Global expert in sports forecasting Accuscore has turned its talent to the Eurovision Song Contest and is predicting Russia to run away with the competition. The firm estimates that the rest of the top five positions will be taken by Australia, France, Ukraine and host country Sweden.
Russia’s Sergey Lazarev’s You Are the Only One has been a clear favorite for a while, but the winning probabilities have increased even further during this week. Ukraine’s Jamala that was touted to be the main challenger for Russia few days ago, didn’t perform as expected in a second semifinal, causing Accuscore to adjust the expected amount of points downwards as a consequence.
While Ukraine’s probability for a win has been dropping, Australia’s Dami Im’s Sound of Silence has the most notable positive trend among the top songs. However, it may not be enough for a win, but most definitely it will bring another good result for Australia.
France and Sweden are predicted to be in top five, but the fact that they are performing first time on the stage of Globen in the final is decreasing their chances for a win.
All top five countries received good positions when the running order for the final was drawn. Also Armenia, Austria and Malta benefit the draw and are performing among last third of the competitors.
In order to accurately predict the winner and the order of songs in the final, Accuscore is using similar method as predicting the outcomes of sport events. The number of Youtube views, betting odds, how many times song has been played in music streaming services and the running order of the performance are some variables that are used to rank songs.
With help of historical voting behaviour, the voting in Eurovision Song Contest is then simulated 10,000 times and the average amount of points for each song is calculated.
Accuscore has been predicting Eurovision Song Contest results to Finnish national broadcasting company YLE since 2015. This week Accuscore has predicted 9 out of 10 finalist correct in both semifinals.
Find out what bookmakers had to say about Eurovision 2016 here.