New Zealand Darts Masters 2024 Predictions: ‘Iceman’ to go back-to-back?

The PDC continues its march towards the World Championships, as we head to Hamilton for the New Zealand Darts Masters, which runs from Friday 16th to Saturday 17th June.

As always, we've asked our darts expert Sean Rafferty to preview the event and give us his New Zealand Darts Masters Predictions.

History, Location and Format

The 2024 New Zealand Darts Masters is the fourth staging of this PDC event and is the seventh event in the World Series of Darts.

The tournament is held at the Globox Arena in Hamilton, New Zealand, with this year's event running from the 16th to 17th August and will be shown on ITVX, Viaplay and PDCTV.

The field is comprised of eight top ranking players from the PDC Order of Merit and then eight regional qualifiers.

The draw sees the PDC Order of Merit players taking on a local player in the first round.

Prize Money

There is a total prize fund of £60,000 on offer to the 16 participants.

Draw

3 units Gerwyn Price to win @ 7/2

'Gezzy' came up trumps last week, winning the Australian Darts Masters from somewhat out of the blue and he now looks to go back-to-back in NZ. He’ll now be using these events as a platform to get his confidence back, having had a relatively quiet time of it this year in terms of silverware by his standards.

Despite his below par form, the World Series has been the place he’s enjoyed some success - he’s now made the final of the last three World Series events, winning the latter two. He’s also made at least the semi finals in all six World Series events to date this year, so is showing some real consistency at getting to the business end in them. The Welshman also won this event in 2022, so has good memories here.

He averaged higher 90s in last weeks event and similar here could get him over the line, as there were some indifferent performances from some of the big boys it has to be said. He faces a potentially tricky tie against Ben Robb in the opening round, however he should come through that, then would face Peter Wright or Daniel Snookes.

It looks like a fairly generous path to the semi final stage again. Cross and Heta are the main threats to Gezzy in this half of the draw but neither of them looked on song last week. I predict another strong week for 'The Iceman' on the World Series.

2 units Michael Smith to win @ 10/1

I’ve rarely been a backer of 'Bully Boy' over the past 18 months, if at all. However, I do feel he could slowly be creeping back towards the form that saw him have so much success at the back end of 2022 and he still sits at a backable price.

Only a sensational performance from Luke Littler stopped Smith going deep last week and he probably should have won that match having been 3-1 up, with missed doubles letting him down in the end, as he only hit 4/13.

Prior to this, he went on an impressive run to the semi finals of the World Matchplay, which included dominant wins over Rob Cross and Gary Anderson, as well as beating Chris Dobey. He’s made the semis of four of the six World Series events this year and while he’s yet to make a final, I’m hoping he can make that next step this time round.

On paper, the draw looks tough for Smith with him being in the same half as Littler and Humphries. However, if he beats Jeremy Fagg in the opening round, which he should, he likely faces Luke Humphries who put in two of the worst performances I’ve seen from him in the last 12 months last week, looking very much out of sorts.

Bully Boy has also beaten Humphries in three of their last four meetings and he enjoys a similarly decent record against Luke Littler, who he could well meet in the semis.

Smith is another player I feel could really benefit from winning on the World Series to give his confidence a boost overall. I'm happy to jump on him this week.

New Zealand Darts Masters Odds

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