A second day of rehearsals in Vienna has seen some movement in the bookies’ favourites, as fans and punters gather some first impressions of the stage potential of this year’s entries.

Whilst nothing, yet, can topple the triad of Sweden, Italy and Australia, the riser of the day is Russia, propelled by an impressive first stage outing to the top five favourites with most bookies. Now with odds as low as 9-1, Polina’s performance seems to have inspired a modest amount of confidence amongst fans, threatening Estonia in fourth place. This tallies with esctoday.com’s poll findings in the press centre today, which place Russia firmly at the top of the crop in terms of first rehearsal impressions.

Russia’s rise accompanies Finland’s fall, at least to sixth place in the rankings. After their first practice session yesterday, odds have drifted for the Finnish punk group to as long as 25-1, after enjoying some time in the low to mid-teens.

Shifting and drifting

Away from today’s performers, other odds are shifting too, particularly down the lower regions of the table. Notably, the Netherlands is now drifting freely, available at 150-1 or more with some bookies. Belarus can’t have come across as a winner today, as the country sinks to odds of 100-1 or more from earlier highs of around 33-1, and despite being highly regarded, Georgia languishes in the betting on similar odds to Belarus.

As always, it is important to bear in mind that odds only reflect the collective confidence of bookmakers and betting punters in the chances of a song. The Eurovision Song Contest has often proven both wrong, and will no doubt continue to do so.

What do you think of the odds so far? What have the bookies got spot on, and totally off the mark, so far? And what do you expect to happen to the odds after the next two days of rehearsals?