The Premier League Darts is one of the most prestigious tournaments on the PDC's (Professional Darts Corporation) calendar. The new structure from 2022 has shaken up the tournament, making for an even more exciting event. Due to its unique structure, Premier League Darts betting is particularly popular for punters and darts fans alike.
- Tournament Structure for the Premier League Darts
- Darts Premier League Match Schedule
- Premier League Darts Betting Odds, Promotions, Tips & Predictions
- 5 Reasons to Bet on the Premier League Darts
- Premier League Darts Betting Sites With Live Streaming
- Popular Premier League Darts Betting Markets
- History of the Premier League Darts
- All Darts Premier League Winners
- Darts Premier League Key Stats
- Similar Tournaments to the Darts Premier League
- Darts Premier League Betting FAQs
- ThePuntersPage Final Say
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Tournament Structure for the Premier League Darts
One of the most prestigious events in the darts calendar year and part of the Darts Triple Crown, the Premier League is a special competition. Taking place between February and May, the tournament had a major makeover in the last year with the biggest reform in the tournament’s history.
The number of participants has been reduced from ten to eight, and the structure has been turned on its head. Since the last tournament, the eight players compete in a total of 16 smaller knockout competitions, held every Thursday.
In a single night, four quarter-final matches, two semi-finals and a final are played, implementing a ‘best of 11 legs’ format. Contestants are set to play against one another at least twice in the quarter-finals meaning that some matchups will be played more often than others.
Points for these mini-tournaments are as follows: two points are awarded per semi-final finish, three points per runner up finish, and five points for the tournament winner. Points are tallied up in the Premier League of Dart table for all 16 nights. The top four at the end of the rounds advance to the playoffs.
The top four players from the final table will progress to the final round, known as the playoffs. The semi-finals consist of two ‘best of 19 legs’ matches, which are seeded depending on a player’s position in the league table.
First place will play against fourth place in the first match, while the second and third placed players will compete in the second match. The winners will progress to the final in a best of 21 legs match – whoever wins is declared champion.
The Premier League of Darts nights will be staged in 17 arenas across the UK, Ireland, the Netherlands and Germany offering an increased £1 million prize fund with a £10,000 bonus to each night's winner. The playoffs will then be held at London’s iconic ‘O2 Arena’.
Darts Premier League Match Schedule
The Premier League’s many rounds will be held in different venues every week, mostly in the UK and Ireland; however, the players will be making some brief stops in The Netherlands and Germany.
Starting in Belfast and finishing in London between February and May, we highly recommend attending a match if possible. Premier League Darts betting is best done live, with full view of the action.
Each event takes place on a Thursday – this includes the playoffs. Furthermore, the PDC state that the schedule may be subject to change, but updates will be advertised at the earliest. Below are all the scheduled rounds of the 2023 Darts Premier League:
| Matchday | Date | Locations |
|---|---|---|
| Night 1 | 2nd February | The SSE Arena, Belfast |
| Night 2 | 9th February | Cardiff International Arena |
| Night 3 | 16th February | OVO Hydro, Glasgow |
| Night 4 | 23rd February | 3Arena, Dublin |
| Night 5 | 2nd March | Westpoint Exeter |
| Night 6 | 9th March | M&S Bank Arena, Liverpool |
| Night 7 | 16th March | Motorpoint Arena, Nottingham |
| Night 8 | 23rd March | Utilita Arena, Newcastle |
| Night 9 | 30th March | Mercedes-Benz Arena, Berlin |
| Night 10 | 6th April | Utilita Arena, Birmingham |
| Night 11 | 13th April | The Brighton Centre |
| Night 12 | 20th April | Rotterdam Ahoy |
| Night 13 | 27th April | First Direct Arena, Leeds |
| Night 14 | 4th May | AO Arena, Manchester |
| Night 15 | 11th May | Utilita Arena, Sheffield |
| Night 16 | 18th May | P&J Live, Aberdeen |
| Play offs | 25th May | The O2, London |
Premier League Darts Betting Odds, Promotions, Tips & Predictions
The 2023 Darts Premier League is scheduled to get underway in Belfast on Thursday the 2nd of February, reaching its climax on Thursday the 25th of May in London after 17 weekly nights of great darting action.
The tournament is set to follow the same 2022 format, meaning that eight players will be battling it out for glory this year. The contestants haven’t been announced yet, but they’ll most likely be announced after the 2023 Darts Masters in late January.
Premier League Darts Betting Tips & Predictions 2023
Of course, without a complete list of players, the odds for the tournament are still yet to be released by bookies. The top four players in the world automatically qualify for the event: Michael Smith, Peter Wright, Michael van Gerwen, and Gerwyn Price.
Michael Smith
Currently the number one darts player in the world, Michael Smith has been on incredible form lately, having won both the Grand Slam of Darts and the Darts World Championship. This will be Smith’s sixth appearance in the Premier League – his best performance was in 2018 when he finished runner-up to Michael Van Gerwen. Smith intends to carry his stellar form into this tournament to finally win the Premier League of Darts.
Peter Wright
‘The Snakebite’ has been one of the best dart players for many years now. Famous for his showmanship and iconic mohawk, Wright won last year’s World Championship of Darts and the German Darts Open this season. This is Wright’s 10th Premier League in a row – 2017 saw his best performance to date, finishing as runner-up to Michael Van Gerwen. Wright has been on good form recently and is hoping to start seeing results in the form of silverware. However, it remains to be seen if he can pull it off here.
Michael Van Gerwen
An absolute titan of the darts world, MVG has won it all. He’s the current holder of the World Grand Prix, World Matchplay, the Players Championship and this very tournament. This is MVG’s 11th tournament appearance – he’s won it a record 6 times. Only Phil Taylor has managed this feat. Van Gerwen will be looking for that 7th title and to get revenge on Smith, who beat him to the World Championship crown in January.
Gerwyn Price
A controversial darts player if ever there was one, Price is an excellent competitor, currently holding the title for the ‘World series of Darts Finals’ and the ‘New Zealand Darts Masters’. The Ice Man will be looking to silence his critics after a disappointing exit in the PDC World Championship. Price is competing in only his 4th Darts Premier League – pulling off a win here would be quite special.
Premier League Darts Betting Promotions 2023
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Ladbrokes have a brilliant ‘Bet £5 Get £20’ welcome offer – perfect for new punters looking to get an initial boost without breaking the bank. They also offer many promotional offers on darts.
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No strangers to the world of darts, William Hill offer a fantastic ‘Bet £10 Get £30’ welcome offer. The promotion is divided into 3 x £10 free bets, excellent for you to diversify your bets.
5 Reasons to Bet on the Premier League Darts
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#1 It is one of the biggest events on the PDC tour.
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#2 It is a weekly competition.
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#3 The whole tourney lasts for almost four months.
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#4 It is considered to be part of darts’ triple crown.
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#5 It has an exciting new format and a massive £1,000,000 prize pot.
Premier League Darts Betting Sites With Live Streaming
Popular Premier League Darts Betting Markets
As darts grows in popularity, both in the UK and globally, so too does darts betting. Here are a few of the most popular bet types offered by the best online bookies that you can employ in darts.
Outright Winner Betting
- Outright Winner bets are simply a wager on who will win the Darts Premier League. For maximum profit, these bets are usually placed pre-tournament, though there are times when you'll feel a player that has fallen behind in the table might have a revival and make a charge up the league. In such a case, a well-timed bet mid-competition can pay dividends.
Outright Night Winner Betting
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With a total of 16 nights to play in, besides the playoffs, punters can wager on an outright night winner every week. Betting on who will win the tournament on the night is a great addition to your betting arsenal, all thanks to the change of format. Looking out for players on a hot streak may not always pay off – last season only Michael Van Gerwen won two nights in a row. Instead, look for consistency as a metric of how well a player is doing and whether he can pull off a win.
Most 180s Betting
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With Premier League Darts, as opposed to other darts tournaments, you know there's a minimum number of games all players will take part in. This is helpful in the case of Most 180s bets, since this is a tournament-long betting market on which player will hit the most maximums over the course of the contest. If you place a bet like that in a knockout competition, and your pick goes out in the early rounds, then your bet will almost certainly go down with it. In the Premier League, however, your pick has at least nine games to get as many 180s as possible. You can also bet on how many 180s are thrown on a particular night, normally in the form of and under / over bet.
