since I was a little kid. It is awesome to have an international song contest with such a great tradition.

The majority of my local bookies have quotations for the Eurovision event, but hopefully some crypto online casinos will offer them too this year as well. Gotta make some time to watch the music videos of each participant.

Who are distributing the prize? LOL Did you know that votes from viewers are counting for half of the points?  :D

For the moment my preferred songs are (in order) :

• Spain : I really like the chorus of the song "perdoname, perdoname, uni-universo"
• Greece : catchy gimmick "bye bye baby bye"
• Lithuania : very artistic and contemporary choreography
• Italy : amazing crescendo

You should start placing some bets on Spain then :)

The odds for the countries that have announced their entries until now (taken from Orbit Exchange).

https://abload.de/img/orbesojva.jpg

The market is still young and it's missing liquidity of course. For those not familiar with exchanges - right hand from the blue fields are orders waiting to get matched, f.e. someone is looking to place a bet of 2,- Euro on Spain.

Lithuania is pretty low for my liking. I like the song, but don't think it's special enough to have a shot at winning that whole thing. Will be interesting to see how the markets move as more and more songs get announced.

While Germany sits at around 40-ish at the moment, bwin has already a bet up, if Germany will get zero points (5.00 yes / 1.13 no).

Well it's just my personal taste, not my prediction for the moment but I'm pretty happy to see that 3 of them are already in the top 4 of the bookmakers.  :)
For Spain yes I think those odds are underrated IMO. The reactions from the "Eurovision Hub" have been pretty good overall
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hLsLifG6nMk

Another year, another political contest. Neighbors gives high scores to neighbor countries, jury’s can be bribed, but in overall freak/transgender/transvestite/crippled/someone with incurable decease wins.

This contest is far away from music. I usually turn off the show when it comes to scoring.

Btw, I’ve noticed that usually wins that country, which bookmakers marked as a winner. Most of the years bookies are correct. Want a 100% win, make a bet on someone with lowest odd :)

The french song will be released this evening(20h50 CET) but it has already been leaked on social networks.
The song has been written by the (swedish) authors of Euphoria (winner 2012).
Tom Leeb -The best in me
https://twitter.com/archive_de/status/1229005840172056576

In the twitter link he starts english and switches to french afterwards. In the youtube video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-1WR2Vd7Qk) he starts with french and then switches to english, weird. I like that song, especially the switching from englisch/french, but odds have gone up for France during the evening, so looks like the market doesn't like it ;D

I still couldn't find the song from North Macedonia (Vasil Garvanliev "You"), so if anybody has a link to it, please post.

As I understand, this song still isn't publicly released, this is why it's impossible to find it anywhere. It's kinda strange practice from North Macedonia.

Yes it seems the beginning of the song has been cut in the version of my link.
I'm not surprised of what you are saying about the odds, reactions have been very bad on social medias in France. Mainly because of the lack of originality of the song and because of the singer voice during his live performance yesterday.
BTW I had only heard the sound versions of Armenia and Albania from your links.  But after watching their video versions I think Armenia is my 5th favorite song now, the country has great chances to qualify to the final with this song IMHO.
Armenia : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hxh311X0umg
Albania : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VGlDU5ktmIU

For me, the most fun is to be able o bet during the final.
During the last two years I've had good winnings in bookies that allowed voting to take place while voting. From some decently high odds you could win big with even small bets, and it's super exciting when the voting takes some of the least favorite songs to the top, while the bookie still syncs odds.

Athena (Armenia) may be a good singer, I just can’t tell by this song. This is a bit Beyonce-ish and rather disappointing for me.
Not my cup of tits! ;D

They finally released their song (and video) and it is named, ta-da, "Release Me". It's a very pure and sad song, but quite nice, though I don't think it's winner material. Such songs tend to land somewhere in the 5-10 range. Odds went from 25ish yesterday to 60+ now. Belgium often has trouble getting past the semifinal, but the times they did in recent years, they had good placements.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lAqjksxc4iA

Not very Eurovision formatted, but it's a nice song I think. I don't find it really belgian nonetheless (no french neither dutch in the song  :-[). I hope Belgium will qualify but I wouldn't bet on a top 10 finishing (https://www.oddschecker.com/tv/eurovision/top-10-finish). It looks like Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down) a little bit I think.

I heard this song a couple of times on the radio today. It's a nice song, but nothing more than that. All the analysts are quite negative about this song and say it is not a song for Eurovision.
Reaching the final will already be a success.

Pretty typical of their latter singles, yeah, and I'm already liking it, but sadly, I agree with most people here and the commenters on YouTube that this is not going to win Eurovision... or even qualify for the finals. The type of music actually might not matter as much (judging from last year's winner, that even features some of the same lyrics as this!) but as commenters point out, the staging is a huge, huge problem.

Love Hooverphonic to bits and I'll still root for them but impossible to see them win this one. Thanks for the notify, Ty;)

I couldn't open Fai Rumore, anyone experiencing this issue? Anyway, I found this video just in case the previous one stops working
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tPv9ZPXmFWU

After listening to the updated songs list, I'd still pick these two songs:


Here is the live performance for Shaj's lovers https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8CznVbKqA1Q

Very beautiful songs, I hope one of them would win. I couldn't understand a word, and yet I felt the songs resonated with my heart. lmao

Yes, the links to the Youtube videos in the first post might have some geo restrictions. Eurovision didn't upload most of the songs on their channel yet, but I will keep an eye on that and put the correct links in once available on their channel.

As of now, in a very young and illiquid market, the favourites are:

Italy @7-8
Russia @11-12
Sweden @12-13
Lituania @12-13
Bulgaria @14-15


Albania is around 200-ish, so very unlikely to win (as it stands for now ;))

It seems the owner has changed the access rights to private. Thank you for the new link but as you say for "Shaj" (Albania) watching the live performance is better to get an accurate judgment. For Diodato I think his performance is more spectacular on stage because of the strength of his voice and interpretation.


Yes I hope they will upload them soon to be able to compare the number of views, likes and dislikes of the videos (even if they are influenced by the odds like a vicious circle) on the official Eurovision channel.

I was wondering why Sweden is priced so low without any artist or song announced yet. Same with Bulgaria, but they have at least their artist announced. Now Sweden always has very good entries, Top10 is nearly a lock every year. They are probably the most successful country in the history of ESC (don't have any stats to back that up though).

Their yearly Melodifestivalen is a huge thing and the final will be held in Friends Arena in Stockholm with 30,000 capacity for that event :o They are still busy with semifinals, but six finalists out of 12 are already known and I looked them up:

Robin Bengtsson - Take A Chance (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hLLaRUur8ho)
Mohombi - Winners (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MP1HedL9BUI&list=PLob0CNn3_OnU496HbBGgNsccbaVtoUTpm&index=14)
Anna Bergendahl – Kingdom come (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VlQnv_fSSo)
Dotter – Bulletproof (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_v2UdzRRG4)
Mariette – Shout It Out  (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5nq7YBPhzc)

The Mamas with "Move" I couldn't find unfortunately.

These are all very good entries, impressive. I like the one from Anna Bergendahl best so far, but there is one issue: Sweden only failed once to reach the final and it was in 2010 when Anna Bergendahl was their artist :D

Regarding the quality of the songs so far, I think it might be worth a little punt in the dark on Sweden already. Pretty sure those odds will go down and have good value at a later point.

I agree with bookmakers so if I were to bet here I would bet on Italy.In the national Italian festival that just finished a few days ago the singer Diodato performed very well and I think it was the winner.I think the song was beautiful and I think it will be a winner in the Eurovision also.

Thank you for sharing these links, my favorite songs are Dotter first and Robin Bengtsson in second. Dotter is also the favorite of bookmakers so it could be a good sign  :) The second one is Anna Bergendahl for them, as for now.
https://eurovisionworld.com/odds/melodifestivalen

---

Live performance of Dotter : https://twitter.com/CarlosRivasFdez/status/1226244263438143488

of Anna Bergendahl : https://twitter.com/CarlosRivasFdez/status/1226240898901725192

Thanks for these. I think Anna Bergendahl has/had too many people on stage, for ESC there is only five allowed iirc. But anyway, both these songs don't need a big performance. The song from Dotter is not meeting my personal taste, but I can see it doing very well, so probably rightfully #1 for Melodifestivalen by the bookmakers.

---

Does anyone remember the winner from 2006 ? -> Lordi - Hard Rock Hallelujah (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gAh9NRGNhUU)

https://abload.de/img/lor2rjzs.jpg (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gAh9NRGNhUU)

I remember the odds being around 30-ish before the start. In a betting forum I frequently visited at that time, people were jumping like crazy on Finland to win. I thought they were insane, because never in this world I would have thought, that such a song could be successful at ESC (back then), let alone win it. But the performance was just awesome and the crowd was well surprised with such a unique entry. Everyone liked it, although most people might not hear this sort of music normally.

Surprisingly (to me), Lithuania is now the top favourite for winning the ESC :o

https://abload.de/img/ltue1jtt.jpg

As I said before, it's a good song and I like it, but not good enough to win. And Lithuania isn't a country that tends be very successful at ESC. The introduction of a jury voting in combination with the televoting made things fairer, but you still need friendly votes to win and Lithuania is lacking a bit in that department imo. Since 2000 Lithuania has....

.....missed the final 7 out of 18 times (39%)
.....been ranked outside Top10 9 out of 18 times (50%)
.....only two Top10 finishes (11%)

Maybe @LTU_btc could give some insight, If there is some huge hype in Lithuania about this song ?

Hype is big and fact that The Roop in National final got more votes than remaining 9 singers/groups got combined means a lot. It's very rare thing whem most people in my country are happy about what we selected for Eurovision Song Contest. But nobody is talking about winning Eurovision this year. People are realistic and finnishing TOP 10 would be good result.

We have two new entries. For Ukraine it will be Go_A with the song "Solovey". It`s presented in ukrainian language: Go_A "Solovey" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNetXPSld50&feature=)

Slovenia will send Ana Soklič with the song "Voda", which is also sung in domestic language: Ana Soklič "Voda" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=goQRSWa2DMY&feature=youtu.be)

---

That ukranian entry I don`t like at all, even hurts my ears a bit tbh. Slovenia is quite nice, but probably a bit too boring for the audience. Both songs are non-english, this already decreases their chances of winning from a statistical point of view. Since 2000 there were only two non-english winners (Serbia 2007 and Portugal 2017). Three winning songs were mainly sung in english, but had elements from other languages as well. When having a non-english entry, it has to be very good to have a chance of winning.

Is it already possible to bet that Germany will end up on the last place? No matter which singer or band we nominate this year, I am pretty sure it will be as bad as last year. Do you guys remember? S!sters with their song Sister? Wow, Jesus that was horrible to watch. I don't recommend to look it up on YouTube. You will lose a few minutes of your lifetime  :D. The last German song I really liked was Satellite by Lena Meyer-Landrut, who won the ESC in 2010.

My overall favourite song within the past years was Fuego by Eleni Foureira in 2018. That one was dope  :D.

Slovenia song is just not my taste. And about Ukraine song, such voice was intentional as I read. It's called white voice, technique of singing traditional folk songs in Eastern Europe - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_voice
Poland also selected winner of National selection - it's Alicja Szemplińska with song Empires https://youtu.be/om91-RjTr8k
She has very strong voice and she is just 17 years old!

Thank you. Very impressive regarding her age; I think Poland will do good this year. Not win it (around 100-ish for the moment), but maybe some nice H2H bets can be found.


No, not yet. But there surely will be such bet available, Bet365 always has a market for last place. And yes, Germany is a strong favourite for winning that market every year :D

---

Lithuania is a whopping favourite now :o

https://abload.de/img/esc0tjac.jpg

Way too low imo, but will monitor.

The song is maybe well appreciated in the eastern countries. We know east european countries have a big weight on the final score with all the points they bring in their bags  :-\

One of these songs will be the entry for Romania, all performed by Roxen:

Alcohol You (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lYqEX_PM6p4&feature=youtu.be)
Beautiful Disaster (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vMO_RQ5owss&feature=youtu.be)
Cherry Red (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0OfuTXqdRdk&feature=youtu.be)
Colors (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sS9M-OLE85s&feature=youtu.be)
Storm (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LH-0V0HA_UY&feature=youtu.be)

People seem to like the songs and style and Romania has been bought down from around 30 all the way down to 9.6, which makes them second favourite after Lithuania for now. In general there is rather a lot of action in the outright market already. Volume is stiill small, but quite some volatility.

---

Looks like you are not the only one; Slovenia has highest winning odds of all participants with 440+.

---

Looks very likely now, that Dotter will win Melodifestivalen. While it was a close-ish race some days ago, the odds have shifted towards her now. I still like the song from Anna Bergendahl better, but anyway ;D

https://abload.de/img/b360xkm2.jpg

Germany has revealed their entry today and it will be Ben Dolic with the song "Violent Thing": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4swmQ7YITug

Dolic has slovenian roots and finished in second place in "The Voice of Germany" in 2018. Germany strong favourite for me - but only for last place. Such a crap song.

---

UK will send James Newman with "My Last Breath": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6iS-lV909T4

A bit better than the german entry, but poor as well imo.

---

Israels entry will be chosen among these 4 songs, all from Eden Alene:

Feker Libi (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lnCa9Gk-Xg8&feature=youtu.be)
Rakata (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJNrPJD6Umk&feature=youtu.be)
Roots (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WslYCCZ7A2A&feature=youtu.be)
Savior In The Sound (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKvAE2RZ6O8&feature=youtu.be)

Hmm ::)

We'll see in one week now, but I'm pretty confident for her  :)

Amazing entry in the top 10 for Germany as of today.
Personally I don't like very much the song, for me it's just a "Justin"(Bieber/Timberlake) song, not very original and not my cup of tea. Moreover at some moments his voice is autotuned in the video, how he will do that on stage?
I don't think he's gonna stay in the bookmakers top ten very long.
https://eurovisionworld.com/odds/eurovision
http://archive.is/rwZZw

German media and experts of course said, that it's a very good and modern song bla bla bla, but just because they have to :D German ESC fans are a bit disappointed, because it's yet another song, that will have no chance to be placed at the top. I am surprised the odds for Germany haven't gone up that much yet.

---

Belarus will send VAL with "Da Vidna": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jmh40xnxciM

Sung in belarusian, no spectacular performance and very random song, so I think Belarus will have a very hard time to survive the semifinals.

omg what's that? They're trying to compete for the last place?  :P
Several countries will announce their candidate this evening : Estonia, Moldova, Croatia and Iceland.

Yep. Iceland is maybe still voting, but we have the entires from Croatia, Estonia and Moldova now:

Damir Kedžo with "Divlji vjetre" for Croatia: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CEaGo95C4c0
Uku Suviste with "What Love Is" for Estonia: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ATiP1pN4XeM
Natalia Gordienko with "Prison" for Moldova: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tp80Bq-vNkY

Though I don't understand a word, the croatian entry sounds quite nice. Some disadvantage because of non-english song and odds jumped to over 300, so no final most likely.
Estonia is probably too random/boring to make any noise. Current odds of 250+ (coming from around 75) don't suggest this song is going to be a success in this years ESC.
Entry from Moldova is ok, but nothing special. The song itself is maybe good, but the artist lacks a bit of power in her voice to fullfil the whole potential of it. Odds stayed the same more or less.

I liked Belarus song, but they have to work a lot with performance on stage. Now it doesn't looks good and it's difficult to understand what message they want to deliver.
Estonia doesn't sounds bad, but their song isn't something special.
About Moldova song - well, I've never been fan of song made by Kirkorov :).
BTW, for me it looks that this year we have more non-English songs than usual.

Natalia Gordienko for Moldova - Boring. Nothing special. Probably worse ranking than last year.
Uku Suviste for Estonia - A great voice and a great performer, but the song is unfortunately too week.
Damir Kedžo for Croatia - Another ballad. I have nothing to say here without being biased. ;)


Daði & Gagnamagnið will represent Iceland at ESC 2020 with the song "Think About Things"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-dMhpgj0PA

No big contenders in this batch. I liked the croatian song too, I don't know why but I thought the song was about yugoslav war, I saw the translation and finally it just seems to be another "broken heart" song. https://eurovisionworld.com/eurovision/2020/croatia
I liked the very 80's synthetic sound in the moldova entry but I agree with you her live performance is very poor  :-\

Thank you, added to first post.

No offense to icelandic people/jury, but I have no idea how you can send such a song to ESC ??? I do like the stage performance, design, customes with all the 80´s vibes, but the song itself is just utter trash. Funnily the odds dropped from around 80 to ~25, so I might be the idiot here ;D

Today we will get the song from Romania/Roxen and Serbia will have their final.


I checked the last 3 years:

2017: 90% english (3 mixed language) / 10% domestic
2018: 72% english / 28% domestic
2019: 78% english (4 mixed language) / 22% domestic

In 2020 so far we have: 73% english (1 mixed language) / 27% domestic. So looks rather normal for now ;)

I heard some non-english song like in europe country and its really heartfelt even you dont understand the lyrics but when you heard the sound its good to hear. So I think they will win if there a contest and sing there song because most of there song can touched not only your heart but also your soul, thats why everytime they sing their song many people captivate of there song.

Romania have selected song for Roxen, it's Alcochol You - https://youtu.be/qkK2XbNMGLk
According to bookmakers, it's strong contender to win. Personally, I'm not big fan of ballads, so I don't see something special in this song.
Ok, seems that I got wrong impression :).

It's surprising because they were the favorites of the Icelandic contest, I've also been a little bit shocked when I saw their video clip for the first time, and I didn't believe they'll win. But they did it. Icelandic people should like kitschy style obviously  ::)

Serbia's artist & song for Eurovision Song Contest 2020 has been selected:
Hurricane - "Hasta La Vista" (Official Video) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Uh_IFJNlfc
Hurricane - "Hasta La Vista" (LIVE) - Beovizija 2020 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nYE2qmSXtwc

Roxen and Serbia added to first post, thanks guys.

This song from Roxen is nice, but in the end maybe too boring and lacks some energy for ESC. But never in my wildest dreams I could have imagined Salvador Sobral winning the ESC in 2017, so who knows.

For the serbian entry, I think, there is a huge difference between the official video and their live performance. Is it just me or are they bad singers ? The first 30sec when the two blonde girls sing alone, this sounds just horrible (for the standard of a professional singer).
The dresses are quite nice, but in the end this is just not my song. Odds are now ~130 for Serbia, coming from 260.

---

Speaking of odds, these are the latest from Orbit after lots of entries were announced this weekend:

https://abload.de/img/oddk8jxn.jpg

Odds for Iceland have gone down from 25 to ~10 during the day :o

Now that I'm listening again, I think you're right. I noticed the same thing but thought it was due to technical reasons. Of course, it is difficult to have a good vocal performance and have so much movement (dance) on stage at the same time. Very few performers can pull this off.

Anyway, here's a new video of the final performance. They may seem a little more confident, but in terms of performance, I don't see much difference in quality.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LFxxLRBoY68

WOW it seems Romania is the game changer of the year, but in almost 2 months and a half, things can change again...

They're gorgeous but as you say it's more a dancing show than a song IMO  :-\ The song sounds very common, with very few originality and strength. I'm pretty pessimistic for a final selection, they can get votes from the public but I wouldn't bet on a big score from the juries.

Maybe they were just too nervous, but they should work on getting the vocals right. You can get away with it in the middle of a song, but right at the beginning, hmm. I think it would already help, if they didn't have to wear the mic in their hands, but use those ones that are put around your ear and then just sit next to your mouth (don't know the correct term for that). They could at least move freely then and have one thing less to concentrate on.


Yes, there is still lots of time. I have yet to find a song with a wow effect (for me). I like the song from Anna Bergendahl for Sweden, but looks like she won't make it to ESC. All others are a bit so and so. From those that are favourites for the time being, I probably like Lithuania the most, but there is no wow effect for me too.

---

If I am not mistaken, you were promoted to Legendary yesterday, congratulations :)

Seems that Russia decided to troll Europe this year. They will send group Little Big. As I understand, their song will be announced later.
They are authors of famous "Skibidi" song and dance:
https://youtu.be/mDFBTdToRmw
Another their popular song:
https://youtu.be/SsFI40bXROs
I hope to see something similar in Eurovision :D. Even without song, they are strong contender to win already.

LOL! The second video was hilarious. Not exactly ESC material, though. ;D

They have a history of doing that and I think it's fine ;D Anyone still remember Buranovskiye Babushki (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BgUstrmJzyc) from 2012 ?

https://abload.de/img/babz5km6.jpg

They managed to finish second that year, only falling short to Swedens Loreen. If Sweden didn't have that monster of a song that year, they would have won. Then Russia also had that lesbian couple with a really great song, who were kissing on stage and things like that iirc.


I didn't know that song before, but from what I read, they are very successful with their music. In my last screenshot, Russia was @17 to win and now have dropped to around @9. So they definitely have very good chances to win. Russia has the big advantage, that if they have a good song, they always get a lot of "friendly points".


I think every song/entry is fine, you just have to live with the likely result, if you are sending something very special ;D There are always lots of ballads and modern up-tempo songs, so I always like when countries give some variety and uniqueness with their entries. Some of them are really horrbile for my taste (and ears !), but it's good for the ESC in general.

The song of Ukraine reminds me the song of those babushkas, the voice is very similar imo.

You are talking about Tatu ? They've participated to Eurovision? I didn't remember that

Hey you saw that?!  :D Thank you mate, you're not so far too...  ;)  

Oh, yes, indeed it does :) The babushkas got a lot of points, because they were so likeable and cute, but it's not the Eurovision Who Can Sing The Best Contest - it's Eurovision SONG Contest. And if people like a song, even if it's not perfect, why not. I doubt Ukraine will get a lot points out of sympathy though^^



They participated in 2003 and finished 3rd place then. I remember there were some issues regarding their participation and you can also hear the crowd booing at the start: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94FYrYJF16E

I still have something in my mind regarding their biggest success "All the things she said" and Eurovision, but couldn't find anything regarding that.

In 2012 one of them tried to get to Eurovision again, but fell short in the Russian national selecetion to.....the babushkas ;)

Wow du hast eine kolossale Kultur!   :o
BTW Israël has released its song tonight.
It's Eden Alene "Feker Libi"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWMeV3xXuDQ

---

Today, D-day -69 , Netherlands and Switzerland will reveal their candidate.

Thanks, added to first post. I didn't expect such a song from Israel tbh. It's a pretty unique entry regarding the other entries for this year. Odds stayed more or less in the 70-80 range, so most likely a spot in the finals for Israel.


I think the deadline is March 10th, so we should have the complete list next week.

Normally there is always one or two huge-ish favourites each year with odds around 2-4. But it looks like this year, the field will be way more wide open. Unless one of the yet to be announced songs is a very special one, but don't think so.

Netherlands comes with a pretty common and anecdotal "soul" song, the song is a kind of blues with negro spirituals choirs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMcxWB90TTY

Switzerland chose a 100% french song this year. It won't become a hit sale IMO, but the voice of this albanian guy is really beautiful.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ryl3FaM3-U

Don't like both. While odds for Netherlands remained unchanged more or less, Switzerlands odds have dropped quite a lot.

---

Ireland has revealed their entry too now: Lesley Roy "Story Of My Life" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HLgE0Ayl5Hc&feature=youtu.be)

I like it, but odds have gone up ;D

Bulgaria's song from Victoria is now known as well ("Tears Getting Sober"), but couldn't find it on Youtube yet.

---

It's now only missing these countries with their songs (some artists are already known):

North Macedonia
Russia
Sweden
Azerbaijan
Malta
San Marino
Denmark
Finland
Portugal

---

Since we talked about the ratio english vs non-english songs earlier, which often was around 75/25, I had a look in which language the winning entries were sung since 2000:

English: 15
English & Other: 3
Domestic: 2 (Serbian & Portuguese)

Nice song, very "Katy Perry" styled but nice song I think.
BTW AFAIK  (https://eurovisionworld.com/eurovision/calendar)Austria has revealed its official song this morning, and it's not the one you've quoted (while it's the right singer though) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOuiTJlBC50

Same thing for Greece, it's still Stefania, but it's another song https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83ncXE_fOtI

Katy Perry was the first thing that came to my mind too ;D

Have updated the first post with Austria and Greece, not sure what went wrong there. I will have to go through the list anyway and link all entries to the Eurovision Youtube channel (when they finally put all songs there). Then we can do some statistics with views, up-/downvote etc. Those stats are often a bit misleading, but give some kind of an overview nevertheless - and it's some fun to watch the changes over the weeks leading up to the ESC.

It must be some scammers, seeking more subscribers and views on their YT channel I suppose.
Cyprus has revealed its (real) entry today

Sandro Nicolas – Running
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bwwv348eDMA

OMG  :o the infamous (big) Mamas have won the swedish Melodifestivalen. WTF! It will be the second time in a row they will represent Sweden  :-\ I really hope they will finish out of the top 10  
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wufoQX66ufw

Well, that is really quite a surprise :o Tbf all girls (or should I say Mamas) are very good singers. I just don't think this song will give Sweden higher chances of winning ESC. Odds have gone up accordingly to 30+.

---

Bulgaria has revealed Victorias Song "Tears Getting Sober": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V_hgYnwZR8I

I like it, and now know why Bulgaria has been among the favourites all the time, but I am afraid that it will sound very different live.

---

Finland will send Aksel Kankaanranta with "Looking Back": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1aFarZxWQM

Too boring to make any noise I would think. Odds 200+

---

With only few entries missing now, I still didn't find that one song I can cheer for (and bet on !). Lithuania is odds favourite for now and for my liking this is correct. I am curious about Russia though. From the previous songs from this band, I would think their yet to be revealed song could be very well liked by the audience in all Europe. Combined with some crazy stage performance, they could take the trophy home.

I like Sweden song, but I'm not sure that such gospel style is Eurovision material. Bulgaria sounds good, but I agree that it would be interesting to see live performance on the stage. And Finland - not great, not terrible, it's just boring.

You know, I'm biased about Lithuania :). But I agree about Russia. I watched most of their clips and it's crazy. Maybe their songs isn't something amazing, it's more about clips. It's interesting what they will be able to show on stage. Iceland song is interesting and not typical. Either they will be one of favorites or they will fail completely.

I think every thing song/style is fine. ESC is about variety, uniqueness, crazyness and history has shown that a lot of different genres of songs can be successful at ESC. It's not always about winning, Top5 is a great achievement too already. But as said earlier, I too think, that it's not the song, that will give Sweden the best shot at winning the ESC. But if it's the song the swedish people like(d) the most, that is fine. It's by no means a bad song, but there were better ones imo. But anyway, you should be happy, since Sweden doesn't seem to be a competitior for Lithuania anymore ;)

---

Portugal will send Elisa with "Medo de sentir": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-aAPJAr0gs

With such songs it's very important to understand the lyrics and thats quite difficult (=impossible) for non-potuguese speaking people. So I don't think Portugal will get past the semi-final.

---

Senhit from San Marino has posted her two possible songs on her website (https://www.senhit.com/eurovision) and you can vote which song should be presented at ESC:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5vWNm8R7rOo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=crd8x_nbbJA

I think both songs aren't something special, but to show some support, I voted for Freaky. It won't matter which songs gets voted to Rotterdam, because she won't survive the semi-final anyway (at least odds of 600+ suggest that).

I think the deadline is today, so we got some news.

Fans voted the song "Freaky" form Senhit for San Marino: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6ZNo_hVA6E

---

North Macedonia revealed the song "You" from Vasil: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xPZumQQExQc

---

Malta has been among the favourites all the time and now we know their entry as well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFCn_8oViRw

Girl can sing. She finished 6th in Britain's Got Talent and won Maltese X Factor. Malta has quite a horrible record at ESC, but this year might be different. I can see this song in Top3.

---

Now it's just missing Azerbaijan and Russia. Meanwhile Bulgaria has taken the lead in the betting market, but there is no strong favourite for now and things might/will change in the next weeks.

So it's another "soul" song...  :-[ How many are there this year?  ???
May I suggest to these countries to candidate with some K-pop songs next year?  ::)
More seriously I don't find anything from these countries in those songs, they don't even use a single word in their own language...  :-[
Azerbaijian has revealed its song, and it's a big surprise. Could finish in the top10 IMO
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0VzBCvO1Wk

 ;D There are a lot of songs that sound the same to my uneducated ear. That is why I like Lithuania and look forward to Russia.


Odds suggest that too, they have come down quite a bit for Azerbaijan.

---

I have updated the OP and all links now lead to Eurovision Youtube channel. It's just missing the (official) videos for Russia, Serbia, Albania, Armenia, Denmark and Italy. Russia will only announce their song on Thursday I read.

These are the five most viewed until now. Some songs are on the channel already for ages, so naturally they have more views than recently added ones, but still interesting:

UK 921,309
Ukraine 916,556
Netherlands 827,640
Australia 809,696
Norway 726,488

You've made an amazing job until now, TYVM for that, I'll send you more merits when I'll be able to do it.
So it seems we have to wait 2 more days to discover the last entry, I hope it will be a good surprise too.
But I must confess I don't really understand why Bulgaria is currently the top dog...  :-\ Even if it's a pretty good song, I don't find it very special...

BTW nobody has said anything about it but Denmark is very close to Sweden as for now...(in the top 15)

Azerbaijan already 240 000 views

Merci beaucoup ;) Thank you too, for posting updates here and helping me out.
The best is yet to come, when the betting markets shape up and more and more options are available. Looking especially forward to the H2H bets.


I quite like it. It has some sadness and melancholy in it, which I find very comfortable and calming - sounds strange, I know^^. As with other entries, a lot will depend on the live performance (in this case the vocals).


Thats quite a lot considering it was only put up on the channel today. The national selection video from The Roop on Eurovision channel has already over 3.8mln views, but for OP I took the official video as for all participants: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1EAUxuuu1w8

-

Albania has modified their entry a bit btw and the song also has a new name.

There is a platform with H2H bets on Eurovision?

I didn't see that. So they've revamped the song, and translated the lyrics in english...
Well I prefer the original version.

I am not sure, what the crypto books will be offering, but the FIAT bookies always have a lot of betting markets for ESC. In the past this included H2H bets, group bets, finishing Top10/Top5/Top3/last, over/under points and finishing position for countries, jury winner, televoting winner and basically anything you can think of. The inplay market at Betfair is going nuts once the points announcements start -  prices going up and down like crazy then.
A thing that is always very funny, is, when the first country announces their points from televoting. The odds for the country they give their 12 points to, will drop like crazy. And if those 12 points are maybe some friendly points (Cyprus giving 12 points to Greece), this is insane to watch, because it doesn't reflect the voting reality. But there are a lot of traders in this market and they will look to buy high and sell low.

---

If this Corona virus keeps on spreading like it does, especially in the Netherlands, I fear it might have some effect on the ESC as well. Lets hope the peak is reached soon and everything gets more under control afterwards.

If the situation continues to develop at this pace, it seems that there will be no ESC. According to the Dutch virologist, all big events are likely to be canceled.
The ESC may still be held, however, in delayed dates.

What? Where have you seen that please? Do you have a link about that?
They could easily organize it without public or very few public. Eurovision doesn't need all this public and journalists. It's a TV show.

Unfortunately Betfair is forbidden in my country. But if you see some other platforms offering those kind of bets (H2H etc) feel free to report them here.

Speaking about last announced songs, I liked Azerbaijan - it sounds good and I expect it to see it in TOP 10.
Does anyone know when Russia will release their song - I only saw little part of it leaked on Youtube.
Eurovision without public wouldn't look good, but it's possible scenario. Offcourse, there is plenty of time until May, let's hope that spread of virus will be stopped until it.

Betfair is geo-restricted here too, but there are workarounds with white-label exchanges. Probably not worth it though, if you are fun bettor or only play with small stakes (no offense meant here). Will post as soon as I find markets on "normal" bookies.


It was said to be announced today, but it's already late-ish in Russia now and I haven't seen anything official ::)

I'm just saying that there are currently concerns that the ESC might actually be canceled. Information about this can be read on various Dutch media portals.
The reason: An employee of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) tested positive for the corona virus in Geneva last week.

No matter if it's in dutch language, Google or other automatic translators translate dutch very well. But it's better to provide links for this kind of news. It's important, it would be a huge news, a sad one nevertheless.

So here it is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_dWvTCdDQ4

I would have expected a little bit more tbh. Stage performance will be something to watch out for, but the song itself, hmm. Odds have gone up a bit. Already 150k+ views 38 minutes after the video was uploaded is huge though.

We finally have all songs now :)

Russian? Are you sure? It tastes like latin american music ;D

I've updated my basket playlist:
- Italy
- Germany
- Albania -> the English version isn't as emotional as the original, but her live performance might be interesting to see.
- Austria
- Lithuania

It's definitely a very special and unique song and has over 6mln views within 24 hours :o

Eurovision Youtube Channel has added official videos for all countries except Albania now, which still only has a version with lyrics; guess they are still producing something after changing/modifying the song. Here is a video with a short summary of all songs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PkUbBsdwQvU

Here are some stats from Youtube ESC channel with views, up- and downvotes. Those Russia numbers are insane, but is has to be taken into account, that people watch their own entry the most. Lithuania and Georgia have best up-/downvote ratio and Czech Republic the worst.

https://abload.de/img/escytprk8g.jpg (https://abload.de/image.php?img=escytprk8g.jpg)

Here are the odds as of March 13th 2020, taken from Bet365:

https://abload.de/img/365rxksz.jpg

If you want to bet on some underdog, you will find way better odds elsewhere (Slovenia @760 f.e.). Quite some discrepancies sometimes between the Youtube numbers and the odds - thats the hard thing to figure out when betting. And Youtube isn't of course the only source you should look at. It just gives an idea, but more research has to be done before placing bets.

