Betting Eurovision 2009: 1st semifinal winner
With hours to go before the 2009 Eurovision song contest begins in Moscow, time is running out on proposition bet opportunities on the first semifinal. Over at Intertops online bookmaker, the “Eurovision Song Contest 2009: To win First Semifinal” prop is quite a tease, indeed.
Intertops’ table reads like so:
Bosnia and Herzegovina: 8/5
Turkey: 7/4
Malta: 15/2
Sweden: 9/1
Armenia: 10/1…
…and we’re gonna stop the odds listing right there. Face it, the only dark horse you should even *think* of backing here is Portugal at 33/1, but the only way Flor-de-Lis scored such a titanic upset would be for Hadise to meet with slippery floor and Chiara suffers third-degree laryngitis.
Within the top five, too, Sweden and Armenia are outside looking in. While Sweden and Malena Ernman’s “La Voix” is a technical marvel, with bilingual lyrics and operatic vocals, this song may simply be too complex to win a pop music competition. However, here’s to thinking that “La Voix” earns the highest score among judges, with possible competition from “What If We” by Malta’s Chiara. (Hey, where’s the proposition on that, eh?) Armenia’s “Jan Jan” is great fun, but non-English language tunes generally finish lower than their English counterparts.
Hadise of Turkey has received a goodly amount of hype along the road to the first semifinal, which could work against her, but this is one polished performer with an infectious tune at her disposal.
Speaking of polish, the hype winner within the actual broadcast – Europe-wide – is certain to be Chiara and her pair of top three Eurovision finishes. Since the 2009 competition is the first with a tournament-like system, history doesn’t help us much with prognosticating Chiara’s finish, but a third high-level performance, Malta could easily take first in clearly the weaker of the two brackets.
Finally, there is the mystery of prop betting on the Bosnia and Herzegovina entry, “Bistra Voda” by Regina. Two months ago, most bookmakers were offering odds of 25/1 on Regina taking Eurovision 2009 outright. Now Bosnia and Herzegovina’s chances’re down to 8/1 at Intertops – and most others offer comparable numbers – putting the entry at third to take the whole enchilada and the favorite to best the field tonight.
Why the plummeting odds? Who knows? Sure, Regina has been together since 1990 and the heavy-metal ballad is unique in the competition, but the band finds itself in the inevitable position of both having to close the show and having to chase Chiara.
Plus, speaking utter subjectively, the Os Man really doesn’t get it. Do you?
Comments are closed.