The rehearsals for the 2017 Eurovision Song Contest begin tomorrow, when we will get our first insight into how the first semi-final is shaping up. Here on escgo! we will be providing you with the usual rehearsal reviews courtesy of Shi’s view from San Francisco and the thoughts of our other editors, and we always recommend following the live blogs from our friends at ESC Nation and ESCKAZ, among many others.

Since we know everything can change as soon as a country reveals an awesome staging concept (or a terrible costume choice), we thought it’d be interesting to mark the start of rehearsals by documenting which of the semi-finalists are currently considered to be the likely qualifiers according to the betting markets – and which are the big outsiders!

Based on the ranking of the odds in the “to qualify” market on Betfair, the most active market for qualification bets, the pre-rehearsal state of play is as follows:

Semi 1 qualifiers (from likeliest to least likely):
Sweden, Armenia, Greece, Australia, Portugal, Azerbaijan, Belgium, Moldova, Cyprus, Latvia
Biggest outsiders: Czech Republic, Slovenia

Semi 2 qualifiers (from likeliest to least likely):
Bulgaria, Israel, Denmark, Hungary, Romania, Estonia, Serbia, Norway, Netherlands, Switzerland
Outsiders: San Marino, Lithuania

(According to Betfair odds at 17:30 CET on 29 April 2017)

That’s how things stand right now according to the fans and experts who have placed their bets before the rehearsals begin, anyway. But as we know, there are always a few surprises along the way – so who will it be this year? We can’t wait to find out!