Darts Betting Tips: Grand Slam treble for Monday’s action

Sunday's action at the Grand Slam of Darts was frenetic, with the reigning champion Luke Humphries failing to make it through the group stages.

Betfred Insights' Darts expert, Sean Rafferty, is back with his darts betting tips for Monday's Grand Slam action and a chosen treble featuring Humphries nemesis, James Wade.

Ritchie Edhouse to beat Dave Chisnall @ 1/2

This match is a bit of a dead rubber, as Edhouse has already secured qualification and all but sealed up top spot in the group, whereas Chisnall has already been eliminated, following two crushing defeats.

Chizzy occasionally posts his thoughts on his own “darting diary”, before this event he mentioned he’d been suffering from back pains which meant he was having to change his stance and the way he is throwing, which was inevitably throwing off the way his darts were entering the board and the success he was able to have scoring wise. This was an instant red flag for Chiz and perhaps explains his dip in form the last few weeks or so and it’s certainly been exposed here unfortunately.

Chiz has picked up just two legs in two matches, having lost 5-0 to Connor Scutt and 5-2 to Ross Smith, who wasn’t even firing on all cylinders himself. He averaged 93.35 against Scutt but that was with only one dart at double in the entire match, followed up with an average of just 80.45 against Smith, again with only four missed doubles so this emphasises how off the pace his scoring has been.

Edhouse should be able to throw with a sense of freedom now having already secured up his qualification to the knockout stages. It was an ugly game against Scutt yesterday, where he was a comfortable 5-2 winner but only averaged 84. He’ll look to get back to the form that saw him thrash Ross Smith 5-1 in the opening group game with a 104 average. 'Madhouse' is still pretty fresh off his sensational European Championship title win, so should have plenty of confidence, wrapping up the group with a game to spare will only further bolster this.

You’d have to think if Edhouse finds his scoring game then he has more than enough to see off Chiz who is now on a losing streak of seven matches and clearly can’t perform to his full capabilities at the moment due to an ongoing back injury. This looks a generous price of 1/2 for Ritchie to win all things considered.

James Wade to beat Rowby-John Rodriguez @ 4/9

Wadey caused an upset last night as he dumped out the tournament favourite and world number one Luke Humphries in the group stages with a game to spare. Seeing Humphries go out so soon was a shock but I wouldn’t say him losing to Wade was the biggest surprise.

The Machine has played some nice stuff recently and I did fancy him to get out the group. His chances looked to have took a massive blow when he lost 5-3 to Mickey Mansell in his group opener, despite averaging 103 himself. However he managed to put himself back in the mix with a hard-fought 5-3 win over Humphries, despite a bit of a horror show in the first couple legs that could have seen him go 3-0 down.

It’s a straight shootout between himself and Rowby-John Rodriguez tonight, with the winner progressing to the knockout stages. Rowby has exceeded the  expectations I had for him so far, having managed a shock 5-3 win over Luke Humphries in his opener. He was then in with a chance of beating Mansell when he pulled it back to 3-3 but lost out in the end. In my opinion, that was his chance to get through and he may not get a better one.

The vast experience on Wade’s side should be enough to get him over the line here, even if it is a bit of a struggle. He’ll be hoping he can show his recent scoring prowess though that has seen him get back into the top 16 and become a threat in these majors once again.

The pair met in the Grand Slam knockout stages in 2021, with Wade running out an empathic 10-2 winner on that occasion. I’m not sure this one will be quite comfortable but I have The Machine winning in this situation nine times out of 10 - he’s another backable price at 4/9 to win here.

Rob Cross to beat Peter Wright @ 4/9

Rob has left himself with work to do tonight, having surprisingly lost five legs on the spin from 3-0 up against Martin Lukeman. Cross really had one foot in the Last 16 until he had a bit of a collapse against Martin, but must still be wondering how he lost, having averaged over 10 points more than his opponent.

However, overall he did still play decent in that game, averaging high 90s. He also averaged 95 in a comfy 5-2 win over Leonard Gates in his group opener, so he’s playing to a solid enough level. A level that should be more than enough to get over the line against Peter Wright, who looks to be all at sea with his game just now.

We’ve seen the regular changing of equipment from Snakebite that we often see but I think his problems lie well beyond what darts he’s using at the moment. He looks shot of any confidence and his form is alarmingly bad as we creep ever closer to the World Championship. He threw in an absolute shocker at the opening round of the European Championship, averaging just 75 in a 6-0 defeat to Jermaine Wattimena where he had no darts at double.

He looked to have levelled this out a bit with a few more respectable performances at the last Pro Tour events but sadly his level has sank to really low levels on the TV again - averaging 84.75 in a 5-0 defeat to Lukeman, again with no darts at double. Followed up by a 5-4 defeat to Gates, averaging 83.44, which would’ve been a harsher scoreline had it not been for 17 missed darts at double for Gates.

With bottom spot in the group all but confirmed for Snakebite, I can only imagine how much he is dreading turning up tonight when he clearly doesn’t have much belief in his game at the moment. It’s a sad set of affairs for the two-time World Champ but I fully expect Rob to take full advantage.

The only negative here is Rob will already be confirmed second in the group if Lukeman beats Gates earlier in the night, which would essentially make this one a dead rubber. However I think Rob is professional enough to still get the job done and try and take some momentum into the knockout stages. Again, 4/9 seems generous given the alarmingly poor form being shown by the opponent.

Sean's treble pays 21/10 at the time of publishing, which you can load direct to slip by clicking below.

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