Betfred World Matchplay 2025 Betting Tips: Price is right in Friday’s boosted double

The Betfred World Matchplay has reached the quarter-finals at the Winter Gardens in Blackpool and there are two great games taking place on Thursday.

Our star darts tipster Sean Rafferty has picked out two angles he likes the look of that have been boosted by the Betfred traders for Thursday's action...

*You can check out all of our Betfred World Matchplay Odds over on betfred.com

Luke Littler to hit under 11.5 180s vs Andrew Gilding @ 4/6

Littler was made to work in what turned out to be a gruelling test against Jermaine Wattimena. It was widely expected that Littler would breeze through the match, given his previous dominance against Wattimena, but the youngster found himself trailing 7-2. The Nuke went into another gear to get himself back into it, winning five legs on the trot to level at 7-7, eventually running out a 12-10 winner.

It remains to be seen whether that match takes anything out of Littler, but he’ll be hoping to produce a better performance than he has previously against Gilding. In three previous meetings against Goldfinger, Luke has averaged below 96 each time, which is most unlike him. Perhaps the more methodical pace with Gilding doesn’t do him any favours, but it’s something he’ll have to overcome if he’s to get past Andrew who’s showing some brilliant form.

It was another top performance from Gilding but a far easier win, as he defeated Dirk Van Duijvenbode 11-5, despite being priced up as the outsider by bookmakers. He raced into a 5-0 lead and never looked back. That victory makes it back-to-back World Matchplay quarter-finals, as he continues to make gradual progress in the televised events after his UK Open success in 2023.

There doesn’t look to be a great amount of value in the match winner/handicaps markets, so instead I’ll opt to concentrate on the 180s - Littler is averaging 0.46 180s per leg over the past year, but only 0.30 180s per leg across his three previous matches against Gilding. To hit 12+ 180s with that rate, he’d require around 40 legs which can’t happen. Assuming the slower pace of Gilding will hamper the fluency of Littler once again, under 11.5 maximums for The Nuke looks a good bet at 4/6.

*You can check out all of Betfred's Darts Odds for the Betfred World Matchplay and all tournaments throughout the year over on betfred.com

Gerwyn Price highest checkout over 130.5 @ 21/20

Where on earth do you begin with this one? I have high hopes for this being an absolute classic, if both play to their full potential.

Price has been simply phenomenal so far this week, much like his form over the past month or two. The Iceman lit up the Winter Gardens stage on Wednesday night with a mesmeric display of scoring and finishing. He averaged 108.73 in a thumping 11-3 win over Chris Dobey - producing eight maximums in just fourteen legs and hitting 73% of his doubles. If he keeps up this form then he looks close to unbeatable, when he gets in a rhythm of pinning tops or Double 12 first dart, he’s extremely difficult to get the better of.

Rock had a much tougher time of things in his Last 16 win over Van Gerwen - Josh looked to be in a spot of bother when he trailed Mighty Mike 9-6. However, a quite stunning 152 checkout from Rocky at 9-7 turned the game on it’s head, he eventually found that elite scoring he has in the locker to overcome MVG 13-11. He’ll have to be a lot better beat Price, who he’s 4-3 down against in the head-to-head. Rocky was posted missing in the scoring phase of legs for a large part of the match, if he does the same here then he’ll likely be left for dead against an on-fire Price.

Gezzy took out a 146 finish against Dobey and threatened a couple more. I fully expect him to nail another big finish in this one, with the format extending even further to the best of 31 legs. The Iceman is bound to give himself numerous opportunities and the way he’s hitting his doubles with such efficiency, I think he’ll take a 131+ checkout out at a tasty 21/20.

You can find all Sean's latest Darts Betting Tips on our main Insights content hub.