The Premier League of Darts started on 5 January, with the third event of the league taking place in Glasgow. Here's everything you need to know about it.
- When: Thursday, 18 February
- Venue: OVO Hydro, Glasgow
- Coverage: Sky Sports Main Event/ Sky Sports Darts
- Fun Fact: When the Premier League of Darts first launched in 2005, it had a familiar name dominating it, with 16-time World Champion Phil Taylor winning all of the first four editions.
Betting
Gone are the days when there were only four or five big darts events every year for fans to enjoy.
These days, a huge injection of money from the likes of Sky Sports and sponsors, many of whom are betting companies, means there are more, bigger and better events than ever before.
That certainly includes the Premier League of darts, which, as the name suggests, is a league rather than a one-off event.
It takes place over 16 weeks across venues across Europe, giving fans a chance to see the world’s best in their home cities.
Each edition sees the eight players contest a mini-knockout tournament with quarter-finals, semi-finals, and a final, so in that sense, it’s an event in its own right because at the end of the night, a winner for it will be crowned.
The players are given points that contribute to their standing in the league based on how they performed on the evening, as follows: winner (5 points), runner-up (three), semi-finalist (2) and beaten quarterfinalist (0).
We’ve had two events so far, in Newcastle (UK) and Antwerp (Belgium), with Michael van Gerwen winning the first and Gerwyn Price the second.
Dutchman Van Gerwen is the current table-topper on eight points, Price is on five, and the current podium is completed by Jonny Clayton on four points.
The big surprise so far has been the slow start of the two Lukes - Littler and Humphries – who are both on just two points.
Littler, who won the PDC World Championship at the start of the year, was knocked out at the quarter-final stage in Newcastle by Gian van Veen, the very man he beat 7-1 in that World Championship final.
In Antwerp, he then managed a narrow 6-5 win over the other Luke, Humphries, before losing to Van Gerwen in the semi-final.
So work for both Lukes to do if they’re to make the playoffs, but they’ve got plenty of events left to recover.
Starting in Glasgow this week.
But Littler is up against the in-form man and league leader Van Gerwen; he’s the 1.36 favourite, with the Dutchman 3.0. That’s not a bad price on the latter, a player who has had plenty of success in this event in the past.
Humphries is a strong favourite at 1.5 to beat 2.63 Josh Rock, while Price is available at a price of 1.62 to overcome Clayton. The other match of the evening has fan favourite Stephen Bunting as the 2.88 outsider to beat van Veen.
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Despite his sluggish start, Littler is the 2.63 favourite to win the Glasgow event and the 1.73 jolly to win this year’s edition of the Premier League. Humphries is 3.75 to win Thursday’s event and 6.0 to win the whole thing.
In other markets, Bunting is the 1.62 favourite to finish bottom of the Premier League table, with Clayton the next shortest price at 4.33. Odds with Betfred for that one.
