Darts Betting Tips: Predictions & Odds For The Players Championship Finals

Players Championship Finals Betting Tips:

• Luke Humphries to win the tournament - 9/2 with BetVictor
• Michael Smith to win the tournament - 14/1 with Bet365

Luke Humphries heads to Minehead in hope of his third successive major title following his recent success in the Grand Slam, and betting sites have him installed as one of the favourites to claim the title.

The 28-year-old had never won a major tournament until his victory over Gerwyn Price in the World Grand Prix back in October and the tungsten terminator has been a formidable force ever since.

This year’s event sees the top 64 performers from all of the 30 Players Championship events battle it out to secure the £120,000 grand prize this weekend, with Michael van Gerwen winning the most recent edition when defeating Rob Cross 11-6 in the 2022 final.

Darts betting sites have released the odds ahead of this weekend’s tournament and we have scoured through the list of qualifiers to identify the best outright value.

Humphries Eyes A Hat-Trick Of Majors

It’s been a whirlwind couple of months for the World No.4 who is now a two-time major winner within the space of just 42 days.

The Newbury native is undoubtedly the best player in the world at present and his 104.69 average in a dominant 16-8 victory over Cross in the Sunday's final of the Grand Slam has seen him listed as the favourite with a number of new betting sites.

Humphries comes into this tournament in ranked number seven thanks to his impressive displays in the floor tournaments throughout the year and faces off against Martin Lukeman in round one of the competition.

Although, with Gary Anderson, James Wade, Dimitri Van den Bergh and Ryan Searle all on his side of the draw, it will be no easy ride for Cool Hand if he wants to make it a trio of titles.

However, Luke will not face any of these potential opponents in the shorter (first to six) format and it would be a best of 19 legs should he encounter any of aforementioned players, which favours him immensely and makes the 9/2 offered by BetVictor worth a punt.

With usual favourites Price and Van Gerwen seemingly lacking that cutting edge at present, it offers the perfect opportunity to the likes of Cool Hand to secure his first Players Championship title and make it a third successive major win.

Bully Boy’s Time To Shine

Since his memorable World Championship triumph back in January, it has been a relatively quiet year for Michael Smith's standards.

The St Helens man has picked up the Bahrain Darts Masters trophy, the German Darts Grand Prix trophy and a solitary Players Championship title this year which came in Hildesheim which came back in June.

This means that Bully Boy awaits his first major title since winning the biggest prize of them all and with him having to defend that title in under a month’s time at Alexandra Palace, there is no better time to get the wheels in motion this weekend.

Although he hasn’t lifted a major trophy in 10 months, a treble of semi-final appearances for Smith in some prestigious competitions shows he isn’t too far off the pace and he can easily switch it on in a compact tournament like the Players Championship Finals.

Betting apps have the current World Champion at odds of 14/1 to be this weekend’s winner and despite being ranked 30th in the order of merit, the draw has worked out rather favourably for him.

An opening victory over Richard Veenstra could see him take on Dirk van Duijvenbode who despite having a solid year, continues to nurse a shoulder injury that has seen a lapse in form.

Bully Boy has never gone further than the quarter-finals of this tournament, but with a possible match up with Damon Heta looking likely in the last eight, it could be time for Michael Smith to call upon the scoring power he possesses to get into the last four.

If he is able to find that eye-catching form that saw him rise to World No.1, it would be no surprise to see him take the trophy back to Merseyside come Sunday evening.