The new season of the Premier League Darts competition gets underway on Thursday with another eight players ready to embark on a four-month tour of the UK and mainland Europe looking to win the biggest invitation event in the sport.
Luke Littler did exactly that a year ago and the world champion is back in the field looking to make a successful defence of his title. Seven top stars will be out to deny him the chance of getting his hands on the trophy once again.
Recent Winners
2024 – Luke Littler
2023 – Michael van Gerwen
2022 – Michael van Gerwen
2021 – Jonny Clayton
2020 – Glen Durrant
2019 – Michael van Gerwen
2018 – Michael van Gerwen
2017 – Michael van Gerwen
2016 – Michael van Gerwen
2015 – Gary Anderson
The Format
We have the same format which was used for the past two seasons. Each of the 16 nights will have its own tournament with quarter finals, semi-finals and a final where league table points will be won and lost. The winner of each night gets five points with the finalist getting three. The two semi-finalists get two points each. Each player will play the other seven in a quarter final twice over the 16 nights with the league table determining the order for the other two evenings. Each night also has £10,000 up for grabs for the winner. At the end of the season the points are added up with the top four heading to London for finals night. The 16 qualifying nights sees all matches over the best of 11 legs while the semi-finals on the final night are the best of 19 legs and the winner crowned over the best of 21.
The Field
As has been the case in the many years that this tournament has been staged, the top four in the world automatically get into the field and then there are four wildcards. That means that the automatic qualifiers are the world number one Luke Humphries, who will be looking to win the tournament for the first time, the world champion and winner of the tournament last year in Luke Littler, the man who has won the competition no fewer than seven times in Michael van Gerwen and the former world champion and prior winner of the World Matchplay who will be looking to add the Premier League title to his CV.
That leaves the four wildcards looking to steal the show over the course of the campaign. Stephen Bunting would have been hard to leave out anyway given that he is now ranked number five in the world but he is in off the back of winning The Masters last year. Gerwyn Price is a regular in the Premier League and he gets another crack at the competition as does the ever popular Nathan Aspinall. There was a lot of contenders for the final place in the tournament with Mike De Decker particularly vocal about not getting in. That spot went to World Championship semi-finalist Chris Dobey.
Market Leaders
The world champion Luke Littler is the 11/8 favourite to keep hold of his Premier League title. He is a shorter price than he was to win the tournament last year but based on the fact that he went on to win the World Championship that is fair enough. We did see some missed doubles from him in the Winmau World Masters recently but over the course of 16 weeks you would expect him to do more than enough to finish in the top three and he probably wouldn’t be this price come finals night.
Luke Humphries has never got his hands on this title yet. He was beaten by Littler in the final last year and will be keen to go one better this time around. He goes into the event having won the Winmau World Masters for the first time to put a disappointing World Championship title defence behind him. He is another who you would think would be more than good enough to get the points he needs to get into the top four come the end of the campaign and will be popular as a result.
Michael van Gerwen heads into the tournament off the back of a run to the World Championship final and he is someone who knows how to win this competition having done it seven times. He was the first winner of the event in this renewed format and you would think that he will be more than good enough to earn enough points to get to finals night and if he gets there and dodges Littler in the semi-final then the 6/1 on him to come through and win the title could look very big. It is 16/1 bar the trio.
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Outright Betting
You would imagine that three of the four places at the o2 will be snapped up by Luke Littler, Luke Humphries and Michael van Gerwen but that still leaves one more spot up for grabs and I firmly believe that Stephen Bunting is the one to be on to claim that spot and then from there we would need him to win one match to claim the place money and have a free crack at the final. The other four players can all feel lucky to be in this tournament.
Rob Cross is only in because he was ranked fourth in the world at the cut off point while Nathan Aspinall is in here because he has a popular walk on song. Gerwyn Price is probably in off the back of past glories and Chris Dobey came good at the right time in terms of his run at Ally Pally to get the better of Mike De Decker in the race for the final spot. Of the quartet you would have to say Price is most likely to break into the top four in terms of standard but his record in this competition is so bad that he’ll no doubt be threatening to never play in it again at some point across the 16 weeks. By the time we get to the o2, Bunting will most likely be ranked fourth in the world and off the back of runs to the semi-final of the World Championship and the last eight of the Winmau World Masters, he is primed for a decent tilt on his second Premier League campaign.
Finish Bottom
The other outright bet that interests me comes in the form of to finish bottom in the league phase. The market has this between Nathan Aspinall, Rob Cross and Chris Dobey but we shouldn’t forget that Cross just won the Dutch Darts Masters in a field similar to this so he should pick up enough wins to keep his head above water. There is no doubt that Aspinall is a major runner because of his injury record as much as his game but he knows he has a point to prove and he’ll be trying throughout at least. I think Dobey will pick up enough points to avoid it too.
That leaves me with Gerwyn Price, who has a terrible record in this event and has never hidden the fact that he doesn’t like it and if he is cut adrift early on you could see him going through the motions and saving himself for the ranking events. Price made the final two years ago but that is the only time he has made it to the o2 in five completed efforts. Only Peter Wright finished below him last season and there is no Wright in this field. Price doesn’t get to Cardiff until week seven of the competition so he could easily struggle in the early stages, especially if the crowds give him grief, and at 10/1 he feels overpriced to finish bottom in an event he notoriously struggles in.
Tips
Back S.Bunting to win Premier League Darts (e/w) for a 1/10 stake at 17.00 with Betfred (1/3 1-2)
Back G.Price to finish bottom for a 1/10 stake at 11.00 with William Hill
Back him here:
