PDC Darts World Championship Betting

Interestingly the World Darts Championship is split over two calendar years. The tournament begins in mid-December and they leave the final to be played on January 1st the following year. It is the year in which the Final is played, which is when the title is named for. So for example, the tournament starts in December 2017 but the title being played for is the 2018 title as the Final itself would be played on January 1st, 2018. This certainly brings in the new calendar year with a bang and it is one of the biggest draws in televised sports on January 1st every year.

The initial PDC World Darts Championship was hosted at the Circus Tavern before a switch happened in 2008 to the Alexandra Palace.

Phil Taylor’s Legacy

Arguably the greatest player that the sport has ever seen, Phil Taylor announced that the 2018 PDC World Darts Championship was to be his last before retiring. He has cemented his position firmly in the hall of greats, especially after winning eleven of the first thirteen edition of the PDC Darts World Championship tournament. His record of titles at the event is unlikely going to ever be matched as The Power leaves the game with an astounding legacy at the tournament and on the game as a whole.

Qualification

The tournament is a 64-man field for the opening round and the top 32 players on the PDC Order of Merit all get an automatic place there, along with the Top 16 Pro Tour Order of Merit players. The rest of the spots in the competition are then filled by invites and qualifiers.

History of winners

Obviously, Phil Taylor is the name which jumps to the fore when bringing up the PDC Darts World Championship. But Taylor lost the final of the inaugural PDC Darts World Champion to Dennis Priestley getting hammered 6-1 in that match. But he responded in some fashion by winning the next eight titles in a row before Canada’s John Part stopped him in 2003. Because of Taylor’s dominance in his appearances at the tournament during his career, the number of players who have been crowned World Championship have been relatively small considering. John Part was able to win it a couple of times, Raymond van Barneveld was crowned World Champion in 2007 and Adrian Lewis won it back to back in 2011 and 2012. But with The Power leaving of the game, the game’s current powerhouse Michael van Gerwen already tasted World Championship success.

2017 Review

After being out of the World Championship winners circle since 2013, Phil Taylor once again fell short as he could only make the quarter-finals for the tournament where he was surprisingly stopped by old foe Raymond van Barneveld. With the world number one Michael van Gerwen running all the way through to the final largely unopposed, it set up an all-Dutch semi final in the end against his compatriot Van Barneveld. Van Gerwen cruised through that and met Scotland’s Gary Anderson in the final, denying the Scot his third World title by taking him down 7-3. Along the way, Van Gerwen scored 66 maximums in the tournament and landed a max 170 checkout as well. It was losing finalist Anderson who topped the 180 chart though with 71 of them at the event. There was no nine-dart checkout.

2018 Preview

It is Phil Taylor’s last hurrah. Will there be the best send off ever that he could hope for by being crowned World champion for the 15th time in his career? That in many ways would be the perfect send-off from him and because of the respect that he has in the game, it’s going to be a tough thing for whoever steps up and beats him in the tournament if it happens, denying the legend one last shot at greatness. So look forward to an emotional farewell one way or the other. But Taylor has won only one of the last seven editions of the event and can’t match the current power of Michael van Gerwen.

Mighty Mike is going to be the outright favourite for the event, with realistically the strongest challenges coming from Gary Anderson again while Peter ‘Snakebite’ Wright probably will have his best chance for some years at being able to put together a title run. Van Gerwen is in the opposite half of the draw to Wright, Anderson and Taylor, while the latter two have been lumped together in the fourth quarter. Of the 64 men lining up in the first round of the tournament, 23 will be English.

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