Some say it’s pointless to look at the odds for Eurovision 2021 this early in the season. And it really is, as only Albania has revealed its chosen song publicly — and even that is likely to be touched up before the competition.
But the betmakers have their ears-to-the-ground and are no doubt listening to songs in various national finals, and checking in with their Euro-experts to feel out who has a shot to climb the table. Naturally we’re following how all that is impacting their rankings. Following the release of The Roop’s ‘Discoteque’ on Friday, the bookies now consider Lithuania the early favourite to win Eurovision 2021, displacing Iceland which has long held the top spot.
As you can see on the Oddschecker web site, Lithuania are currently as low as 39/5 at Betfair Exchange. Unlike the other favourites — including Daði Freyr from Iceland and Victoria from Bulgaria — The Roop must go through their national final Pabandom iš Naujo! once again, as they were not automatically re-selected. No matter. The bookies seem confident they have what it takes to cut a path to Rotterdam.
Eurovision Odds 2021: Lithuania the new favourite to win
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The buzz over Lithuania no doubt stems from the release of The Roop’s “Discoteque”. The dark dance track comes with fresh choreography that’s memorable and meme-worthy, helping serve that “viral” element that made them popular last year.
The song also carries an inspiring message. It encourages people to “dance alone” — not because of social-distancing or quarantine rules — but because people must learn to accept themselves fully and as they are. When you learn to dance with yourself, you’re better able to dance with others.
Eurovision 2021: Other betting favourites
We already know many of the artists confirmed for this year — and so do the betting agencies. Confirmed returnees include Eden Alene for Israel, Victoria for Bulgaria, Daði Freyr for Iceland and most recently Vasil for North Macedonia are on everyone’s radar. Building on last year’s buzz, many of the Eurovision 2020 favourites are already favourites this year. Let’s take a look at some of them…
Iceland’s Daði is at 9/1. This is arguably not so surprising since Daði was the darling of Eurovision 2020 and gained a lot of prominence following celebrity endorsements from the likes of Russell Crowe and Jessica Garner, who took part in the “Think About Things” dance challenge. The song was also used as a backing track on two of the UK’s most-watched television programmes Strictly Come Dancing and Dancing on Ice. Daði also won gongs at our in-house Vision Music Awards for “Most Likely to Succeed Commercially” and “Best Staging Concept”.
Not far behind is Bulgaria’s Victoria with odds of 19/2. While we don’t know her Eurovision 2021 entry yet, the “Tears Getting Sober” singer was one of the big favourites in 2020. Her most recent singles were very well-received and she’s said she will sample from the popular internet meme “The Screaming Sheep” for a potential entry.
France‘s national final takes place on January 30. The bookies seem to think there is a contender in the bunch, as France is currently seventh in the betting odds. Is it a matter of fan favourite Barbara Pravi saying, Voilà, here’s your win?
Norway, another country with a hyped national selection, is currently 11th favourite with odds of 24/1. Eurovision 2019 public vote winners KEiiNO have returned, and female lead Alexandra Rotan is hitting one of those notes. The odds aren’t bad, but could obviously be a bit better. Perhaps the bookies want Norway to show their hand before they show theirs? We’ll see at the final.
Albania, which gave us the first confirmed song of Eurovision 2021 back in December, isn’t doing so well on the oddstable. Anxhela Peristeri and her song “Karma” currently sit fourth from the bottom with odds of 179/1.
Another country whose odds aren’t looking too great at the moment is Israel with odds at 219/1. Eden Alene is currently seventh-from-last with odds at 79/1. We don’t yet know which of Eden’s three songs will be picked, but the bookmakers don’t hold too much hope for any of them. That’s a stark contrast to last year. At one point Eden had odds of 25/1 with her 2020 song “Fekir Libi”.
That’s what the bookies think, but what do you think? Do you think it is a done deal for Lithuania? Who do you think will be an outside bet for 2021? Will there be a country to defy the odds this year? Let us know in the comments below.
I don’t get the appeal, i think it’s mostly hype. When Iceland announces their song, they will be number one as well.
I think the Roop will do great in televoting (a combination of massive diaspora support and genuine support from Europeans who like their new song)
the odds are so idiotic. The Roop are really great but this years song is just boring. Weird dance move will not make it a hit anymore. And countires that are in the top not even reavled this year song. Im sorry but its just redundant.
Waiting for Hurricane here.
They had a great song last year. This year, no its boring, we already see hes hand over his head. And the song its to dark. I hope they go to the final, they should be happy.
To me Discoteque is the the winning 2021 song, not even Dadi could push it down.
Betting odds…Armenia 2014..need I say more!!
Pointless to make an issue of the odds so early in the season…you say it in the first sentence.
Dadi stans are triggered
Only reason Lithuania is top is so that we can all discuss it on various ESC fansites. Early odds are all hype so you check out the gambling sites.
of course The Roop will win, they are gods
The bookies’ efforts at this stage are pointless indeed! And no, The Roof 2021 is way too dark for Eurovision. On Fire was quirky and uplifting, which made it fresh. Discotheque probably won’t even survive the semis.
