Eurovision Betting Strategy 2026

Eurovision 2026 will take place on 12–16 May in Vienna, Austria. As every year, bookmakers have prepared a wide betting offering for Eurovision. It is possible to bet on the winner, who will finish in the TOP 3, TOP 5, TOP 10, who will qualify for the final, which country will place higher and more.

This year, Finland is considered the main favorite, while France, Denmark, Greece and Australia are also listed among the possible winners.

In this Eurovision betting guide, information is provided on all the main bets and how to make profitable selections.

The main thing you need to have in order to be a successful predictor is that you have to like Eurovision, i.e. at least half of the songs you really like and you have to be a fan of pop music. Otherwise it will be really hard to predict Eurovision relying on your musical taste.

If you decide to bet on this year’s contest in the reliable betting sites, listen to all the songs on youtube first. If you are looking for the song that is favourite to win Eurovision, you should like the song on first listen or at least be hooked.

The first impression is the best, because afterwards, when you have to listen to the same song many times, it becomes more familiar to your ear and more beautiful.

But it should be remembered that most Eurovision viewers will vote for the song they heard for the first time, and if that song makes it to the final, they will at best be voting on the impression of two performances.

Some Eurovision Song Contest betting fans treat youtube views or comments as a serious assessment of who can win Eurovision. But who has the most views does not mean they will win.

First of all, Eurovision is also watched a lot by older people who are not active on the internet and what they think is hard to measure.

Behind Eurovision performers there are strong production companies that throw a lot of money at advertising and all the other things that are needed to make sure that they are seen as often as possible before the contest starts. The Scandinavians usually have a strong backing.

If you want to make a profitable bet, it is best to rely on your intuition and taste in music, and not to make big Eurovision bets until you know what will be the performance on the main Eurovision stage.

In 2016, the French artist Amir performed a song that topped the European radio charts after the contest and was a huge radio hit. However, his performance during the final was very lacklustre and was drowned out by the performances of the other artists, who used a lot of fireworks and LED screens.

So do your pre-contest song analysis and during the 15-minute audience voting break, you can place a bet on Eurovision on live betting sites by watching the live Eurovision broadcast.  

In 2018, the Polish artist’s Light Me Up was highly praised, but the Polish artist’s voice wavered and the performance was poor during the semi-final, which meant that the song didn’t even make it to the final.

Therefore, Eurovision live betting will protect you against such unexpected events. Also, listen to what the commentators are saying when watching the live broadcast. Often their opinion of the participating songs is reflected in the final standings.

Eurovision starts a week earlier for the participants themselves, as the performers from all over Europe still have a lot of rehearsing to do. This is to make sure that everything is smooth and professional when the event is watched by millions of TV viewers. If you want to bet on Eurovision profitably, you need to watch the rehearsals too.

On the official Eurovision youtube channel, videos from the rehearsals will be uploaded. Of course, most things will not be revealed and you won’t see the fireworks, but you will be able to see how the stage is laid out and how the performers plan to move around it.

The main Eurovision bet – who will win the Song Contest – is getting most of the attention. However, it can also be noted that more options are not necessarily bad bets, and that betting on Eurovision is not just about the Eurovision winner bet. Depending on the Eurovision bookmaker, Eurovision bets such as:

It could be said that this is the second most popular bet, where you bet on whether a country will be in the Top 10, Top 5 or Top 3 in the final. 

This is the most popular bet during the semi-finals, where viewers can place Eurovision bets on whether a certain country will make it to the final. 

This is the bet in Eurovision where bets are placed on one country performing better than the other. Eurovision bookmakers place pairs and viewers can bet, for example, that Sweden will finish higher than Italy this year or vice versa.

This is another type of Eurovision betting where you can bet on how many total points a country will score. In this case, there is a lot of work involved in the calculation, as the countries get their points from both the public and the jury. 

The main Eurovision offer is only made available just before the contest, so it is usually not possible to look at the offer in advance. At the moment, only the main bet – who will win Eurovision – can be seen in the offer. 

As usual, Eurovision 2026 will take place on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. The semi-finals will be held on 12 and 14 May, with the final on 16 May. 

