🇦🇹 Vienna 2026
It’s now time to look at the odds for the upcoming contest. These odds were recorded from Eurovisionworld on April 14th, 32 days before the final. As EurovisionWorld is a comparison site, we’ve taken the shortest odds available for each country.
| Rank | Odds | Country | Entry |
| 1 | 5/4 | 🇫🇮 Finland | Linda Lampenius & Pete Parkkonen – Liekinheitin |
| 2 | 9/2 | 🇫🇷 France | Monroe – Regarde ! |
| 3 | 6/1 | 🇩🇰 Denmark | Søren Torpegaard Lund – Før vi går hjem |
| 4 | 7/1 | 🇦🇺 Australia | Delta Goodrem – Eclipse |
| 5 | 7/1 | 🇬🇷 Greece | Akylas – Ferto |
| 6 | 12/1 | 🇮🇱 Israel | Noam Bettan – Michelle |
| 7 | 12/1 | 🇸🇪 Sweden | Felicia – My System |
| 8 | 16/1 | 🇷🇴 Romania | Alexandra Căpitănescu – Choke Me |
| 9 | 18/1 | 🇮🇹 Italy | Sal da Vinci – Per sempre sì |
| 10 | 24/1 | 🇺🇦 Ukraine | Leléka – Ridnym |
| 11 | 25/1 | 🇨🇾 Cyprus | Antigoni – Jalla |
| 12 | 28/1 | 🇨🇿 Czechia | Daniel Žižka – Crossroads |
| 13 | 28/1 | 🇬🇧 United Kingdom | Look Mum No Computer – Eins, Zwei, Drei |
| 14 | 33/1 | 🇲🇹 Malta | Aidan – Bella |
| 15 | 40/1 | 🇧🇬 Bulgaria | Dara – Bangaranga |
Key findings
The mathematical stuff
It’s nice just to reminisce and look back at the past, but it’s also nice to try and make a couple of conclusions here and there! I’m not going to pretend to be any mathematical genius but I’ve plotted the percentages calculated below each chart in the paragraphs above into a graph.
The orange line shows what percentage of the eventual top 5 at Eurovision placed inside the top 5 of the odds that year. The black line shows what percentage of the eventual top 15 at Eurovision placed inside the top 5 of the odds that year. The light orange and black lines show the overall trends over the past 19 years regarding how accurate the top 5 and 15 of the odds have been in predicting the top 5 and top 15 finishers respectively in any order.
Odds have become increasingly more accurate indicators… until now
Overall, this tells us that over the past nineteen years, odds-to-win have become increasingly reliable at predicting which countries will finish both inside the top 5 and those inside the top 15. This is shown by both trend lines trending upwards over the decade. However, after a very predictable 2019 for the top 5, and 2021-2022 for the top 15, the trend seems to have slowed down. Last year, we wondered if it could be reversing: it does not seem to be the case, but it looks like it may remain stable, with about two thirds of the top 15 and 3 out of 5 entries in the Top 5 well-predicted by the odds-to-win.
Taking the figures at face value, we can discover the following:
- 15 times out of 18, at least three of the top 5 in the odds a month prior the contest has finished in the top 5 at Eurovision.
- Excluding 2010 where the dataset was smaller, on all eighteen occasions more than half of the top 15 in the odds have gone on to finish in the top 15 at the contest.
- On only three occasions have the top 5 odds matched more than three entries in the eventual Eurovision top 5, in 2013, 2017 and 2019.
- However, only five times has the top 15 in the odds matched more than ten of the eventual top 15 finishers at Eurovision. Noticeably, this was in recent contests, in 2016, 2017, 2019, 2021 and 2022.
Other observations
The two most notable patterns when it came to discovering which type of entries tended to underperform at Eurovision were those countries who were being represented by returning artists, and those being represented by famous artists with a strong media coverage around them.
Perhaps because Eurovision fans are already familiar with returning artists, they therefore pay their entries more attention then they would do otherwise. Returning artists often result in more fanfare on various media websites. Particularly the likes of Charlotte Perrelli, Niamh Kavanagh or Ira Losco who were previous winners and runner-ups returning for their nations.
As for media coverage, well-known artists are also susceptible to being overhyped in the odds. A well-known artist being selected for Eurovision immediately results in more media coverage, whether it be Blue, Engelbert Humperdinck or Cascada. This seems to immediately translate into more betting support than they should probably be getting, particularly when these acts are from Western European countries. As the bookmakers we are analysing here are largely based in Western Europe, these acts are likely to have more effect on the odds than a major star from an Eastern European country for example due to a lack of name recognition amongst the users of these betting agencies.
What does this say about Eurovision 2026?
The stats we’ve seen before may very well change this year, and odds could be more or less good than last year at predicting the results. But assuming that the current trend continues, what would we be looking at?
- Two entries in the bookmaker’s Top 5 may not make it to the actual Top 5
- Around five entries in the bookmaker’s Top 15 will not make it to the actual Top 15, with potentially one of them not qualifying
This seems in line with what we can predict from all the other factors around the 2026 contests (songs, stagings, voting bias, etc.). For example, Israel (6th in the odds) will likely reach the Top 5 again and is predicted to do so by other betting markets (like the bets on who will get to the Top 5 itself), meaning at least one of the bookmakers’ Top 5 would finish lower. Could it be France, like last year, potentially overhyped again by the odds? Or could it be Denmark, falling victim to the “scarecrow” effect that queer visuals could have on the televote, according to some voices in the Eurovision community?
France may also be another “Wasted Love”, a jury-oriented entry mixing pop and opera and being 2nd in the odds behind a song more likely to get points from the televote.
Let’s revisit it all in a few weeks, with the actual results!
Do let us know in the comments section below or via our social media pages if you have any thoughts about all of these statistics! Were you surprised to see DJ Bobo topping the odds in 2007? Perhaps you’d forgotten Dustin The Turkey was deemed a potential winner in 2008? Had you also forgotten that Destiny was the favourite for most of the season in 2021?
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