Jamala would like to know your location….
Be careful my dearest Piet because The Roop maffia is “on fire” for voting you down when you say something “wrong” about them!
Isn’t this just a little bit premature? The majority has still to choose their entries, so…
At this point why not also release odds for 2022?
Oh yeah I’d like to see those!
Well said!!!
Whenever I see early odds, I remind myself that in 2011, Norway’s ‘Haba Haba’ was favourite to win Eurovision in January. It wound up 17th out of 19 in semi-final one.
Even late odds are wrong. In 2019 nobody predicted Norway to win the popular vote or Macedonia to win the jury.
The odds just give the chance of an event happening, as we dont have 100 eurovisions to take a statistical analysis on, the odds cant inherently be wrong or right.
Odds don’t give the chance of an event happening. It gives the perceived chance by a select group of people that aren’t representative of the larger european voting audience or juries.
So right
Most egregious cases for me were Austria and Netherlands having longer odds than Belgium in 2014, Moldova having very long odds in 2017, and Cyprus being 25th with them pre-rehearsal in 2018.
It’s very hard to get enthusiastic about eurovision this year with covid. I usually follow eurovision build up and national finals enthusiastically but this year its difficult to focus on it
I’ll say the same as I said last year for me but sorry I absolutely don’t get over hype once again that bridge bit at the end is annoying and the dance moves annoy me as well, if this had been by anyone else people wouldn’t be losing their mind over it, winner of eurovision when we only have 1 official song so far??? I hope not then again 2011 was a disappointing winner so I guess 2021 wants to follow the trend I guess -_-
The Roop can’t win lol
Same 2020 ranking. Last year there were 5 favorites: Lithuania, Iceland, Bulgaria, Russia and Italy (random order)
It seems like THE HEAT IS GETTING HIGHER!
Mad love for the Roop. Best song forever!
Why not the song but the country?
Finland was also 1st in the odds for a short time, now in top 12
The odds for a firm Esc winner are normally about 3 or below, so it’s not yet the case here. Let’s see what will happen but we can’t already said that there are the favourite to win the all thing, it’s too early.
If you think The Roop will win I suggest you have your bet now as the odds will likely get shorter. Also some countries which are probably overpriced; Azerbaijan, Cyprus, Greece and Romania.
I think this year we will get a big fight for the win- I expect a hot competition. So although The Roop has done a good job, the race has just started 😉
It’s probably going to be between: The roop, Keiino, Dadi, Gjon, Victoria, the Swedish representative and maybe more acts will join the race.
Whilst the title battle I hope for is Dadi v Destiny v Armenia (if they partake and Athena represents them with a new, upbeat rnb song), I wouldn’t be surprised if one of the nations that did a selection process beats them.
I mean TIX is the norwegian favorite to win mgp tho.
i rlly hope Keiino didint win. it was definitely a mistake for them to come back so soon, they competed in the last actual eurovision, its time for a new artist to have a chance
But “Momument” is a masterpiece and it’s the best song (right now) in this years mgp so even if they particpated only 2 years ago they deserves to comeback only because they have the right song (and don’t forget that Jedward represented Ireland for 2 years in a row and Valentina Monetta represented San Marino for 3 years in a row).
In the 1960s and 1970s it happened quite frequently…
Ew, overrated song, I hope he doesn’t win.
Agree on the hot competition this year – Roop 2021 remains a big disappointment, though! No vote from this end!
Too early to predict anything yet, it’s like throwing darts in the dark at the moment
Way too early to make any sense of the odds right now. Judging by this, they are just continuing with last years odds, as the top 3 are returning artists from 2020 (who where the favorites then too) plus Sweden, who is always in the odd top 10. This means nothing.
Haters gonna hate like every year, I think The Roop will bring the roof down in Eurovision 😉
Well deserved, hopefully they win their NF and go all In at Eurovision to bring the trophy back home, what they left last year.
It’s Romania, isn’t it 🙂
Lol we have only 1 song selected so far ‘ Albania’
And a basic NQ like song that is not even sure it will be on Eurovision is already favorite to win.
If so then I can’t even imagine how the atrocious global quality of the other songs would be
Trying to overhype it already. So what is the farce and point for Lithuania to make a national selection if the winner is already chosen ?
You done crying? 🙂 they were favourites last year and their song is even better this year so again favourites. 🙂
I agree.
Well, last year, I wasn’t really into their song. I found it even kinda overrated. It was a good song, but I just couldn’t see it as a winner. This time, however, I can’t stop replaying “Discoteque”. Such a catchy and well-produced song. Plus, if you add Vaidotas’ charisma, and the group’s overall unique style, it’s not surprising to say that they might win it all. However, of course, it is too early to predict. I just hope that it will be a really competitive year, with lots of great songs, cause as far as I’ve seen till now, most… Read more »
Same here. I didn’t care much abot on Fire but Discotheque is such a hit!
I thought I was the only one! x)
Well they got almost a million views in two days, of course people are gonna bet for it. But we all know that it’s too early for odds. Need more songs!