Portugal's entrant, Salvador Sobral cut from 33/1 to 10/1 to win Eurovision
Festival Da Canção is the name given to the Portugese national festival which helps determine who will represent the nation at Eurovision. Salvador Sobral was this year’s victor after bringing fans to tears during his performance of “Amar Pelos Dois”, which translates to “Love Enough”.
This is Salvador Sobral’s biggest breakthrough yet; he’s previously known for competing on the Portuguese version of Pop Idol, where he finished 7th. Since Sobral won the right to perform for Portugal, there’s been plenty of support for his country to win this year’s Eurovision. In the last twenty-four hours, 49% of bets placed on the event have been on the Portuguese entrant, with 66% of these bets coming from Portugal. However, the United Kingdom have also been backing the Sobral, with 22% of bets on the him being placed in the UK.
Yesterday punters could have backed Portugal to win Eurovision at 33/1. His odds have now been slashed to as short as 10/1 with some bookmakers, which implies he’s got a 9.1% chance of winning the annual event. Italy remain favourites for the competition at 7/4 (36% chance), with Sweden, Russia, Greece and Australia also among the favourites.
Despite the support for Portugal in the last twenty-four hours, favourites Italy remain the most backed country in the competition. The Italian entry accounts for 14.7% of all bets on the event, with Greece the next most popular with punters accounting for 9.9% of bets and surprisingly the UK is next with 7.5% of bets.
Elsewhere on Oddschecker it appears the Spanish already have Eurovision on their minds despite the event itself still being a couple of months away. Just under 20% of all traffic coming to Oddschecker to see the odds of each competitor has been from Spain, with the United Kingdom accounting for 13.7% of unique visitors and Germany 9.2%.
Oddschecker spokesman, Sam Eaton “We expect there to be several spikes in betting in the lead up to Eurovision, more and more countries will reveal their entrants and spark even more interest across Europe. At this early stage I wouldn’t read too much into the odds - in 2013 Denmark were favourites for the competition at 4/1 and went on to win, but since then, winners have been much greater odds at this stage of the year. 2014 winners Austria were 33/1 in March, whilst Sweden were 10/1 at the same time before being crowned winners in 2015. Twelve months ago, Ukraine were 25/1 for the win but went on to land the coveted title in 2016. Given that only 4.5% of bets during January and February 2016 were placed on eventual winners Ukraine, I’d recommend taking a bit of a gamble and backing a longer-shot, as these odds will most likely shorten in the coming weeks.”
