One million pounds will be on the line at Alexandra Palace on Saturday evening when the PDC World Darts Championship final is played out as the world number one Luke Littler takes on the European champion Gian van Veen for the Sid Waddell Trophy.
These are two of the best young players the sport has ever seen and it should mean that we are treated to a mouthwatering best of 13 set contest, particularly if they play like they have done en route to this final.
Luke Littler
He might still be a teenager but this is the third successive World Championship final for Luke Littler so he has the benefit of knowing what the day and the night is all about. He is trying to fend off a bit of history here with no player having successfully defended this title since 2016 but he is one more match away from rewriting that particular record, to go along with the many other records he is set to break in this final, although the statistical ones are down to the extended tournament as much as his special play.
Littler has cruised through to this final. He has only dropped three sets but van Veen will be the first player in the top 16 of the world rankings going into the event that he will have faced so it remains to be seen whether he has taken advantage of a kind draw or whether he is playing well enough to win this title and beat someone very much capable of beating him. The one thing we know about Littler is he will score strongly throughout the contest.
Gian van Veen
When the tournament started, even though he had never won a match on the Alexandra Palace stage, Gian van Veen would have been high up on the shortlist of most judges as a potential winner of the tournament. In the early parts of the event you could tell that he hadn’t won a match here but once he got that monkey off his back and the format began the increase he has looked every bit a winner in waiting as he looks to add the main World Championship crown to his World Youth Championship title he won a few weeks ago.
Van Veen has definitely reached this final the hard way. The draw might have opened up for him initially with Ricky Evans doing much of the damage but he has had to see off the world number two Luke Humphries and a top level Gary Anderson in the last two rounds and he has seen them off with a devastating combination of heavy scoring and elite finishing. The numbers will tell you that van Veen is playing well enough to win this, the only doubt comes over how he handles the occasion on the biggest night of his career.
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Head-to-head
These two men have met on six previous occasions if we include the World Youth Championship final in 2023. They are locked at 3-3 from those matches but when it comes to the stage they are 3-2 to Littler with the other four matches coming in 2025 which were shared. This will be their first meeting at the World Championship but it is the second time they have faced off in set play after Littler beat van Veen 2-0 in the first round of the World Grand Prix earlier in the season. Aside from the World Youth final, this is the first time a trophy has been on the line in any of their meetings.
Betting
I’ll go with a couple of bets for this final, one which is a little price related and the other that I really like. The price related one is for Gian van Veen to win this match. You can get a shade over 2/1 on him if you shop around and that is just a little too big for me. He has shown with his wins over Littler in 2025 that he can beat the world number one and while I was a little concerned about him as a favourite on Friday night, he soon proved there was no need to be. We know from his win over Luke Humphries how the Dutchman plays when he is the underdog and there has been nothing since then to suggest he can’t go with Littler in this final. Littler is sure to lay it on to van Veen here but the defending champion hasn’t really been tested here so we don’t quite know how he’ll go when the heat is on him. Rob Cross was the closest to showing us but when the moment came for him to level up he folded. I don’t see van Veen doing that. I think this is a final that gets settled on fine margins and when fine margins are involved I’d rather be on the man a shade bigger than 2/1.
The other bet I like here is for there to be a 170 checkout. These two have reeled in the big fish four times between them in this competition and we know that both quite like to leave the finish because of the regulation two T20 darts that comes with it so in a match where you would have to think is going to have close to 50 legs of darts, we should get quite a few attempts at the top checkout landing. Both men are regular hitters of it and given how well the pair score you wouldn’t think there will be many cases where a player can lay up with the bullseye left even if they would want to do that. It opened 2/1 and if you got on at that price you’re on a great bet but I still think there is plenty of juice in the 6/4 given that these two will seek the maths to leave 170 over the likes of 164 or 167.
Tips
Back G.van Veen to beat L.Littler for a 3/10 stake at 3.10 with Spreadex
Back 170 checkout to be hit for a 3/10 stake at 2.50 with William Hill
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