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Festive Arrows Take Centre Stage
The Paddy Power World Darts Championship 2026 gets under way at Alexandra Palace tonight, launching a three-week festival of tungsten from Thursday 11 December 2025 through to Saturday 3 January 2026. With live coverage of every dart, the spotlight is firmly on a 128-player field chasing not only the Sid Waddell Trophy but also a record £1 million winner’s cheque.
Read on for the best bet for this event and the analysis in addition to the best betting offers to take full advantage of.
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Darts betting tips: PDC World Darts Championship Best Bet
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Backing Luke Humphries at 5/1 combines proven major-winning pedigree with a price that reflects the depth of this field. He has handled brutal draws before, matches Luke Littler’s scoring bursts more often than most, and his all-round control still looks built for long Ally Pally battles over this festive fortnight.
- Luke Littler is odds-on at around 10/11 to retain his World Darts Championship crown and land the first £1 million winner’s cheque at Alexandra Palace.
- Since October, Gian van Veen has averaged 98.66, second only to Littler’s 100.51 across the PDC’s leading performers.
- There were two nine-dart finishes at Ally Pally last year, while 54 perfect legs have been thrown across PDC competition during 2025.
PDC World Darts Championship 2026 — bet365 Market Snapshot
Swipe through key outright and tournament specials with illustrative probabilities and sample bet365-style odds based on our Ally Pally analysis.
Exchange prices imply Luke Littler is odds-on to retain his crown, with Luke Humphries the standout alternative and the rest of the field grouped some way behind.
Behind the two Lukes, a cluster of in-form names from our analysis offer outside chances of lifting the Sid Waddell Trophy at sizeable prices.
With 128 players, extra matches and elite scoring, markets lean towards multiple nine-darters and at least one Dutch star making a serious tilt at the trophy.
Markets highlight Littler’s power scoring, Humphries’ sustained high averages and Gian van Veen’s chances of turning his breakthrough season into a deep Ally Pally run.
The format, as ever, rewards sustained excellence. Early rounds are shorter, where a fast start and one explosive spell can tilt a tie, but as the event moves beyond Christmas the switch to longer set play punishes any inconsistency. That shift is crucial when assessing who are genuinely built for the Ally Pally marathon rather than just the sprint, especially in an era where ton-plus averages are increasingly the norm rather than the exception.
At the top of the betting sits reigning champion and newly crowned world number one Luke Littler, a teenager who has already assembled a haul of major titles that most professionals never get close to. His price around 10/11 underlines how the market view his dominance, and his record at this venue – 58 sets won and only 24 dropped, with seven of those in one epic final against Luke Humphries – shows why many expect him to be on stage again on 3 January.
Market Confidence: Implied Title Chances
Outright prices show just how dominant Luke Littler is in the betting, with Luke Humphries rated as the one player closest to him ahead of the 2026 Ally Pally campaign.
A price just below evens reflects a field where the defending champion is still considered significantly more likely to win than all other 127 players combined.
Trading around the mid-single figures in the market, Humphries sits on his own tier as the main threat to Littler despite landing eight majors in a fiercely competitive era.
Big-Stage Pedigree: Major Titles Banked
Major silverware is a quick shorthand for how often a player converts deep runs into titles. Both Lukes arrive with stacked CVs despite operating in the strongest top tier darts has ever seen.
The teenager has swept up nine majors, often with tournament averages over 100, mirroring the dominance once associated with the very greatest names in the sport.
Humphries has added the World Masters and Premier League this year and finished runner-up in three other majors, underlining that he converts chances when he reaches the weekend stages.
Scoring Peaks: Recent Big-Stage Averages
Looking at rolling three-month numbers helps to separate one-off purple patches from sustained, elite scoring – crucial when tournaments move into longer formats after Christmas.
Sustained ton-plus scoring, even over extended formats, explains why he so often pulls clear in the second half of matches once sets and legs start to pile up.
The new European champion sits just behind Littler in recent averages, reinforcing his status as a live contender in a quarter that also includes Humphries, Wessel Nijman and Nathan Aspinall.
Yet this is far from a one-man show. The PDC Tour has produced 26 different winners across the season, and that depth means the draw is littered with dangerous floaters, form players and seasoned major champions all capable of stringing together a run if they find their range under the lights.
Storylines Across the Four Quarters
Quarter One revolves around Littler, who opens against Darius Labanauskas and sits in a section where seeds such as Joe Cullen, Damon Heta, Rob Cross, Chris Dobey and Gerwyn Price are all capable, but none have consistently matched the teenager’s standards over the longer formats this year. Price has pushed him hard at times and arrives with six titles in 2025, yet Littler has beaten the Welshman seven times on the spin, including nail-biters where Price “threw everything at him” and still came up short. Over best-of-nine sets and beyond, it will take something remarkable to remove the defending champion.