Highest Match Checkout Betting
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In the case of Highest Match Checkout betting, you're wagering on what you think the highest checkout in a nominated match will be. This is a simple over/under bet where the bookie will set the line on what they think the highest finish will be – for example, over or under 153.5 – and you can bet on whether you think it will be higher or lower than that number. If your player finishes on a checkout lower or higher than the bookie’s line, and you have successfully bet either way, you'll have won.
Nine-Darter Betting
- A nine-dart finish is the holy grail of darts. It simply means to check out in the perfect leg using only nine darts, the minimum possible from 501. Even for the top professionals, this is an uncommon achievement, and the darting equivalent of golf’s hole-in-one or a maximum 147 break in snooker.
There are many combinations a player can make for this checkout, the most common of which is 180 + 180 + 141. Because of this, these are very rare, and many people choose to bet on there being no nine-darter instead.
Last tournament, Gerwyn Price hit two nine-darters on the same night, in Belfast. That’s an unbelievable feat by any standard, and his two nine-dart finishes were the only ones of the entire tournament!
History of the Premier League Darts
The PDC launched the inaugural Premier League Darts in 2005, won by the greatest darter of all time, Phil ‘The Power’ Taylor. So superior was Taylor during his time that he won the first four Premier Leagues, as well as 16 World Championships and 16 Darts Matchplay titles as part of his 85 major title haul and 11 televised nine-dart finishes.
A contender to his throne in the modern game comes in the form of Dutch superstar Mighty Michael van Gerwen, who also won four tournaments in a row. Van Gerwen has also managed to match Taylor’s six wins and is the current reigning champion.
The league originally started with fortnightly fixtures, but is now played weekly. Another change from its launch is the number of players taking part. Initially a seven-player competition, the league featured nine players after a stroke of luck before the 2019 edition and is now again reduced to eight players.
That year, when the tournament was due to be a ten-man event as it had been since 2013, two-time winner Gary ‘The Flying Scotsman’ Anderson withdrew from the competition before it got underway, citing a back injury.
To take his place, the PDC introduced a series of nine contenders, one of whom would play each week and fulfil the fixtures of the injured Anderson. This proved so successful that the PDC confirmed at the World Championships later that year that the contender/challenger/local hero format would be revived going forward.
In 2020, the Premier League of Darts was in full swing when it was suspended for the first lockdown that was imposed during the Covid-19 pandemic. One year later and the start of the tournament was delayed before all of the fixtures were played in a series of nightly matches to finish the tournament off in a short space of time.
In 2022 a massive change came into effect, creating a series of mini knockout rounds each week, with a final table dictating who will advance to the playoff rounds. Michael Van Gerwen is the only winner of this format so far.
Since it was established in 2005, the Darts Premier League has had seven official sponsors. These include a number of betting sites including 888, who were the first company to have their name attached to this event. Other sponsors include Holsten, Whyte and Mackay, McCoy's, Betway, Unibet and Cazoo who have taken over since the 2022 tournament.
The 2022 Premier League of Darts
The new format brought about an interesting change to the game. Consistency became much more important as players won points based on their semi-final and final finishes. Over the 16 nights, Johnny Clayton was the only player to win four times. Clayton topped the Darts Premier League table giving him a supposed advantage for the playoffs.
Van Gerwen, James Wade and Joe Cullen filled up the other three spots. The semi-finals concluded with Cullen beating Clayton and MVG beating Wade. Joe Cullen had become the third debutant finalist in a row, facing the might of five-time champion Michael Van Gerwen.
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The final was an exhilarating match which came down to the wire – two legs was the most that ever separated them. The battle came down to the last leg as both players won 10 apiece. Joe Cullen needed a 68-point checkout to win the match, hitting a 20, a 16 and finally missing a D16 by millimetres. The next dart thrown would be the last as MVG hit a D14 to win the title with the finest of margins. MVG claimed his sixth Premier League of Darts title, equalling Phil Taylor’s record.