In the semi-finals, 15 countries will compete in each show, with 10 from each advancing to the final. The semi-finals are returning to the old voting system that was used between 2010 and 2022. In the semi-finals, the jury vote and televote will be combined. National juries have also been expanded from 5 to 7 members. 

In the final, 25 countries will compete. 20 countries will secure their place through the semi-finals, while the other five countries are host nation Austria and the “Big Four”: France, Germany, Italy and United Kingdom. 

In the final, jury scores and public televotes each account for 50%. The votes will be added together, after which it will become clear who wins Eurovision. If countries finish on the same number of points, the one that received more public televotes wins.

35 countries will appear at Eurovision 2026. Iceland, Ireland, Netherlands, Slovenia and Spain are boycotting this year’s Eurovision. Bulgaria, Romania and Moldova are returning to Eurovision. The full list of this year’s Eurovision participants:

History shows that winning Eurovision two years in a row is extremely difficult, so there should be no expectation of an Austrian victory in this year’s contest. The last country to win Eurovision several times in succession was Ireland, which won three years in a row in 1992, 1993 and 1994. 

In 2025, Eurovision was won by Austria’s representative JJ with the song “Wasted Love”. By televotes he finished in fourth place, with Israel, Estonia and Sweden above him, but he placed first with the jury. Interestingly, the jury gave second place to Switzerland, which received 0 points from viewers. This is a strong example of how different the public and jury votes can be. 

In 2024, Switzerland won. Nemo with the song “The Code“ was first with the jury and fifth with viewers. In 2023, Sweden won. Loreen with the song “Tattoo“ was first with the jury and second with viewers. 

In 2022, Eurovision was won by Ukraine. Kalush Orchestra’s song “Stefania“ was fourth with the jury, while it was the clear leader with viewers. This was the last time Eurovision was won by a country that did not receive the most votes from the jury. 

In the table are the last 10 winners:

There was a lot of politics in this contest in 2016, when the Eurovision Song Contest was won by the Ukrainian artist Jamala, whose song “1944” was about the deportation of Crimean Tatars in 1944 by the Soviet Union. 

This song was just perfect for the political events that took place in Ukraine when Russia illegally annexed Crimea. European audiences were therefore taken in by Jamala’s sensitive performance and gave their highest votes to this song, which was quickly forgotten after Eurovision.

Another aspect may be the health of the singer.  Salvador Sobral, who won Eurovision 2017 with the song ‘Amar pelos dois’, did not win Europe with his song, which was boring and, again, abandoned by European radio DJs after the contest.

Before the Eurovision Song Contest, the news broke that Salvador Sobral was facing heart surgery. He did not even take part in the rehearsals and it was not entirely clear whether he would appear in the final.

But when he did appear in the final, he sang so poignantly as if it was his funeral, the audience was taken in by it and the Portuguese won Eurovision.

European performers have noticed that it is not only the song that affects people, but also what they say before they go on stage. The 2018 Eurovision Song Contest in Lisbon was peppered with performers declaring their various missions in life, what they were singing about and so on.

We can see that often the songs that win are those that have a certain subtext. Perhaps it is because the contest lacks a really strong song, a real hit, as was the case in 2012, when Europe was in a state of euphoria and Loreen won the contest. Or when Man Zelmerlow smashed everyone in 2015 with ‘Heroes’.

When betting for Eurovision song contest this year, don’t just listen to the song, look at the history of the artist and try to predict not only the behaviour of the audience, but also how the jury, which is more concerned with the artist’s voice and the quality of the song, will evaluate the song.

In sports betting, it is much easier for bookies to predict what will happen, because they have unlimited resources of statistics, the players themselves are the same for years, they just change teams, one talent emerges, but most leagues are dominated by the same teams.

Online betting on Eurovision is different, it is a song contest where every year different artists perform. Predicting the taste of the music and yet all of Europe is a real challenge. And if you mix politics with the song contest, things get really hard to predict.

That’s why you can certainly find some worthwhile Eurovision betting odds by looking at the betting offers. If you have a great taste in music, following our Eurovision betting tips will surely make you a profitable bet for years to come.