Sweden’s Mans Zelmerlow was victorious in this year’s contest with ‘Heroes’. In another year’s validation of the betting market, the pre-show top five came to pass: Sweden, Russia, Italy, Belgium and Australia. Other top ten fancies Latvia, Estonia and Norway filled the next places, followed by Israel and Serbia. Austria and Germany were joint-last with nul points.
Predictably enough, Russia and Sweden won their respective semi-finals. In the first semi-final, Belgium and Estonia placed, Albania were tenth and Moldova 11th. In the second semi-final, Latvia and Israel placed, Azerbaijan were tenth and Malta 11th. Finland and Switzerland were last in their heats. Full results can be found on the official site.
Many thanks to all the Sofabet commenters for their kind words and friendly dialogue. It’s been a pleasure as always – I’m looking forward to Stockholm already.
Thank YOU Daniel and all the very well informed commenters on this great site. Correctly calling the results of both semi-finals and the final, together with predicting Finland and Portugal not to qualifty proved to be very profitable.
Looking forward to Sweden 2016.
I hope you had a profitable Eurovision too – something tells me that you did.
Daniel ευχαριστώ πολύ!!!! Thank you so much Daniel!!!
These results are getting more predictable, no? The market was very accurate. I won money on Sweden and the UK, but could have won more if I’d bet on Russia and Italy. I never saw either of them coming as high as they did. Never mind – well in profit anyway. Many thanks to all the posters here and of course to Daniel.
Pretty big scandal with the split results. Italy landslided the televoting – Sweden only came 3rd. The juries completely killed off Italy’s chances. Even Iceland’s televoting gave 12 to Italy over Sweden.
Huge headache for the EBU, though at least we now know that last in the running order is actually a great spot.
congrats to everyone!!!
where are the full split results visible?
some fans have calculated them with all the detailed results. So its not official yet.. I believe it might be true though as EBU usually announces the split voting of jury and televote.
And to think I always thought jurys would put italy first and sweden low oops.
If its true then its really the first time the televote winner didnt win and thats a huge shame.
Huge headache. If they gave a shit.
It mirrors Sanremo – Il Volo won the public vote but didn’t win either of the two jury votes. But as the Sanremo public vote had more weight, it was enough to secure their win.
Juries were supposed to negate the power of blocks. Here they promote a powerful one and undermine a weak one. Poor old Italy, although I’m personally relieved in this case.
All hail the jury. Life savers lol
Alternatively didn’t the juries do a good job of negating the running order effect.
Estonia 10th with the juries in Semi-Final 1, are you having a laugh?! Although Estonia *did* flop with the juries in Eurojury, finishing only 19th, before anyone claims a SKANDAL!
Daniel, thank you so much for your insights and reports. They were priceless to me. I also wanna thank eurovicious for his wonderful articles. And finally, thank you all sofabet commentators who have your opinions during the season. It’s been a wonderful year for me. I won the biggest amount of money in my life. Daniel and other could you post your biggest winning and losing bets?
My biggest winning bets:
Sweden to win at 9.0 (50% of all profit came from this bet)
Russia to win the semi at 3.5 and 3.0
Latvia Top 10 at 5.0
Finland NQ, Moldova NQ, Ireland NQ, Malta NQ, Israel Q
Israel to beat Malta
Cyprus to beat Iceland
Norway to beat Azerbaijan
Lithuania to beat Poland
Russia to beat Italy
Biggest losing bets:
Serbia NQ
Denmark Q
Romania Top 10
Laying Serbia in top Balkan market
Lost money on Australia outright and top 3, and belguim outright
Won money on Sweden outright win.
Just over 100% profit on all stakes.
Which i must add is partly due to the lesson i learnt with my fleur nightmare. I was opposing sweden for months. But managed to shuffle things around in the last week to turn a potential bad night into a good one
It’s OK to be a bit Nigel Farage and change your mind. Better to be a silly man who makes money than one who saves face and loses money.
I was always in the team Mans camp, he just looked the all round winner in my book, and like Daniel said about gut feeling sometimes you just got to go with it and “use the force Luke” so to speak Sweden just felt to me the likely winner from the MF. Polina was no way going to pip him at the post, so I guess my “Yummy Mummy” theory holds up somewhat and let’s face it Mans performance had the “Timeless Dream State” which Il Volo didn’t have they just looked like they were just not into it on the stage, if they had somewhat more passion and more closeness with each other it may of been a different story for me, I guess they needed more of a bond or “Bromance” which I felt was missing. Anyway Big thanks to Daniel, EV, Tim, Ben and his oracle mum, and the whole of the Sofabet gang. I’ll be back next year for Eurovision 2016 bring it on. I wish everyone all the best till then, Take Care Chewy 😉
Was a well good result for me,. I loved Polina song from minute I heard, it was 33/1 so job done, but of course I will always wonder what might have been without the politics, but the public votes seen to soften that a bit,.
Lost few £ on Cyprus last night but semi was good.
My takeaway from the night is couples didn’t work at all really even though some were good, production left them down, compared to Denmark last year and Azer when they won. The magic word “production”
The Sofabetters to represent UK next year, it’s the only way UK will ever win!
Thanks to all for great guidance through a busy week, and to Daniel, you worked so hard all week for all of us.
I will check back for further post event conversations and of curse BGT.
Again thanks,
Congrats to Daniel and the team on another brilliant Eurovision campaign. Just seen the Uk televoting results ( ukip would have loved these!!! ) 1st Lithuania ( jury rank 14 ) and 2nd Poland ( jury rank 17 ) with Sweden 3rd and Italy 4th, surely a good indication of why the current system is a better bet than just 100% televoting. As surely no one can argue that Lithuania and Poland had better songs than Sweden and Italy even if pop opera is not your thing.
Could someone let me know what the highest price Sweden went to IR last night and lowest Russia went? I know Russia hit 2.5, just wonder how much lower it went. Thanks in advance
It’s been a really good week for me here in Vienna, it’s looking like a certainty I’ll be in Sweden next year. The profits were really good too, even making no profit on the winners market.
I’m really sad that juries put Sweden so high, especially over Italy. It wouldn’t have made much difference financially for me, I’m more sad for the contest. Get a cheesy staging gimmick, that will affect the juries more than the best vocals ever heard on a Eurovision stage.
Have a good break everyone, thanks to everyone I’ve chatted to here and met in Vienna. Stockholm 2016!
Indeed, the irony being that the juries were reintroduced to stop things like this from happening. Alas, we get “Heroes” instead of “Grande amore”…
RUSSIA went pretty low circa 1.6 (apologies I was refreshing pretty quick at that point) and Sweden touched somewhere between 3 and 4 when it looked tight with ITA & RUS early on. All the money came for SWE during the first 8 songs and then after voting lines closed.
These are rough numbers from memory as I was jumping between markets
I think Russia plunged to around 1.5-1.6 after Germany gave them 12 points. They passed Sweden for few minutes.
Hi Dash, at some point during the voting there was a (short) moment with Russia being around 1.8 and Sweden around 2.2.
thanks guys, I wasnt going to be able bet/see the markets where I was, so had put up lays of russia 2.5 and sweden back at 4.0 just wondered what the prices went to ( sweden didnt get matched)
It was actually during Austria’s vote reveal (23rd country) that Russia became fav. At that time we’d had the block of Russian friends and then France, Germany, Spain and Austria surprisingly all gave more points to Russia than Sweden.
On the blue side, to back, it got to 2.52 Swed, 1.6 Russ until after Slovenia’s reveal (26th) they swapped back, both about evens with Sweden slightly lower and lowering. A few countries later and it was all over with 1.01 wanting to back Sweden and nothing wanting to lay. At this point Graham Norton said “it’s still anyone’s contest” 🙂
It’s interesting to note that before the period Russia was favourite 2 countries in the planned order didn’t reveal their vote – Portugal and Estonia – because they lost the connection.
Both these countries gave more votes to Russia than Sweden so if they had revealed as the algorithm had planned Russia would have been a bigger fav and for longer. And Sweden backers would have had a more uncomfortable period and possibly wasted money hedging 🙂
True, it would have only edged Russia a little more in front though. The reveal was a little too obvious, they could have done a better job of keeping it neck and neck, rather than push Russia out only for Sweden to swoop back in.
I assume they hadn’t envisaged Italy winning the televote by a landslide though….
Yes but I think it’s the large number of western countries giving more points to Russia than Sweden more than the point difference.
That surprised me as Russia, although a great package, was standard stuff whilst Sweden and Italy offered something different. The EBU, knowing just the judges (and semi) results would have been surprised too. Therefore at the time during the reveal that Russia became fav they would have expected it to be closer or, more likely, Sweden to be ahead in points. Therefore I don’t think they could have bettered the reveal order.
And I share the opinon. It’s a real shame for Eurovision Song Contest. Like really..we haven’t seen so up-to-date world-class stars in the competition for a loooong time..and they come with powerful, timeless song with superb performance..win by the mile..and then some “MUSIC EXPTERTS” kill them and prefer avarage studio products which just sound more contempory and modern.
Financially it was almost the same success for me tho, whether Sweden or Italy.
But I feel that Italy’s win would have been more fair.
Which doesn’t mean that “Grande Amore” is artistically masterpiece. It’s a bit banal and Nina Zilli or Marco Mengoni were ofc better from critical point of view, but in the context of Eurovision, “Grande Amore” is still an outstanding “alpha” act which juries have always supported.
Cmon, even Ell & Niki scored pretty high with juries.
Although it was predictable that Il Volo has more televoting than jury appeal, I would still have expected more decent jury score.
“Heroes” was the best package and it won. I wrote during Semi-Fİnals, Sweden won. As always, line movement wins once again. It never lies. See you in Stockholm 2016!
By the way, Melfest version of Heroes was much better. This eurovision version of Heroes was not good as Melfest
Agreed. The Melfest version was fresher. I suspect Mans was fed up with performing it,becoming increasingly robotic, as some commentators here noted.
Where does the UK go from here? No way of dressing it up, Electro Velvet’s result was appalling and embarrassing.
You can guarantee politics will hinder our chances in every single competition these days. But that entry was abysmal. I think we were lucky to get any points at all. We are a country with lots of talented artists yet that’s the best we can come up with
Look at the DT and Mail comments boards and you will see why. The vast majority of posters think we lost because “Europe ganged up on us”, not that the song and performance were crap. Quite funny that the posts mostly start with, “I didn’t watch this rubbish but…” and usually a mention of the sainted Terry Wogan.
Politics? Even serious ally Ireland only gave the UK one point – surely a sign that it was a mediocre song.
When the UK enters a good song, it scores well. See 2002, 2005 and 2011. It’s delusional for the BBC to think that they can enter a mediocre song performed by inexperienced singers and Europe will vote for it because reasons.
Was performing last night and felt gutted to be missing out on Eurovision parties; yet am more gutted today to see the results!
I had Australia EW the first 4 and Latvia at 29/1 to finish in the first 5! Hilarious!
Have plenty on Latvia at good prices to finish top 10 but my losses on Belarus and my silliness at getting over-involved on Cyprus have wiped out any profit. I consider my Belarus losses their fault (for the woeful,lifeless staging) and my losses on Cyprus all my own fault.
Am particularly galled that I was all over the very, very early win only 80/1 for Latvia to win its Semi but missed getting on at the EW 80/1 (a third of the odds the first 2) that was eventually offered by a couple of frims for Latvia in Semi 2. Argghhh! (I would have happily took any odds on a Sweden-Latvia straight forecast in that Semi, too.)
Am more and more impressed at those who make their living at gambling. I’m aware of the battery of emotional and ego related pressures that can lead a bettor to make losing bets that were truly avoidable but I still plough ahead and make those mistakes anyway.
One of the main problems I’ve identified with my betting is my “Betting Baggage”. My mistakes from last year indirectly led to my mistakes this year. Reactive mistakes. Like a drunkard lurching from one mistake to the overcompensatory next mistake. The “Betting Yips” would be an alternative description, I suppose – when what should be a beneficial betting knowledge base is (also) operating as interfernce, as a historical warper of judgement and motivation that is introducing atonement as a goal (when that should have no place in current analysis).