All Darts Premier League Winners
| Year | Name | Score | Runner Up |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2022 | Michael van Gerwen (NED) | 11-10 | Joe Cullen (ENG) |
| 2021 | Jonny Clayton (WAL) | 11-5 | José de Sousa (POR) |
| 2020 | Glen Durrant (ENG) | 11-8 | Nathan Aspinall (ENG) |
| 2019 | Michael van Gerwen (NED) | 11-5 | Rob Cross (ENG) |
| 2018 | Michael van Gerwen (NED) | 11-4 | Michael Smith (ENG) |
| 2017 | Michael van Gerwen (NED) | 11-10 | Peter Wright (SCO) |
| 2016 | Michael van Gerwen (NED) | 11-3 | Phil Taylor (ENG) |
| 2015 | Gary Anderson (SCO) | 11-7 | Michael van Gerwen (NED) |
| 2014 | Raymond van Barneveld (NED) | 10-6 | Michael van Gerwen (NED) |
| 2013 | Michael van Gerwen (NED) | 10-8 | Phil Taylor (ENG) |
| 2012 | Phil Taylor (ENG) | 10-7 | Simon Whitlock (AUS) |
| 2011 | Gary Anderson (SCO) | 10-4 | Adrian Lewis (ENG) |
| 2010 | Phil Taylor (ENG) | 10-8 | James Wade (ENG) |
| 2009 | James Wade (ENG) | 13-8 | Mervyn King (ENG) |
| 2008 | Phil Taylor (ENG) | 16-8 | James Wade (ENG) |
| 2007 | Phil Taylor (ENG) | 16-6 | Terry Jenkins (ENG) |
| 2006 | Phil Taylor (ENG) | 16-6 | Roland Scholten (NED) |
| 2005 | Phil Taylor (ENG) | 16-4 | Collin Lloyd (ENG) |
Darts Premier League Key Stats
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Phil ‘The Power’ Taylor and Michael Van Gerwen have won this event more than anyone else, being crowned champions six times each.
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Raymond van Barneveld, known as Barney, has made the most tournament appearances with 14. Barney has also played the most matches – a total of 211 in all.
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Michael Van Gerwen reached seven finals in a row between 2013 and 2019, winning five of them.
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Phil Taylor boasts the longest unbeaten run after he avoided defeat in 44 matches.
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Eleven 180s is the most ever thrown by a single player in one match, done by Simon Whitlock in 2011 and by José de Sousa in 2021.
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There have been 13 whitewashes throughout the tournament. Van Gerwen has won four of them while Robert Thornton has lost two, both in 2016.
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Only seven different players have won the tournament in its 18-year-long history.
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The last two runners-up, José de Sousa and Joe Cullen, were both making their debut that season, 2021 and 2022 respectively.
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There have been 14 nine-darters in Premier League Darts history: one a piece from Simon Whitlock, Michael Smith, Peter Wright, Johnny Clayton and José de Sousa – Gerwyn Price, Adrian Lewis and Van Barneveld hit two, and Phil Taylor has hit three, two of which came in the 2010 final.
Similar Tournaments to the Darts Premier League
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3rd – 5th March 2023, UK Open: Hosted at the Butlins Resort in Minehead, this event is held in early March each year.
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15th – 23rd July 2023, World Darts Matchplay: This is the PDC’s second most prestigious event which takes place in Blackpool each July.
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December 2023 – January 2024 (exact dates TBA), World Darts Championships: The biggest event in darts and one that takes place over the festive season each year at London’s Alexandra Palace, this is lovingly known among darts’ fans as the Ally Pally.
Darts Premier League Betting FAQs
We’re happy to say that the best betting sites for any and all Premier League Darts betting are Ladbrokes, William Hill, and Betfred.
Fans will be able to watch every throw through the live coverage that will be broadcast on numerous Sky Sports channelsand on PDCTV. Live streaming is an ideal way to make more informed bets, as you’ll be able to judge the momentum of the game as it happens.
All over the place! The tournament works a bit like a tour, visiting a different city each week including Liverpool, Manchester, Nottingham, and Cardiff before concluding in London in late May.
In 2022, the PDC reduced the number of participants from ten to eight as part of a complete tournament revamp.
The whole competition lasts for almost four months, between February and May.
Of course, you can bet each-way! Just remember to try and find some longer value towards the end of the market.
ThePuntersPage Final Say
There is a lot of fun for bettors to have in the Premier League of Darts. Since it lasts for four months (in other words, a third of the year), that’s a serious amount of darts action to enjoy! This also means you can bet by the match, the week, or the entire competition. Plus, to add to the already thrilling excitement, a new structure was introduced, creating even more betting opportunities.