PDC World Darts Championship 2024 Winner Odds: Which of the Lukes will get it done?

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It's finally arrived! With Christmas comes the darts and it's the big one. The PDC World Darts Championship returns on Sunday which takes place at the iconic Ally Pally and runs right up until the final on January 3rd.

As always, we've asked our in-form darts expert Sean Rafferty to preview this massive occasion and as well as regular daily previews and boosted odds, he's here to give us his PDC World Darts Championship Predictions and exactly who he thinks will pick up the Sid Waddell Trophy in a few weeks time.

History, Location and Format

The 2025 PDC World Darts Championship is the 32nd running of this most prestigious of PDC events, having debuted in 1994, following the split in professional darts and the formation of the PDC away from the existing BDO World Darts Championship.

The tournament is held at the iconic Alexandra Palace, London, with this year's event running from Sunday December 15th to Monday January 3rd and will be shown exclusively on SKY Sports in the UK.

The field of 92 is comprised from the top 32 on the PDC Order of Merit seeded into the second round, as well as the 32 qualifiers form the ProTour and 32 regional qualifiers who are drawn against each other in the first round

There have been several multiple winners of this tournament including Phil Taylor (fourteen times), who won the first 11 of the first thirteen stagings, as well as Michael van Gerwen (three), Gary Anderson, Peter Wright, Adrian Lewis and John Part (twice).

The defending champion is Englishman Luke Humphries, who defeated his compatriot Luke Littler 7-4 in sets in the 2024 final.

Prize Money

The tournament is comfortably the richest in darts, with a total prize fund of £2,500,000 on offer to the 96 participants.

Draw

World Darts Championship Odds

5 units Luke Humphries to win @ 10/3

I was always likely to have Humphries as my headline pick and I’m glad to see we’re getting a decent price for him. Luke Littler’s recent Grand Slam title victory saw Humphries odds drift and he now sits in the market as second favourite at 10/3, compared to 15/8 for Littler.When tipping up Humphries, I always tend to compare him to Littler and rightly so, there’s no arguing they are the two top dogs in the world of darts at the moment.

I usually feel Humphries should be the favourite over Littler and I think that once again here. Humphries has enjoyed more success in the ranked majors this year - winning the World Matchplay and Players Championship Finals, as well as reaching the final of the UK Open, World Grand Prix and Premier League. The only time he’s departed early in a major this year was the Grand Slam last month, he’s massively consistent at reaching the business end of the biggest tournaments. Littler won the Premier League and was outstanding in winning the Grand Slam, but suffered early round exits at the World Matchplay, World Grand Prix and European Championship.

One big plus point is Humphries holds the upper hand with his handy B-game - Cool Hand was by no means at his best in his recent win at the Players Championship Finals in Minehead, struggling to break away from averaging in the mid-90s, yet nobody got particularly close to beating him on his route to the final, then upped his game when it really mattered as he averaged 103.69 in his 11-7 win over Littler in the final.

Winning when not at his best is a big reason behind Humphries’ success in recent times, he really had to dig in on a couple occasions in his World Championship success last year against Ricardo Pietreczko and Joe Cullen, so he’s shown he can dig deep even when his back’s against the wall.

Humphries has a pretty easy passage to the last 16 stage in my opinion - he's likely to play Thibault Tricole in the last 64 which should be a straightforward win. The biggest name he can face in the last 32 is Raymond van Barneveld, who in my opinion is one of the weakest seeds in the draw. Luke would brush him aside with ease I reckon. By last 16 stage it’s best of seven sets, so he’ll become harder to beat then QF best of nine. The longer the format the harder Cool Hand will be to beat.

Only a handful of players have previously lifted World titles in consecutive years and I think Humphries is ready to join that elite bunch of players in the history books.

2.5 units Gary Anderson to win @ 10/1

I've been mulling over this one for at least a month now and could not get away from The Flying Scotsman in the end. It’s been a mightily impressive year for Gary and a real step back towards being a major contender for all these big tournaments. He’s consistently been the top performer on the Pro Tour throughout the year - he tops the Pro Tour averages and overall averages list over the past 12 months. He made three Pro Tour finals this year, winning two of them. He never travelled to Euro Tours previously but did a couple this year, he got his reward when he won the European Darts Grand Prix in Sindelfingen.

The only thing missing for him that I wanted ticked off was a recent deep run in a major, which he managed to achieve at the Grand Slam last month, his first really notable run in a while in a big event. The Scot lit up the group stages with averages as high as 105 and 113, he averaged 99+ in five of his six matches at the event. He eventually lost out 16-15 to Luke Littler in arguably the match of the year in the semi finals. Gary had control of the match until a late surge from Littler saw it slip away for him, but it was so encouraging to see him go toe-to-toe with an elite player over a longer format and shows he still has what it takes.

One massive advantage for Anderson is his love for the Ally Pally. Going by his record here that is, only Phil Taylor and Michael Van Gerwen arguably have a more impressive record in the PDC Worlds. Ando has of course lifted the trophy twice in 2015 and 2016. In addition to this, he made finals in 2011, 2017 and 2021. The 2021 run wasn’t as expected and in my opinion he comes in with far better form this time round.

Everything just seems to be falling into place nicely for Anderson for this World Championship, he’s just got to go up there now and produce the level he has done all year. He’s talking confidently and is playing with an almost carefree attitude which makes him so dangerous. The word on the street is he’s continuing to post crazy numbers at exhibitions in recent weeks so comes here in cracking form. This could be his best chance to pick up a third World title which I’m sure he so dearly wants. All things considered, 10/1 is a brilliant price.

1 unit Mike De Decker e/w (1/4 - 4 Places) @ 28/1

Another one I was pretty much decided on for over a month, which is why I’ve decided to stick with him, despite being in Humphries’ quarter of the draw. I was decided on the Belgian whilst watching his last 16 match against Luke Littler at the Grand Slam last month. He was giving as good as he got in what was a thrilling match, where he lost 10-9 in the end with a jeering crowd, arguably playing it’s part in that unfortunately.

However he didn’t collapse to give the match away, he still averaged 104.5 over 19 legs in that match. Equally as impressive was the 5-0 drubbing he handed out to Michael Smith in the final group stage match, it was a winner goes through match and he held himself together far better to blow away Bully Boy, not allowing him a single dart at double.

This was all in the aftermath of winning his first major tournament, going onto win the World Grand Prix in October. He overcame Luke Humphries 6-4 in the final, again in a big pressure situation and had to fend off a comeback from the world number one. This has to have given him so much belief in his ability that he belongs at the top, it was a very quick follow-up to winning his maiden PDC ranking title on the Pro Tour in the summer.

When on form he really is a strong scorer and one of the best at following the first dart when it’s plumb in the treble. His Grand Prix win showed his doubles can be very reliable, so he has all the skills required to have a realistic chance of winning this.

It is a pretty daunting section of the draw he faces - a likely path for the Belgian is LukeWoodhouse, Connor Scutt/Damon Heta, Stephen Bunting/ DirkVan Duijvenbode, Humphries. That’s just to reach the semi finals, so he’s got it pretty tough but we’ve established he can beat anybody now and the big matches on the big stages don’t phase him any more, whereas he’s previously stated in the past that this was an obstacle he was still trying to overcome. The Real Deal has never gone further than the last 32 here, so probably won’t set himself any big targets for this as he’s pretty humble.

He’ll quietly go about his business but if he can hit the ground running early doors against some high class opponents then it could set himself up well for further down the line in the tournament. The Premier League could well be on the horizon for The Real Deal and one big run at this will surely put him well in contention for being offered a spot. This could be a career changing couple of weeks for De Decker and I’m expecting a strong showing from him at 28/1.

0.75 units Rob Cross e/w (1/4 - 4 Places) @ 40/1

To be honest, I just can't get my head around the 40/1 price for Cross to win his second World title. I backed him at 16/1 best price for this last year, so sure as hell I’m all over 40s on Voltage. Albeit he probably hasn’t had as quite a good a year as expected, given how impressive he was in the last few months of 2023.

He’s a constant threat in these majors and I do believe he holds it together better than most on the big stage and performs to a higher level than he does on the Pro Tour. He’s still managed to pick up a couple of titles this year on the World Series and Euro Tour and showed some decent consistency in the majors - making the QFs of the UK Open, World Matchplay, World Grand Prix and Grand Slam.

Of course, he went on a brilliant run to the semi finals here last year, which included one of the best comebacks in World Championship history - beating Chris Dobey 5-4 from four sets down in the QFs, showcasing his never say die attitude, which again is so much stronger than most. Only a brilliant performance from Luke Littler in the semi finals could stop him from reaching his second World final, he averaged 103 in that match and it could have been a different story if Littler wasn’t as good as he was that night.

Speaking of Littler, he’s the player to beat in Cross’ section and Voltage will potentially have to get past him to make the semis. This will be part of the reason for his big odds, as well as having a tricky opening match against one of Niko Springer or Scott Williams, both of whom are very capable and should prove a stiff test for Crossy. Cross did beat his good friend Williams here a couple years ago, Williams appeared to show him too much respect on that occasion which could be worth noting. Rob is good for just playing the board and not giving two monkeys who he’s up against, he won’t be phased by any elite names thankfully, as he’ll need to get past a few here.

I still think there’s more to come from Cross, he’s won a few majors already but his loving for the big stages make me think there could be many more to come and he still has more levels to unlock. This was a no brainer selection at a huge 40/1.

Darts Odds

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