Don’t beat yourself up Guildo. I too lost money on Belarus, which ate into my profits on Sweden and UK. I also made a bad call on Ireland qualifying. As Irish radio phone-ins said, “What was the silly fecker doing hiding behind that piano?” However I was so certain of Sweden doing well that I had been betting from the time of Melfest, when I got 10/1. That was what saved me. I struggled to find a match on UK, but eventually some patriotic souls took the bet. From previous years I have learned to ignore the inevitable downplaying of Sweden and over-estimation of UK on sofabet and other sites.
I’m sure that I’m not the first person to pick up on this, but it does seem as though not having to qualify for the final, has a considerably negative impact on a country’s results.
This year, the bottom four places in the final results table were occupied by automatic qualifiers (Austria, Germany, France & UK), with Spain only doing a little better by finishing 21st. Last year, four of the automatic qualifiers finished in positions between 17th and 26th (last), and in 2013 it was four in the positions between 19th and 26th (last).
Could this be down to the automatic qualifiers not having the same sort of coverage before the final (the public seeing the song performed in the semi-final), meaning that the audience are seeing the performance for the first time in the final, and therefore not already emotionally invested in the song and wanting it to do well in the final?
Maybe the fact that they don’t get the same semi-final experience in front of a full audience before the final is a contributing factor? Some might say that jealousy towards the automatic qualifiers being awareded this advantage, especially from those countries that miss out in the semi-finals – as some people believed would be the case this year and potentially affect the votes for Australia?
Or is it just as simple as the automatic qualifiers being a bit complacent with the song selection, knowing they’ll be in the final no matter how good (or bad) the song is?
I wonder, if this trend continues, whether the EBU would take this into consideration? After all, the “Big 5” automatically qualify primarily down to being the major contributors financially towards the running of the contest. Would they still continue to do so if they felt that the odds were stacked against them winning?
One way around it could be to have the automatic qualifiers performing in the semi-final they vote in, as the voting takes place, similar to an interval act? (I know that this year they showed short video clips, but it’s not the same, and I don’t remember that happening last year).
As I said, I doubt that I’m the first person to pick up on it, so I wonder what others think.
Don’t you think it’s more a problem with the particular countries that are the automatic qualifiers – both the poor quality songs they enter and also their lack of being part of any political voting blocks.
Australia for example did well this year with a decent song.
the points you make Chatterbox have some legs, the same was suggested last year after the UK flopped so badly, yet did well in polls and the market believed they had a chance. Its hard to agree this year, since Italy won the televote and the France, UK and German enties were poor. Watching the final with EV we both said Germany could finish bottom after it came on, staging was lifeless and the song poor. UK was a mess and France was old fashioned French stuff that was never going to be popular. Austria was a slight surprise, but I always thought it was too boring and safe.
The fact that the UK, France and Germany have little allies And diaspora to rely on, it needs to be a really good song, something that it rarely is. Germany have done well recently with good songs, but France continue to send songs in French that are bad.
The UK are the worst of the lot, they have a music industry that churns out worldwide hits and international artists, something barely any of the rest of Europe has done. Yet they dont have a selection show, instead hand pick the songa. If its not aging over the hill has beens, its music that they think is fresh, but just isnt. With the UKs music talent at the BBCs disposal thry should be sending top 10 quality every year
A performace for the big 5 at the semis would help, but this year was a one off. 6 real quality songs that sucked up all the points, leaving just a smattering for the rest of the above average songs to pick up
tbh imo they all just send mostly shit songs cause they know theyll be in the final.
italy winning the televote proves you dont need to get through the semis plus they play those songs in the semi for a little while.
semis only watch a small amount compared to the final so i dont think it has a huge impact.
The semi-finals act as quality control. Poor songs don’t (usually!) make it to the final, unless they’re there as automatic qualifiers.
How many automatic qualifiers would have made it out of the semi-finals if they’d had to compete there? E.g., last year France would surely have been eliminated in the semis.
I took the needed day off from the madness and was surprised this evening seeing the split results, you never know what’s going to happen with the juries.
One thing that people suddenly seem to forget is that ‘robbed public favorite’ Italy performed from a pimp slot which clearly still has power (if the act is a high quality televote package as Italy was). I wonder what the televote result would be if Italy got 1st half and Sweden 2nd.
Thanks again Daniel for the hard work!