TYVM. Well it's funny but I won't vote for it, for sure. And I feel I won't be alone.
It's a risky venture from Russia.

So, I have gone through the recap of all songs and here is my Top5 so far (subject to change of course):

Bulgaria
Lithuania
Ireland (sounds way worse live though)
Belgium
Sweden

And my bottom 5:

Czech Republic
Cyprus
San Marino
Latvia
Ukraine

-

Iceland I still don't like, but think it's a song that fits ESC-style very well. Same goes for Russia - they are breaking all records view-wise.

I am amazed that Switzerland seems to be very well liked, also it being non-english. If it was in english, it probably would be huge favourite, but I can't stand that song :D

Eurovision used to be one of the most anticipated yearly events in Greece for a long time and media as well as the whole country were debating for weeks (before and after the event). Not as popular nowadays, well, I found some time to check out "our" Stefania - I actually like the song, the chorus sounds quite nice. "Supergirl" is of course nothing special but its actually a song that could be played in radios/clubs and ppl wouldnt mind. :D Oh and Stefania is sweet with her sweet 17 years, bright future I´d say! :D

Didnt do a cross check regarding odds but bwin is paying ~67 for Greece - Whaaaaaat is wrong with everybody!  8)

This is Stefania "performing" at the Greek Video Music Awards: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=slKVk32bye4 - big time playback but thats the case with all performances there.

Nb. No I am not biased of course, never am...  :D

I think this is the same in every country. You have a hardcore community, that can't wait for May every year and then you have some hype in different countries, which have good songs for that year and where people are anticipating a good result. I remember the Lena-hype in Germany in 2010, when everyone was going crazy and that poor girl was all over the media. Nowadays there is very little hype, because people already expect Germany to finish outside Top20 due to not being able to send/select good entries to ESC (for whatever reasons).

I can imagine there being some hype in for example Lithuania (@LTU_btc may confirm), Bulgaria, Iceland, Russia etc. for this year, but outside of the hardcore fans, people in countries like Czech Republic, Slovenia, Austria couldn't care less I think.

In general the quality is very poor me thinks. 95% of songs will be forgotten the day after and you rarely have some more well known artists participating. These artists know, how hard it is to get a good result at ESC and it's not worth the risk for them. It can kick-start your career, but for an established artist it's not very appealing to participate. Thus the often poor quality.

But for betting purposes, this is still a great event ;D

Eurovision Song Contest 2020 has been cancelled (https://eurovision.tv/story/eurovision-2020-in-rotterdam-is-cancelled).

This is really early tbh, still two months to go. And I think being mainly a TV event, the EBU could have come up with some other format or ideas, where a live performance isn't necessary, but people still can vote for their favourite song. Anyway, what can you do ;)

Lets see, if some countries will send the same entry next year. Monitoring the odds, some countries might think twice about that ;D

And the winner of Eurovision 2020 is COVID-19... But I don't understand why they can't make Eurovision later this year, in September for example. It's not football championship with very intensive calendar.
It's interesting what will happen next year - will we see performance of singers who have been already selected this year, or there will be new national selections.

As could be expected, the ESC 2020 is canceled due to coronavirus pandemic. It is the first time the event has been canceled since it started 64 years ago.
It is expected that all this year’s candidates will be invited to take part again, however, it is unclear whether the same songs will be admissible.

The following is from European Broadcasting Union, EBU:

source: https://eurovisionworld.com/esc/eurovision-2020-is-cancelled

Damn this virus!

Based on FAQ, they predict this situation would take months to resolve and could make the next year participants have less time to prepare, lame excuses IMO.

Yeah, this year participants' effort will be meaningless if they couldn't compete. Moreover, the FAQ also didn't come to a clear conclusion.

FAQ >> https://eurovision.tv/official-ebu-statement-and-faq-eurovision-song-contest-2020-cancellation

Although ESC is cancelled, I still checked the views on Youtube some days later now. Mainly because those numbers from Russia are crazy:

https://i.imgur.com/8mI9DkB.jpg

35,000,000+ views for Russia :o Huge change for Armenia and Italy is partly due to the videos being uploaded only recently. Czech Republic had a new video uploaded just 2 days ago, thus the low change. We can see Iceland and Azerbaijan doing really good.

---

Though we will have no winner for this years ESC, I will declare the unofficial winner now, by putting the number of views in relation to the population (https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/population-by-country/):

https://i.imgur.com/3tSV5ZK.jpg

And the winner is: San Marino, Congratulations !

---

I traded a bit on the ESC market already, mainly with Sweden and Russia, and was sitting at a loss there. With the cancellation of ESC, the market was of course voided and I got my money back - lucky me ;D

Lucky guy LOL
Well I don't understand why they don't organize a mini Eurovision on internet.
People and jury would just vote for the videos they liked the most.
Cancelling all the event isn't respectful for the artists neither for the public.

Agreed. It would really be easy to setup, but from those FAQ's you can already see there being no chance at all due to it being against the DNA of it. It is against the DNA, yes, but this is a special situation, where EBU and other involved parties could just adapt to also value the efforts of all the artists. They also need to make some money, so why not give them a reduced platform to present their songs.

If Europe is still in Corona lockdown by May, such an Online-ESC would get huge exposure. Everyone sitting at home, being tired of watching Netflix and having arguments with their wives, the ESC would present a nice change and would get them a lot of first time viewers imo. And just imagine all those desperate betting people. They would finally have something to bet on again. Volumes in the ESC markets would explode :D

Otoh, if the situation gets really bad with very high fatalities, a fun show like the ESC is probably not the right thing to do. Would be disrespectful. Not easy to make decisions in these times.

