Eurovision betting odds

Yes it’s that time of year again.  Awful Europop with outrageous outfits and worse lyrics battling it out for the trophy, voting for neighbours and allies and against political enemies.  Welcome to the Eurovision Song Contest.

Since its lofty origins of European music-making and togetherness, Eurovision has degenerated into something of a joke.  Winning is guaranteed to assure any band or singer a lifetime of obscurity and humiliation. 

Devoid of actual musical talent, the Eurovision Song Contest is all about the show.  Covering an entire, torturous night, it never seems to end.  Once you’ve endured all 42 entries, you then have to sit through the never-ending scoring, and clips from the entries again, and again…and again.

To add insult to injury, some countries included in this oh-so-prestigious event are not even European.  Take Israel.  They might like to think they’re European, when in fact they are located slap bang in the Middle East.   Israel do however often provide entertainment value, with last year’s ‘Push the Button’ and the 1998 win by transsexual Dana International, so we’ll forgive their gatecrashing our Eurotrash party.

If you fancy a flutter, you can place a bet on the outcome of the upcoming Eurovision Song Contest.

Current favourites are Russia (4-1), Serbia (last year’s winners at 4-1), Ireland (10-1) – who have won 4 times in the last 20 years - and Ukraine (7-1).  The UK never seems to do very well in recent years – a sign that our music industry is alive and kicking.  This year England is at 150-1 odds of winning, which is encouraging.  Outsiders include Czech Republic, San Marino and Montenegro all at 300-1.  Also worth a look are Iceland (50-1) who always come out with a corker but have never won, and Finland (40-1) who took first place in 2006.

Odds provided by Victor Chandler at www.vcbet.com