I think it’s worth remembering how most televoters watch this show. Lots of posters here have made the point that it’s a very casual thing for most people. We all watch these songs to death, and forget how the songs first impressed us (or didn’t). We have most information from those countries that have a selection process. We knew Sweden had a very good chance from the Melfest results. We knew the UK entry would bomb from the reaction of even the rabidly patriotic Daily Express etc., not to mention that it was obviously crap.
Some thoughts about this year Eurovision.
First of all music quality was very high comparing to 2014 or 2013. I truly enjoyed most of the songs this year and I will not forget songs from Belgium, Latvia, Estonia, Russia, Israel, Australia, Italy for a long time.
I think for the third time in a row market proved to be very accurate. I think this has something to do with the new voting system introduced in 2013. I gotta say this system if so far the best because it helps good songs to get good results. It really decreases diaspora voting. Greece didn’t give 12 points to Cyprus and Cyprus didn’t give 12 points to Greece. The system must be working and I think we’ll see similar results in 2016 where good songs will be in top 10 despite the country they are from.
Italy proved that pimp slot in the final is as good as in the semi if the song is good.
I feel so bad for Switzerland. Last place in a semi with only 4 points. I can’t remember any other country to score so few points. Totally undeserved result. It must have something to do with the draw. Performing after Sweden must have hurt a lot.
I just hated fake applause and cheers. Who was so dumb to think of this idea?
Good point by Chatterbox above, had noticed.
Also now know why Sweden came after the break. They needed the time to set up the visual.
The jury votes, some of them are unreal just like last year.
BGT tonight, might as well have a look, but Euro hangover still there. 😉
I just noticed, that I backed Austria to finish last – which was a winner, Betfair have now corrected it and settled it as a loser. Anyone any idea why or have seen anything similar?
I’ve spoken to Betfair – apparently, because Austria performed first, they finish 26th and Germany finish 27th.
So Betfair have re-settled the market using this information. If anyone bet with a different high street Bookmaker and has any info, please post below
Haha, that’s fantastic! I actually laid Austria to finish last and was absolutely astonished to see them end up with nul points. I guess fire really does kill…
bet365 split the price. i had bets at germany @4.00 and was paid back @2.00
the remarkable thing about Austria is that they had 40 points with the juries being 14th !!!!
It’s time for my review of Eurovision 2015. Personally i had a 190% ROI thanks to
Sweden
Russia’s 2nd place (backed from late March @4.75 E/W and later Top3@ 4.00-3.75-3.00.
My other very profitable bets were Israel Top @ 4.75 (before rehearsals) and @2.75 after
Latvia Top10 @ 2.80-2.25, Latvia Top Baltic @3.25 and Italy Top3 @ 1.95.
I’m glad i’ve predicted the first 9 countries with the exact order (only misjudgement Australia 4th and Belgium 5th) and had Georgia and Azerbaijan 11th and 12th and Serbia 13th instead of 10th.
Regarding to the contest, i believe that this was a milestone year. It proved that if a country sends a quality song no matter what’s the name of the country it will do well.
The voting blocks era is also coming to an end. Voting blocks can no more guarantee a country more than 30-40 points in the Final. You may avoid last place finishing but you cannot enter Top10 if your song doesn’t have a broader appeal. If you take a look at the scoreboard you’ll see that Italy scored 292 points and finished 3rd. The only winners that scored more than 292 since 2004 were Euphoria and Fairytale…
Latvia was 6th with 186 points (Italy in 2010 was 2nd with 189 !!!) and Estonia was 7th with 106 points a landslide of 80 points (almost a double score!). Israel was 9th with 97 and Serbia 10th with 53 !!!
This must have been the strongest contest in history. The best Top8 ever!
Thanks Daniel and everybody here for the company and the comments and the debates that we had for the past two months.
Can’t wait for Eurovision 2016 !!!
John Kef
Congratulations.
If you and I are still around next year I’ll be paying particular attention to your posts. I did very well this year with my simplistic “Sweden good UK bad” formula, but lost a bit on following personal taste on a couple – Ireland and Belarus. The rest I got as top 5 or top 10. Missed Russia and Italy completely – again, personal taste got in the way of sensible betting.
http://www.popbitch.com/home/2015/07/30/eurovision-impaired/