Another year, another selection of brightly costumed characters parading themselves about on stage singing about love and unity and whatnot.
With Eurovision right around the corner Verdict has scoured the bookies to find out which countries are most likely to win this year’s edition of the big talent contest and who is offering the best odds.
So here are the bookies’ thoughts, from favourite to win to least likely to win. Obviously it’s worth noting that this could all go to hell on the night, after all, bloc voting is still definitely a thing at Eurovision.
Who will win Eurovision 2018?
1. Cyprus
Best odds:
11/8 (Coral, Betfred, Boyles Sports)
2. Israel
Best odds:
7/2 (The Sun Bets)
3. Ireland
Best odds:
9/1 (Betfair, The Sun Bets, Paddy Power)
4. France
Best odds:
16/1 (Sporting Bet)
5. Sweden
Best odds:
25/1 (
6. Lithuania
Best odds:
25/1 (Unibet, 888sport)
7. Germany
Best odds:
25/1 (Unibet, Sporting Bet, 888sport)
8. Norway
Best odds:
33/1 (Sporting Bet)
9. Italy
Best odds:
33/1 (Ladbrokes, Unibet, Coral, Boyle Sports, Sporting Bet, 888sport)
10. Estonia
Best odds:
50/1 (Betfair, Paddy Power, Unibet, Boyle Sports, Sporting Bet, 888sport)
11. Bulgaria
Best odds:
55/1 (Bet Stars)
12. Australia
Best odds:
66/1 (Sporting Bet)
13. Czech Republic
Best odds:
66/1 (Betfred, Boyle Sports, Bet Stars, Sporting Bet)
14. Finland
Best odds:
70/1 (Marathon Bet, Bet Stars)
15. Hungary
Best odds:
75/1 (Bet Stars)
16. Denmark
Best odds:
80/1 (Boyle Sports)
17. Moldova
Best odds:
100/1 (Sporting Bet)
18. Netherlands
Best odds:
150/1 (Marathon Bet, Boyle Sports)
19. Austria
Best odds:
150/1 (Boyle Sports)
20. Spain
Best odds:
200/1 (Boyle Sports)
21. Ukraine
Best odds:
250/1 (Boyle Sports)
22. Portugal
Best odds:
350/1 (Boyle Sports)
23. United Kingdom
Best odds:
450/1 (Marathon Bet)
24. Albania
Best odds:
1,000/1 (Boyle Sports)
25. Serbia
Best odds:
1,000/1 (Boyle Sports)
26. Slovenia
Best odds:
1,000/1 (Boyle Sports)
Still, it’s worth remembering that in Eurovision, anything could happen. We’ve also done a tonne of number crunching to work out which countries have won most often, which hold the longest winning streaks and plenty of other interesting factoids about the competition. You can check out our guide to Eurovision here.
The Eurovision final airs at 8pm on BBC One in the UK, with commentary provided (as usual) by Graham Norton.
You can check out the full line up by looking at the official Eurovision website here.
Verdict deals analysis methodology
This analysis considers only announced and completed deals from the GlobalData financial deals database and excludes all terminated and rumoured deals. Country and industry are defined according to the headquarters and dominant industry of the target firm. The term ‘acquisition’ refers to both completed deals and those in the bidding stage.
GlobalData tracks real-time data concerning all merger and acquisition, private equity/venture capital and asset transaction activity around the world from thousands of company websites and other reliable sources.
More in-depth reports and analysis on all reported deals are available for subscribers to GlobalData’s deals database.
