We have made it to a final 12 in Eesti Laul and there’s a diverse betting market available for a short review.
The winning market has narrowed since the semi finals. Uku Suviste (2.8 on Betsson), 2020 should-have-been entrant is still the one to beat, but appears more beatable now. His song is not getting Spotify airplay and I note the YouTube views are very low compared to some of the others. Aksel in UMK struggled to score well, and The Mamas are not getting the traction one would may have expected from a returning artist at the current time of writing. Given that, perhaps support for returning acts is less than anticipated, and Uku may be a sitting duck.
I’m still expecting him to raise his game for the final, but this might be a top 3 rather than sure fire winner now. Betsson have a Uku vs. The Field market, and you can bet on Uku not to win at 1.38 - brave but not horrendous.
I tipped Koit Toome (4.5 with Betsson) the two time Estonian representative as Uku’s main challenger before. Most bookies have him and Uku even Betsson are holding out at longer odds still. Koit’s live performance was touching but less powerful and less well staged than I was expecting, and I just think it’s missing a little something in the mix to be the obvious winner. Koit was the top 2 bet at 2.75 on the podcast a few weeks back - that bet is now 2.28 with Betsson, and while it’s up there I’m not sold on it - it could win but could just as equally be 3rd. Would need a shockingly low jury vote to be lower than that I think.
At this point let’s review the voting system at play. The final will be half jury, half televoting (a very expensive €1.60), to get to a top three. That top three then sing one more time for a 100% televote final.
Betsson have markets on who will win the jury and the televote. Predicting a jury vote is a dangerous game, but we have some evidence to start off this prediction. Both Uku and Koit have struggled in recent years to get jury points, even with winning songs, and it has been televotes that have got them into the super final in the past. Knowing the off-kilter taste that Eesti Laul delivers, I can easily see the jury winner being Jüri Pootsmann, the 2016 entrant. Magus Melanhoolia is currently 4th on Spotify and is well sung by one of Estonia’s best voices, one that won the jury vote relatively comfortably in his 2016 victory. It reminds me a lot to Dons’ track from Latvia’s selection in 2014 - which Cake To Bake beat in the superfinal televote to go to Copenhagen. That took the jury in that superfinal and I can see this taking the vote here. I think the 8.0 with Betsson to win the jury is very generous (Koit is favourite at 2.75, which is too short) and this will be my podcast tip of the week.
Indeed, given the nature of Jüri on Spotify/YouTube (where he is marginally higher on views than the others), there’s an argument for the public vote as well. That is also 8.0 but feels somewhat less likely. I find it perplexing that he is 8.0 to win both jury and televote but only 5s to win the competition with Betsson, and these ‘half’ bets feel more reasonable options.
In terms of YouTube views there’s a late surge for Estonia’s most famous backing singers, Suured Tüdrukud (15.0 with Unibet and Betway). Their song is throwback disco, and interestingly with Koit Toome on backing vocals for them (he wrote the song) and them for him. It is drawn second in the final and I don’t see juries giving this much love. If you do think it is in the mix then once again your best bet here is betting on this to win the televote, available at 20s with Betsson. I think this will do well but I would be surprised if it had the legs for top 3.
Similarly, YouTube and streaming loves the song Wingman by Andrei Zavakin ja Pluuto (41 with Betway). It’s a cool and contemporary number but we know it needed a second round extra televote to qualify to the final, meaning the jury vote for this must have been very low. Televote should be enough though for this to avoid last place though, and I agree with Betsson that the last place market is between Karl Killing (2.25) and Hans Nayma (2.75), with Hans edging it for me as the wildcard, televote only qualifier from the weaker first semi.
If pushed, I say that the three big names will be the three that make it into the super final, and then it gets hard to predict - all previous winners but all hitting different demographics in a competition with an expensive televote cost. If pushed again, I’d probably say Uku takes it on name value, and he’s probably the one who would ‘want’ it most of the other three, but in reality I could throw a blanket over them at that point. Koit has the most Eurovision friendly sound and Jüri has ‘the song’ and the greatest betting value. It’s a fascinating line up.
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