Eurovision Song Contest 2009 Preview

Those of you who are long term followers of my blog will know that my recent bets on the Eurovsion song contest have been hopelessly bad. In 2007 I backed DJ Bobo with 'Vampires are Alive' only to see it not even make it out of the semi-finals. In 2008, I switched to a betting strategy based on regional block voting, based on the analysis from Oxford University.

'How does Europe Make Its Mind Up? Connections, cliques, and compatibility between countries in the Eurovision Song Contest'

http://arxiv.org/abs/physics/0505071v1

This was the correct strategy, but I made a poor selection (Belarus) using this strategy. This year I have completed more detailed analysis using the same 'regional' strategy. From this work, four countries stand out based on results in the past 5 years - I've listed my stakes next to each:

Greece (8/1) - 0 pts (price too short)
Ukraine (50/1) - 4 pts E/W
Russia (66/1) - 4 pts E/W (have the benefit of having pre-qualified to the final)
Serbia (250/1) - 2 pts E/W
(E/W terms 1/4 1,2,3)

(20 pts staked in total)

Norway are a ludicrously short price at 6/4. Although I have listened to the above four songs, I've made no attempt to judge which songs will receive the most votes (a previous mistake of mine). These four countries were all considerably shorter in the betting last year, when they all did well. This is a worry as this implies that the market is a good guide (not good when you are backing at long prices!).

http://www.youtube.com/user/esc2009tv

I suspect the reason why these countries are made longer prices this year is that the voting process has changed. This year, half of the votes from each country will be decided by the public and half by a jury. It is unclear how this will affect the votes cast, so I have not tried to factor in this change. At least half the votes will be cast as previously and arguments could made for both greater and less bias with a jury involvement.

http://www.eurovision.tv/page/home