Premier League Darts 2026 Outright Predictions: Bunting to finish rock bottom

There appears to be no stopping a certain Mr Littler in the world of darts right now as he picked up his 11th major title at the age of just 19 at the weekend. But can anyone stop him in the upcoming 16-week long marathon that is the Premier League?

Our resident darts tipster Sean Rafferty is staying away from the main winner market and prefers to look at a couple of different angles. Here are his Premier League Darts 2026 Predictions...

History, Location and Format

The 2026 Premier League Darts is the 22nd running of this PDC event and was first held in 2005.

The weekly event is once again being held all over the UK and Europe and runs from Thursday, February 5th to Thursday, May 28th. It will be aired on Sky Sports in the UK.

The top four players in the order of merit qualified automatically, with the remaining four players chosen by the PDC. Each night the eight players will take part in a straight knockout event, with the nightly winner picking up extra points as well as the winners cheque. At the end of the 15 weeks, the top four progress through to finals night.

There have been three multiple champions of this event, with Michael van Gerwen a seven time champ, Phil Taylor with six and Gary Anderson a two-time winner.

The defending champion is Luke Humphries, who defeated his World Cup team mate Luke Littler 11-8 in the 2025 final.

Prize Money

There is a prize fund of £1,250,000 on offer to the with participants, with £350,000 to the winner.

2.5 units Michael van Gerwen to reach the semi-finals @ 10/11

Van Gerwen has had a glittering career to date, but you could argue that the Premier League has been the most fruitful tournament for him - Mighty Mike has been victorious a record-breaking seven times on Finals Night, bettering the six titles won by the great Phil Taylor. MVG generally boasts a very consistent record in the tournament, reaching Finals Night 11 times in 13 previous Premier League appearances.

You could definitely argue that the competition is fiercer than ever in the Premier League - you have the Luke's (Humphries and Littler) who almost feel like a shoe-in to reach Finals Night, which leaves just two more spots in the top four up for grabs. Gerwyn Price is always a danger, Gian van Veen and Josh Rock make their debuts and are more than good enough to put themselves in the mix. Jonny Clayton is another who returns to the line-up, he also has a great record in the Premier League, making Finals Night on all three occasions he’s played in it and has won it once.

So it could be very competitive in the battle for the top four and it won’t surprise me if it comes down to the wire on Night 16. Van Gerwen is in good shape ahead of this though, more so than the last couple years in my opinion. He enjoyed a successful start to the new season, winning the Bahrain Masters and finishing runner-up at the following event in Saudi Arabia. He did suffer a disappointing opening round defeat against Damon Heta at the World Masters last weekend, but that gives him plenty time to prepare for the opening night and I can see him enjoying a strong start to the league, which could prove crucial down the line. He has experience and bottle in abundance, that’ll prove the difference between making it to the O2 Arena in London or not I think and should see him squeeze into the top four come May.

4 units Stephen Bunting to finish bottom of the league @ 5/4

This was an easier selection for me to decide on and is arguably the best value around out of all the outright markets. You’ll notice above when I was talking about the competitiveness in the battle for a top four spot, I mentioned everyone apart from Stephen Bunting. He’s the only one who I can’t see many positives for in the lead-up to this year’s Premier League.

The form of Stephen in the ranked major events has been a concern for a while now and it’s only been heightened by weak performances recently - The Bullet has failed to go beyond the third round in any of the last six major tournaments and hasn’t gone beyond the quarter-finals in any of the last eleven “premier” televised events.

In my opinion, there seems to have been a slight shift in how he’s putting himself across in interviews recently, putting a lot of his concentration into how he’s perceived by the public, when in all honesty I think it’s distracting him from what matters most, playing darts and putting all his focus in that. It’s led to some unpopularity with some darts fans and it’ll be interesting to see what sort of reception he gets from crowds.

The recent form and performances are my main worry for Stephen just now though - he suffered a humiliating 4-0 sets defeat to Danny Noppert at the World Masters last weekend, winning just one leg in the match. His finishing is massively letting him down, hitting less than 30% of his doubles in four of his last six matches. He’s also averaged below 100 in all of his last 17 matches, a worrying stat for someone who’s usually such a big scorer.

He finished bottom of last year’s Premier League when he was showing better form, he also finished bottom on his only other Premier League appearance in 2015. Unless things improve drastically, it could be a long few months for Bunting. 5/4 looks great value for him to finish bottom of the pile.

Click the link for all the latest Darts Odds

Find more Darts Betting Tips here at Betfred Insights