all images © eurovision.tv; all odds correct at time of writing

Tonight sees the first semi-final of the 2017 Eurovision Song Contest in Kyiv, and as always, there are many betting markets available for those among you who want to have a little wager on what might happen this evening. To help you get started, for each of this week’s three shows our resident escgo! gambler Martin will be picking out three bets that might be of interest to you. With no guarantee of success, of course – you never meet a poor bookmaker, after all…

Oddschecker provides a good overview of the available markets here, and if you’re new to the concept of betting odds and what it all means, our good friends at Sofabet can explain everything right here.

Over to Martin’s tips, then:

Yaz bitti? Ja bitte.

Armenia to win the semi-final

Following his illness-related absence from the first week of rehearsals, all the talk is understandably about Salvador Sobral from Portugal, who has quietly moved into second place in the betting markets for the overall win. Semi-finals follow their own logic, though – and as contradictory as it might seem, Portugal could even beat Italy to the big prize on Saturday night without necessarily winning tonight’s semi. “Amor pelos dois” feels like the kind of thing that’s more tailored to a mainstream weekend audience, the kind of people who made “La La Land” one of the cinema’s biggest recent hits. But Artsvik from Armenia has a persuasive visual and vocal package, a better position in tonight’s running order, and the group of countries voting in this semi feels relatively more skewed towards the south-eastern corner of Europe in terms of geography and preferences. As such, odds of 3.5 (various bookmakers) for her to win the semi-final represent a reasonable opportunity in my view.

In the danger zone?

Belgium to fail to qualify

All season long, Blanche from Belgium has delivered live performances that have varied from the uncertain to the downright bad. All season long, I’ve been saying that the quality of “City Lights” as a composition means it should still qualify for the final no matter what Blanche throws at it. But her failure to deliver all through the rehearsals in Kyiv is starting to tip me over the edge. This is a competitive semi-final with a lot of competitive borderline qualifiers, and if Belgium failed to persuade the national juries last night, all it’ll take is an especially nervy performance from Blanche tonight and she could be on the first flight home tomorrow. The markets have cottoned onto this a little, and the fall of a former favourite has been intriguing to follow, but you can still get a tempting 2.62 (BetStars) for a Belgian NQ even at this stage.

Faith in the future

Georgia to qualify

It’s more or less Eurovision Law that a big shouty female ballad has to qualify from the semi-final then do absolutely nothing in the final (and all the more so if nervous Blanche leaves an extra qualification spot open this year). I feel like Poland is overrated by the markets despite their strong recent qualification record, and the money has really moved away from Albania’s Lindita (and rightly so) – so why not have a nibble at Tako Tamara from Georgia? She’s been dismissed a little because of her second slot in the running order, but the juries should be her primary audience anyway, and that’ll matter less for them. And “Keep The Faith” really isn’t a bad song, especially now it’s been shorn of the heavy-handed backdrop of war headlines we saw in the national final. You can get odds of 3.5 (BetVictor, Betfair Sportsbook) if you think Georgia will make a repeat appearance on Saturday night – regardless of whether anyone still cares by the time we get that far.

Where will you be placing your money for tonight’s show? Let us know!