Yes I agree
But does anyone know if candidates from this year will be allowed to participate in 2021? Or all countries will have to chose another song and singer to participate?

This was posted above:


I think it would only be fair, to give the participants a "free entry" for next years edition. But then again, as I wrote above, some countries might think twice about that ;D I am sure the domestic people in charge checked the international feedback - and maybe even the betting odds - for their entries and might come to the conclusion, to have a new national selection process.

This year's song will be not eligible in Eurovision 2021:
https://eurovision.tv/story/intention-to-honour-eurovision-2020-songs-artists
That moment when my country first time in the history had chance to win Eurovision, they cancel whole event ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
EBU are planning to make alternative programme, but it won't be a competition.

Yes, pretty bad. Bulgaria must be in tears too. But you always have chances to win ESC, they are just not that the same every year ;) I think Lithuania would have come up short and since second place is already the first loser, the cancellation probably saved you some pains.


Strange decision/rule. In the article you mentioned it says:

Source: https://eurovision.tv/story/intention-to-honour-eurovision-2020-songs-artists

To my knowledge, you can send the same artist multiple years anyway, so this is all a bit pointless and I don't get the idea behind it, to not allow the songs for next year. Guess there is some rule, that a song must be new and not older than X months. 


Lets see, what they come up with. But without some kind of competition, this doesn't look very attractive to me, since most of the songs are pretty garbage. And those that I like a bit, I can just watch/hear on Youtube ;D

A few countries have already announced (https://eurovision.tv/story/these-artists-are-already-confirmed-for-eurovision-2021) going forward with the same artist for 2021 ESC, but with a different song of course:

Austria - Vincent Bueno
Australia - Montaigne
Romania - Roxen
Azerbaijan - Efendi
Belgium - Hooverphonic
Bulgaria - Victoria
Georgia - Tornike Kipiani
Greece - Stefania
Israel - Eden Alene
Spain - Blas Cantó
Switzerland - Gjon's Tears
Netherlands - Jeangu Macrooy
Ukraine - Go_A

I would expect most countries to do the same, since it's kind of unfair, to rip the artists off that possiblity basically for no reason. Don't think the domestic broadcasters, juries or whomever took the decision, can use the fact of the betting odds having been bad, to justify selecting another artist. Otoh you could argue, that it will also be a different song, which might not be as good as the 2020 one, so a new decision/selection process is reasonable. Not easy.

I remember reading somewhere that Russia will send Little Big next year, but probably it wasn't confirmed officially yet.
I'm a bit disappointed that our national broadcasterwill not send The Roop next year. They just gave them direct spot in national selection final. I think it's unfair. But I understand this decision, national broadcaster want to get big ratings and revenue from sold tickets.

Yep, thats the problem. Even the good old ESC (and its national domestic selections) are about money nowadays. Not sure, how it is in Lithuania, but for example that Melodifestivalen in Sweden is such a big and money-making event, that throwing The Mamas under the bus is comprehensible from a financial point of view. But maybe some (at least financial) compensation would still be justified, if for example The Roop fails to win the 2021 national selection.

In Germany we had the broadcaster just picking the artist/song with no selection process at all. In cases like these, I would really like to hear the reasoning, if another entry gets chosen for 2021 ;D

It seems Denmark, Finland, Sweden, Norway, Estonia and Lithuania(!) have already decided to not send their current singers to ESC2021...
https://eurovisionworld.com/esc/eurovision-2020-2021-will-the-2020-artists-compete-at-eurovision-2021

If somebody are interested, there is special event of Eurovision tongight after a bit more than hour - Europe Shine a Light where all this yerar participants will sing their songs. So, after watching Bundesliga, you may try to watch it. Live stream will be available on Youtube too:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HAo_LxJzALw
And after all, it seems that cancelling this year Eurovision was right decision. Probably such big events where people comefrom all corners of Europe won't be possible this year.

In Germany there was a little ESC today, which was also televised in one of the main TV stations. People could pre-vote the ten best semifinalists, that would then be presented with their songs in a little show. Denmark, Lituania and Iceland sent their artists to Hamburg and they performed live in the studio, while the remaining seven were just shown with a video clip. I didn't watch the show, but heard it was pretty garbage. Nevertheless there was a tele- and jury-voting and the winner is......

https://abload.de/img/esccsjrp.jpg
Source: https://www.eurovision.de/news/ESC-2020-Litauen-ist-Sieger-der-Herzen-im-deutschen-Finale,finale1430.html

I guess it hurts @LTU_btc :D Surprised to see Bulgaria being not that well liked by germans, because it was and is still my favourite song from this years entrants. I still hear it from time to time ;D

I see that Denmark, Lithuania and Iceland are in the top five positions in the rankings. I wonder how much the live performances influenced the votes of the jury and the audience? ;)

It surely did to some extent, but I didn't follow the show. If we assume live performance did have a positive effect on the votings, then the result from Russia is quite impressive and reflects the general sentiment which we had in the betting markets, where Russia was among the top favourites. Then again, Bulgaria was top favo from the latests odds (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5224679.msg54023573#msg54023573) and they did quite poor in user and jury voting, so would have maybe been a good bet to oppose them. Malta got very good jury votes (because she is a very good singer), but wasn't liked by the users and for Denmark it was vice versa. This is just for Germany and not very representative for all those countries being able to vote, but still interesting.

---

As expected, Rotterdam will also be the host for the ESC 2021 (https://eurovision.tv/story/eurovision-song-contest-to-return-to-rotterdam-in-2021). 26 countries have confirmed their participation on top of the pre-qualified. The majority will also send the same artists as they initially planned/selected for this year. Still a long way to go, but I will open a thread for the 2021 edition later this year.

Here is the thread for the 2021 edition: ESC 2021 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5304740), I will lock this one.