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Winmau World Masters Darts 2025 – Tournament Outright Tips and Betting Preview

The early stages of the 2025 darts season continues this week when 32 top darts players head to the Marshall Arena in Milton Keynes for The Masters, the invitation event which takes on a new format for this renewal.

Stephen Bunting won this tournament last year and he is back in the field looking to make a successful defence of the crown albeit it in a new guise. An extended field will look to oppose him and take the crown from him.

Recent Winners

2024 – Stephen Bunting

2023 – Chris Dobey

2022 – Joe Cullen

2021 – Jonny Clayton

2020 – Peter Wright

2019 – Michael van Gerwen

2018 – Michael van Gerwen

2017 – Michael van Gerwen

2016 – Michael van Gerwen

2015 – Michael van Gerwen

The Format

The tournament has adopted the Winmau World Masters format which seasoned darts fans will be accustomed to. 32 players have made it into the final stage of the competition with the tournament being a straight knockout. We are back to set play for this event but unlike the World Championship each set is the best of three legs not five. The first round is the best of five sets and will be played on Thursday and Friday evening, the second round takes place over two sessions on Saturday with the quarter finals on Sunday afternoon. They are the best of seven sets with the best of nine sets semi-finals and best of eleven sets final all played on Sunday evening.

Top Half

We have 16 seeds in the draw this week which are the top 16 in the world rankings. As world number one Luke Humphries is the highest seed in the top half and if the event works out to the ranking then he is on a collision course with Rob Cross in the semi-final. Six other seeds will be out to stop that from happening and they include the defending champion Stephen Bunting. Gerwyn Price, Josh Rock, Danny Noppert, Damon Heta and Peter Wright are the others.

We have eight unseeded players in each half of the draw here too and the biggest name among them in the top half is the former world champion Michael Smith who will be looking to kick start a big 2025 with a deep run here. Joe Cullen won this tournament back in 2022 to set up a few months which eventually took him to the Premier League final while Ross Smith is another dangerous challenger. The other players in the top half are Jermaine Wattimena, Florian Hempel, William O’Connor, William Borland and Kevin Doets.


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Bottom Half

There will be plenty of attention on the bottom half of the draw this weekend because it is where the world champions Luke Littler will be looking to win this tournament on debut from. He is due to meet Michael van Gerwen in a repeat of the World Championship final in the Premier League on Thursday but the two are on course to meet in the semi-final here should both reach that stage. Six other seeds will be out to stop that from happening. They include Gary Anderson, James Wade, Dave Chisnall, Nathan Aspinall, Jonny Clayton and the 2023 winner Chris Dobey.

Eight unseeded players will be looking to make a big impression this week too with the UK Open champion Dimitri Van den Bergh the most recognisable of them. The man he took that crown from was Andrew Gilding and he is in this half of the draw too, as is the World Grand Prix winner Mike de Decker. The other players on show are the former Lakeside champion Andy Baetens, Martin Schindler, Ryan Searle, Bradley Brooks and Cameron Menzies.

Betting

I took Gerwyn Price to win the World Championship and I was just starting to get excited but he couldn’t sustain a good start against Chris Dobey in the quarter final but I still think he has something to prove in 2025 and especially given he has been included in the Premier League despite comments he previously made. Since the World Championship, Price made the final in Bahrain and the semi-final in the Netherlands so there is no doubt that he is coming back to his best. If he starts pinning tops like he can this weekend then he has the sort of draw that could take him very deep at a just about acceptable 12/1.

As an outsider pick I fancy Kevin Doets to have a good run. He had an excellent World Championship which saw him take care of Michael Smith on his way to the last 16 where he was only beaten in a deciding set by Chris Dobey. Since then he made the final night of the Dutch Darts Masters where Gerwyn Price downed him in a deciding leg. Doets is a solid scorer and if he can finish well then with a winnable first round tie against Peter Wright in a quarter that looks designed to open right up I think he is worth backing at what could turn out to be a monster price.

Tips

Back G.Price to win Winmau World Masters (e/w) for a 2/10 stake at 13.00 with Coral (1/2 1-2)

Back K.Doets to win Winmau World Masters (e/w) for a 0.5/10 stake at 101.00 with William Hill (1/2 1-2)

Back him here: