I love Eurovision Contest and I love Eurovision betting but what I love the most is Eurovision stats!!! This is the most intriguing and fascinating part of the contest, in my opinion, and this is the part where you can dig deeper and find some diamonds waiting for you. It took me tens of hours just to collect the data that I will present to you. My goal is to create a reference post that could be used as a guide when placing your bets and give you some insight of how things are. I consider this my Eurovision betting legacy and a similar post will be available the following weeks for the Final.
For the moment my focus is on the Semi finals and will break down the post in 3 chapters ( Lord of the Rings pan intended, maybe because of the length of this post). Grab your pop corn and enjoy!
Chapter 1: 50% Televoting - 50% Juries voting era.
Since we do have available the split results of 2014 and 2015, I have implemented the current rules to those years as well to have a broader field. There are some diversifications, but we have more or less the same results with two major exceptions:
a. San Marino, sorry but with the current voting system, you have failed to qualify back in 2014 and you finished 12th with 83 points. So in theory you have 0/9 qualifications...Portugal instead has qualified as 10th with 89 points.
b. Azerbaijan's perfect record of qualifications would have been broken back in 2015. Azerbaijan finished 11th with 104 points and Malta has taken its spot as 9th with 116 points, 84 of them coming from the Juries (keep that thought).
No semi winner is affected by the change of the rules.
Having included 2014 and 2015, we have 10 semi finals in total that we can examine and draw some conclusions.
The first thing that I wanted to examine is the power that Juries and Televoting have individually on the final result.
Juries have helped 12 countries on a total of 173 to qualify, even though they have failed to land on the Top-10 of Televoting. There is only one country that was helped twice by the Juries and that is Malta. Malta was ranked twice as 12th in Televoting in 2014 and 2015 and both times finished 5th with the Juries.
If we remove the 11th place and the countries that marginally missed out, we only have 9 cases where Juries played a part in saving that country. The worst of all that finally made it to the final were Israel in 2016 and Denmark in 2017 that both finished 16th but Juries had them 4th and 5th. Australia completes Top-3 finishing 15th back in 2017 as well.
Now to the countries that were doomed by the Juries. The things here are marginal. Out of the 12 occasions, we only have one country that was affected twice, Finland in 2015 and 2017, though finishing 10th both times. If we remove the marginal 10th spot, we have only 5 times that a country failed to qualify even though was a Top-10 with the Televoting. On top of the list Estonia in 2017 finishing 6th. All the other misses come from the 8th and 9th place.
Televoting is proved to be slightly more helpful or damaging if you miss it. It has helped 18 times a country to qualify even though they were not in Top-10 with the Juries. In this category the king is Poland with 4 times and we have a proof that Polish diaspora is not a myth. Poland was 12th in 2014, 16th in 2015, 15th in 2016 and 11th in 2017 with the Juries, but made it to the final. Even last year that failed to qualify, was 10th in Televoting. The other country that was helped at least twice was Serbia, 14th in 2015 and 11th last year. Apart from Poland, Romania came back from the dead in 2017 finishing 15th but qualified anyway.
In this category, we have 11 times that a country finished 12th or worst and made it to the final!
Now the countries that were not helped by the televoters. Malta has been a victim of the public twice, 2017- 8th and 2018-5th! Netherlands was also heavily penalized back in 2015, ranked 5th by the Juries and 15th by the Televote! (Hans Pannecoucke myth busted!). The other country that suffered most was Latvia last year finishing 6th but failing to sail to the final.
In conclusion, we have had 30 times in a total of 173 that were helped to qualify, 12 by the juries and 18 by the televoters. There is another pattern that is also emerging the last two years. Only 4 songs were saved by the jurors, 1 in every semi on average, but at the same time, televoters saved 9 songs, with the 2nd Semi last year being the first ever that 3 songs have qualified even though were left out of the Juries Top-10 ( Serbia 11th, Denmark 12th, Hungary 13th) prevailing on Malta 5th, Latvia 6th and Romania 9th, that missed it. That gives an average of 2.25...
Chapter 2: Running order and streaks
The rule that changed back in 2013 and gives the producer the right to decide about the running order has definitely shaken things up, but also made the running order look like a self-fulfilling prophecy. If we take into consideration all the double semis, 22 in total, the spots with the worst qualifying records are:
3: 8/22
4: 8/22
11: 8/22
These are the only draws with less than 50% of success. Have you noticed something? That's right! No2 is missing! Has an 11/22 record along with spots 1, 5, 8.
