It’s Eurovision Song Contest day! And what better way to celebrate than by wasting your money on a bet or two? Of course, if things go right, you can make a tidy profit from your ESC knowledge considering the market is largely populated by “normal” people who don’t have the insight that fans to. Well that’s the theory, anyway! Want to know how? Read on…

Firstly, I’ve been told there are people who don’t fully understand betting odds, so here’s a quick overview. Under the fractional – what you might call the “British” – system, it’s common to see odds of e.g. 3/1 for a given outcome. This means that, if you bet €1 (say), you’ll win €3 if your bet is successful plus your original stake of €1.

The same applies throughout the system: 7/2 means that a €2 bet returns a €7 profit plus your €2 stake, 250/1 means you’ll get €251 back from a €1 bet (€250 profit + €1 stake) – or, at the other end of the scale, odds of 1/20 on a highly likely outcome (e.g. Azerbaijan qualifying for the final) mean that you’d have to bet €20 just to make a profit of €1 (plus your €20 stake back).

The decimal system is generally used elsewhere in Europe. The key difference is that the odds you see include your stake, i.e. the amount you bet in the first place. So odds of 4.0 correspond to 3/1 under the fractional system, meaning that a bet of €1 will return €4 in total (made up of a €3 profit and your €1 stake). This is easier in many ways – you can just multiply your stake by the odds and know what you’ll get back in your hand if your bet is successful. However, since most betting sites are UK-based or at least UK-oriented, I’m going to stick to using fractional odds here.

So what interesting bets are there to be had for tonight’s show? Well, if you believe that France is justified in its favourite status, the best you can get for Amaury Vassili to win (at the time of writing) is 15/8 at Betfred. If you think a rank outsider might sneak through and steal victory instead, however, you can get 125/1 for Iceland, 250/1 for Spain or as much as 300/1 for Lithuania to win.

It’s not just the winner market that’s of interest, though. “Top 10 finish” is a useful one in terms of my betting strategy, at least. If you have plenty of cash to spare and you want to make more than you would from a savings account in these times of low interest rates, 1/6 says that Azerbaijan will finish in the top 10 (for example), while 8/15 is available for Russia – which seems pretty generous considering they’ve ended up 11th recently with far less accessible numbers. At the other end of the scale, interesting outsiders for a top 10 finish in my eyes include Iceland at 4/1, Ukraine at 10/3, Slovenia at 4/1 and Italy at 6/1.

If you prefer to think negatively (and there’s plenty of money in doing so!), you can find 7/4 if you think Ireland will miss out on the top 10 despite all the hype – or if you’re really feeling brave, 8/1 says that France will flop in the same way.

Despite their awful draw, Denmark are still the favourites to finish top of the Nordic pile at 15/8, but I think Iceland could be worth a nibble at 7/1 as the others are all drawn early (mind you, they were available at 40/1 at one point, which goes to show that insight is often rewarded!). Meanwhile, if you think a country – any country – will end up scoring no points at all tonight, you can find odds of 5/1 on that to happen.

Oh, and odds of 1/10 say that Cyprus will give Greece 12 points in the final. Not exactly generous odds, but free money, surely?!

If you want to know more, you can find a comprehensive overview and comparison of the various prices on offer at Oddschecker.

And with that, I’m off into central Düsseldorf to feel the Eurovision fever with friends! Might be back for a quick prediction post before the big show, but if not, have a great time and may the best song win (well, we can always hope!).