Oddschecker takes a look at the chances of Ireland making it through to the final of the Eurovision Song Contest 2017.
Brendan Murray will have the hopes of a nation resting on his shoulders when he performs ‘Dying to Try’ in tonight’s Eurovision semi-final as he attempts to secure a place in Saturday’s Grand Final. Despite a glittering Eurovision history, Ireland’s last win came way back in 1996 and bettors are predicting the wait for another success will continue for at least one more year.
Murray is a whopping 400/1 with one bookmaker to win the competition despite being as short as 66/1 only a few days ago. The gigantic odds given by the bookies implies that an Irish victory is very slim, in fact there’s only a 0.2% chance of it happening. Even with the opportunity get rich quick with the huge odds, Irish punters still haven’t been tempted! Only 0.5% of bets placed via Oddschecker this year on the winners market have been on an Irish victory.
In fact, there’s a real lack of optimism surrounding Ireland’s attempt to qualify for the final this evening with Murray a 15/4 to be performing on the main stage come Saturday night. There’s been almost three times more bets placed on the Irish act not qualifying for the final compared to qualifying and there are 2/9 to be packing their backs tonight, implying an 81.8% chance they won’t make the final.
Oddschecker spokesman, Sam Eaton said “All hope is not lost however! Although bookmakers and punters appear to agree on Ireland’s chances, there’s already been a couple of shock results in this year’s competition. In the first semi-final, Finland were expected to cruise into the later stage but were ousted from the competition by the public voter whilst 600/1 outsiders Cyprus, unexpectedly clawed their way into Saturday’s Final, proving anything can happen on the night…”
Source: Oddschecker
I hate to say it, but I agree. If it were 10 years ago, maybe he’d have a chance. But Nicky Byrne had a fairly-decent song in “Sunlight”, and he couldn’t qualify last year. So, if Brendan can’t qualify with this one, this has to be the end of the line for Louis Walsh, and it’s time to try something they haven’t tried yet, or go back to what worked for Ryan Dolan (2013) but not for others. Personally, I thought Molly Sterling (2015) deserved not only to qualify, but finish in the top 10.