Best overall record: No18 with a 12/14 and No14 with a 16/22.
If we go to the production decides era, we have 12 semis and things are slightly different here. No2 is the worst here with a 4/12 record followed by No17 with a 3/8 record and No3 and 4 following with 5/12.
These numbers prove that running order is not that important if you have a decent song. And if you have a decent song, the producers will help you to qualify.
There was another unwritten rule that applied to the results from 2008 until 2016 with the exception of the 2nd Semi in 2008: 4/6 of the the last six songs in running order would qualify to the final helping to create the impression that running order is more important that the quality of the song itself. Since 2016 that rule is history
2016a: 2/6 qualified
2016b: 3/6
2017a: 2/6
2017b: 3/6
2018a: 3/6
2018b: 4/6
Impressive!
The current longest qualifying streaks come from No5 and No15 with 4 qualifications. No3, No7 and No18 have 3. The longest disqualifying streak: No4 with 4, followed by No2 and No16 with 3.
Chapter 3: How many points does a country need to qualify?
The magic number seems to be 110 points.We have had six occassions where a country made it to the final with less than 110 points, but the country with the highest score that failed to qualify was Romania last year with 107. We have only had five countries in these ten Semis that failed to qualify even though they had a triple digit score. Three of them were last year in Semi 2! Romania 107, Latvia 106 and Malta 101.
Because of the different amount of countries that are voting and participating on a semi, I have tried to find the percentage of the maximum points a country can get and qualify to the final and that percentage seems to be 22.5% . If we apply that number to this year's semis the safety net for Semi 1 is 103 points and for Semi 2, 108 points.
The toughest semi would have been the 2nd in 2015( with the current rules applied)
10th Montenegro 105pts / 21.88% of maximum pts - 11th Azerbaijan 104pts / 21.67%
followed by the 1st Semi in 2014 (theoretically as well)
10th Portugal 89pts / 20.6% - 11th Albania 87pts / 20.14%
The biggest gap between the 10th and the 11th spot, Semi 1 in 2016
10th Croatia 133pts / 27.7% - 11th Bosnia 104 pts / 21.67%
I hope you find my post useful and helpful when you have to take your decisions. Would like to see your comments and thoughts and start a conversation about the importance of facts and numbers on the contest. In the next post I will provide useful stats from every country.
Stay tuned to EurovisionBetsandPieces!
For the moment my focus is on the Semi finals and will break down the post in 3 chapters ( Lord of the Rings pan intended, maybe because of the length of this post). Grab your pop corn and enjoy!
Chapter 1: 50% Televoting - 50% Juries voting era.
Since we do have available the split results of 2014 and 2015, I have implemented the current rules to those years as well to have a broader field. There are some diversifications, but we have more or less the same results with two major exceptions:
a. San Marino, sorry but with the current voting system, you have failed to qualify back in 2014 and you finished 12th with 83 points. So in theory you have 0/9 qualifications...Portugal instead has qualified as 10th with 89 points.
b. Azerbaijan's perfect record of qualifications would have been broken back in 2015. Azerbaijan finished 11th with 104 points and Malta has taken its spot as 9th with 116 points, 84 of them coming from the Juries (keep that thought).
No semi winner is affected by the change of the rules.
Having included 2014 and 2015, we have 10 semi finals in total that we can examine and draw some conclusions.
The first thing that I wanted to examine is the power that Juries and Televoting have individually on the final result.
Juries have helped 12 countries on a total of 173 to qualify, even though they have failed to land on the Top-10 of Televoting. There is only one country that was helped twice by the Juries and that is Malta. Malta was ranked twice as 12th in Televoting in 2014 and 2015 and both times finished 5th with the Juries.
If we remove the 11th place and the countries that marginally missed out, we only have 9 cases where Juries played a part in saving that country. The worst of all that finally made it to the final were Israel in 2016 and Denmark in 2017 that both finished 16th but Juries had them 4th and 5th. Australia completes Top-3 finishing 15th back in 2017 as well.
Now to the countries that were doomed by the Juries. The things here are marginal. Out of the 12 occasions, we only have one country that was affected twice, Finland in 2015 and 2017, though finishing 10th both times. If we remove the marginal 10th spot, we have only 5 times that a country failed to qualify even though was a Top-10 with the Televoting. On top of the list Estonia in 2017 finishing 6th. All the other misses come from the 8th and 9th place.
Televoting is proved to be slightly more helpful or damaging if you miss it. It has helped 18 times a country to qualify even though they were not in Top-10 with the Juries. In this category the king is Poland with 4 times and we have a proof that Polish diaspora is not a myth. Poland was 12th in 2014, 16th in 2015, 15th in 2016 and 11th in 2017 with the Juries, but made it to the final. Even last year that failed to qualify, was 10th in Televoting. The other country that was helped at least twice was Serbia, 14th in 2015 and 11th last year. Apart from Poland, Romania came back from the dead in 2017 finishing 15th but qualified anyway.
In this category, we have 11 times that a country finished 12th or worst and made it to the final!
Now the countries that were not helped by the televoters. Malta has been a victim of the public twice, 2017- 8th and 2018-5th! Netherlands was also heavily penalized back in 2015, ranked 5th by the Juries and 15th by the Televote! (Hans Pannecoucke myth busted!). The other country that suffered most was Latvia last year finishing 6th but failing to sail to the final.
In conclusion, we have had 30 times in a total of 173 that were helped to qualify, 12 by the juries and 18 by the televoters. There is another pattern that is also emerging the last two years. Only 4 songs were saved by the jurors, 1 in every semi on average, but at the same time, televoters saved 9 songs, with the 2nd Semi last year being the first ever that 3 songs have qualified even though were left out of the Juries Top-10 ( Serbia 11th, Denmark 12th, Hungary 13th) prevailing on Malta 5th, Latvia 6th and Romania 9th, that missed it. That gives an average of 2.25...
Chapter 2: Running order and streaks
The rule that changed back in 2013 and gives the producer the right to decide about the running order has definitely shaken things up, but also made the running order look like a self-fulfilling prophecy. If we take into consideration all the double semis, 22 in total, the spots with the worst qualifying records are:
3: 8/22
4: 8/22
11: 8/22
These are the only draws with less than 50% of success. Have you noticed something? That's right! No2 is missing! Has an 11/22 record along with spots 1, 5, 8.
Best overall record: No18 with a 12/14 and No14 with a 16/22.
If we go to the production decides era, we have 12 semis and things are slightly different here. No2 is the worst here with a 4/12 record followed by No17 with a 3/8 record and No3 and 4 following with 5/12.
These numbers prove that running order is not that important if you have a decent song. And if you have a decent song, the producers will help you to qualify.
There was another unwritten rule that applied to the results from 2008 until 2016 with the exception of the 2nd Semi in 2008: 4/6 of the the last six songs in running order would qualify to the final helping to create the impression that running order is more important that the quality of the song itself. Since 2016 that rule is history
2016a: 2/6 qualified
2016b: 3/6
2017a: 2/6
2017b: 3/6
2018a: 3/6
2018b: 4/6
Impressive!
The current longest qualifying streaks come from No5 and No15 with 4 qualifications. No3, No7 and No18 have 3. The longest disqualifying streak: No4 with 4, followed by No2 and No16 with 3.
Chapter 3: How many points does a country need to qualify?
The magic number seems to be 110 points.We have had six occassions where a country made it to the final with less than 110 points, but the country with the highest score that failed to qualify was Romania last year with 107. We have only had five countries in these ten Semis that failed to qualify even though they had a triple digit score. Three of them were last year in Semi 2! Romania 107, Latvia 106 and Malta 101.
Because of the different amount of countries that are voting and participating on a semi, I have tried to find the percentage of the maximum points a country can get and qualify to the final and that percentage seems to be 22.5% . If we apply that number to this year's semis the safety net for Semi 1 is 103 points and for Semi 2, 108 points.
The toughest semi would have been the 2nd in 2015( with the current rules applied)
10th Montenegro 105pts / 21.88% of maximum pts - 11th Azerbaijan 104pts / 21.67%
followed by the 1st Semi in 2014 (theoretically as well)
10th Portugal 89pts / 20.6% - 11th Albania 87pts / 20.14%
The biggest gap between the 10th and the 11th spot, Semi 1 in 2016
10th Croatia 133pts / 27.7% - 11th Bosnia 104 pts / 21.67%
I hope you find my post useful and helpful when you have to take your decisions. Would like to see your comments and thoughts and start a conversation about the importance of facts and numbers on the contest. In the next post I will provide useful stats from every country.
Stay tuned to EurovisionBetsandPieces!
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