Quarter Two feels very different: a genuine “quarter of opportunity”. Stephen Bunting has six titles this year but has stumbled early in recent majors; Jonny Clayton’s average has dipped into the low-90s after a blistering start to the season; Martin Schindler and Ryan Searle have shown flashes but still have questions to answer on TV. That leaves space for the likes of Ross Smith, Dirk van Duijvenbode and Ricardo Pietreczko to impose themselves in a section where no single name carries the same aura as Littler or Humphries.
Quarter Three is arguably the most stacked. Here we find former world champion Luke Humphries, European champion Gian van Veen, the relentless Nathan Aspinall, emerging force Wessel Nijman and ultra-experienced James Wade all jostling for one semi-final berth. Humphries has added the World Masters and Premier League to his CV this year and finished runner-up in three other majors, giving him eight big titles overall. Van Veen, meanwhile, has surged into the top tier with a first major and an average of 98.66 since October – second only to Littler’s 100.51 over that stretch – while Nijman has backed up the hype with two Players Championship wins.
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Quarter Four is loaded with narrative. Michael van Gerwen arrives at one of the biggest prices he has ever been for a World Championship, yet still showed his ceiling by beating Littler to land the World Series Finals. Josh Rock brings World Cup success and a habit of raising his level against the very best, while Danny Noppert’s season has been defined by deep runs – semi-finals at the World Masters, World Grand Prix, European Championship and Grand Slam – and a newly upgraded scoring game that now sits alongside his trademark finishing calm. Add Jermaine Wattimena’s recent Players Championship semi-final and Beau Greaves’ historic potential and it is clear this is a section where reputations and careers can change quickly.
With the expanded field, an increased number of matches and the recent trend of higher averages, the stage is set not just for drama in the race for the title but also for spectacular moments such as nine-dart legs. There were two on this stage last year, and with 54 perfect legs recorded across PDC events in 2025 and seeded players playing an extra round this time, there is every chance the Ally Pally crowd are treated to more perfection over the next three weeks.
Best Bet
Here at bettingtips4you we believe in quality over quantity, so for each event we focus on a single clear prediction rather than a list of conflicting options. That way, you know exactly what our strongest view is, you do not have to sift through multiple selections, and it is easy to track whether our advice is genuinely profitable over time. For this year’s World Championship, our Best Bet is:
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Luke Humphries to win the 2026 Paddy Power World Darts Championship at 5/1
Humphries comes into this tournament with the rare blend of proven major pedigree and genuine upside that we look for when opposing an odds-on favourite. While Littler rightly dominates the headlines after becoming the youngest ever world champion and world number one, Humphries has quietly put together a season that would be headline-worthy in any other era. Two more major titles – at the World Masters and Premier League – plus three additional runner-up finishes mean he has been in the business end of televised events again and again, reinforcing the idea that his eight-title tally at the top level is no fluke.
Crucially, his game looks built for precisely the sort of long, high-pressure matches that define the post-Christmas phase at Ally Pally. He marries sustained scoring power with a balanced temperament; when the legs lengthen and the sets start to feel heavy, that combination is exactly what tends to separate champions from nearly-men. We have already seen him handle the emotional swings of tight finals, including that European Championship showdown with Gian van Veen where he missed title darts and still found a way to close the match out with a clinical 100 checkout in the decider. That kind of composure is pure gold in a World Championship environment.
The path in Quarter Three is undeniably tough on paper – with Nijman, Aspinall, van Veen and Wade all lurking – but that is precisely why a 5/1 outright price appeals. This is not a case of hoping a player gets an easy draw; it is about trusting a champion who has repeatedly come through “filthy” sections of brackets to deliver once more. Humphries is odds-on around 5/6 just to win his quarter in some opinions, which implies a high likelihood that he at least reaches the semi-finals. From there, small edges in temperament and experience under the fiercest pressure often decide things, and he possesses both.
There is also a strategic angle in the way the draw is shaped. Littler’s route from Quarter One may be gentler early on, but the very fact that he is priced at near-Power-era levels means every opponent is laser-focused on him. Should he have a rare off-night or run into a streak of unreal finishing from a player like Chris Dobey or Price, the entire top half of the market changes complexion. Humphries does not need Littler to underperform; his own numbers and title record are good enough for him to beat anyone head-to-head. But if the defending champion is knocked out or even just softened up over a gruelling epic, the reigning Sid Waddell Trophy holder in Humphries is the one most likely to exploit that opening.
We also cannot ignore the shape of the bottom half. Van Veen, Nijman and Noppert are all clearly on upward trajectories, while Van Gerwen and Rock retain the ability to hit extraordinary peaks, yet that very competitiveness can work in Humphries’ favour. The more those names take chunks out of each other, the greater the chance that the eventual finalist from that half arrives physically and mentally drained. Humphries has shown he can maintain a very high base level over entire tournaments; in a title decider against a slightly faded opponent, that reliability and rhythm become decisive.
Taken together – elite major record, battle-tested temperament, willingness to embrace a hard draw and a price that reflects the hype around Littler more than Humphries’ own achievements – 5/1 on Luke Humphries to win the 2026 World Darts Championship stands out as our single strongest play for the tournament.
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