The Man Who Bet His House on a Pop Song - A Eurovision Tale
Cautionary Tales with Tim Harford
Pushkin Industries
4.7 • 6.4K Ratings
🗓️ 12 May 2023
⏱️ 36 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
You can gamble on horses or on the turn of a card - but Daniel Gould made a living betting on the outcome of the annual Eurovision Song Contest. Daniel made a profit because he studied the voting history of the competition, as well as the cultural and geo-political factors that predict which songs will triumph and which will score "nil point".
In 2018, Daniel was so sure of his system of reducing the risk that he took out a loan on his home and bet it on Israel's song to win... only to see the entry from Cyprus suddenly rocketing up the leader board. Was Daniel about to lose everything?
For a full list of sources used in this episode visit Tim Harford.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | I'm Malcolm Gladwell here with some great news for revisionist history fans. |
| 0:05.7 | This year we're making more shows than ever and we're giving them early to push-in-plus |
| 0:11.1 | subscribers if you become a member of Push-in-plus. |
| 0:14.3 | You get to hear every episode of revisionist history two full weeks before everyone else. |
| 0:20.5 | And you get the shows without any ads. |
| 0:23.7 | And and when we do a special mini series on the show like we will this summer, you get |
| 0:29.4 | that whole set of shows all at once. |
| 0:33.1 | A binge drop just for you. |
| 0:35.7 | And without giving too much away, I'll tell you. |
| 0:38.5 | Our special series this upcoming season is bananas. |
| 0:43.2 | More episodes, more stories you won't hear anywhere else this year. |
| 0:47.3 | You've got it. |
| 0:48.3 | Revisionist history heads from New York to New Orleans to the Wild West from the high |
| 0:52.5 | planes to high school debate club. |
| 0:55.2 | Listen wherever you get your podcasts. |
| 0:58.5 | You can find pushkinplus at pushkin.fm-plus or head over to the revisionist history |
| 1:04.6 | show page in Apple Podcasts. |
| 1:16.2 | Pushkin |
| 1:17.2 | It's a Saturday evening in May 2018. |
| 1:27.6 | This year's Eurovision Song Contest |
| 1:37.5 | Eurovision goes back decades. |
| 1:40.9 | Every year dozens of countries send a song. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Pushkin Industries, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Pushkin Industries and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.