Darts Betting Tips: Boosted Double for Saturday’s semis

It's the semi-finals of the Betfred World Matchplay at Winter Gardens in Blackpool on Saturday, as Gerwyn Price takes on Gian van Veen at 8pm (BST) before the champ Luke Littler faces surprise package Dirk van Duijvenbode at 9.30pm.

To celebrate our continued headline sponsorship, we've boosted our darts tipster Sean Rafferty's selections, as we've done throughout the tournament. Read on for his Betfred World Matchplay semi-final tips.

Highest Checkout Over 140.5 (Price vs Van Veen)

Both have had their troubles this week and it would be fair to say neither have been at their very best, but they’ve still found their way to the semis which is testament to how good they are. It’s a first World Matchplay semi-final as he enters uncharted territory in Blackpool, Price plays in the final four for just the second time here, in what is his 12th Matchplay appearance.

Price has gradually grown into this tournament, improving each round - his averages so far read as 93.88 vs Schindler (R1), 97.84 vs Cross (L16) and 102.78 vs R. Smith (QF). It was a comfortable 16-12 victory for The Iceman over Ross Smith last night, he could never quite get rid of Ross but he always looked in control and never trailed in the match after the third leg. He’ll be hoping for much of the same here which I reckon would be enough to get the job done.

Van Veen wasn’t massively fancied coming into this tournament as his form has seesawed since undergoing surgery for kidney stones a few months ago, he’s never quite recaptured the confidence he had from the second half of 2025, but he remains a tough opponent to get rid of. The young Dutchman has been good at “doing enough” this week, he’s still been far from his A-game but he’s played the opponents this week and done whatever’s required to get over the line, seeing off three tough opponents in Ratajski, Nijman and Wade.

With very little separating the success of the two players over the course of the last year or two, it’s a surprise to see the head-to-head is so one-sided - The Iceman’s had the reading of Gian thus far, with a dominant 13-3 winning record against him.

Despite struggling for large spells with his scoring, the finishing and doubles from Van Veen have continued to be lethal - The Giant is currently running at 55.56% on his doubles across 71 legs played this week, a mightily impressive success rate. He’s not been shy of a big finish either - GVV’s checkouts this week have included 160 x2, 148, 144 x2 and 135. Gezzy pinned a 161 checkout and is usually reliable for a show-stopping checkout at some point in these lengthy matches. At 8/13, you have to imagine that a checkout of over 140.5 will get popped at some point between two top quality operators over such a long format.

Over 20.5 Total 180s (Littler vs Van Duijvenbode)

The chat continues to be Littler versus the field in terms of who will lift the title on Sunday night, the general consensus is that it will be back-to-back Matchplay crowns for the ever impressive World number one. Next up for the teenager is Dirk Van Duijvenbode, who’s in the sane boat as his fellow countryman Van Veen as he gets ready to compete in his first ever World Matchplay semi-final.

I’ve said it a thousand times before but Littler never ceases to amaze me, I suppose we should be accustomed to it by now but The Nuke continues to break records for fun and he’s now looking at winning his second World Matchplay title with a record-breaking tournament average. His tournament average currently sits at an astonishing 110.88, which is blowing Phil Taylor’s record of 106.30 in 2010 out of the water as it stands. Luke’s “lowest” average of the week is 109.53 and the scary thing is he looks like he could still go up another gear.

Fair play to Dirk - he definitely wasn’t on many punters’ lists for a deep run this week but he’s seen off three big names in Dobey, Van Gerwen and Anderson. None of those wins came easy - the widest margin he’s won by this week is three legs, so he’s definitely been put through the wringer more so than Littler to get to this stage. My concern for the Dutchman is that he has shown nerves at points in all of those matches - if there’s a hint of any nerves here then I think Littler will eat him for breakfast.

With Littler understandably being priced so short in most markets, I had to have a good think about what angle to take with this match. One likelihood with Van Duijvenbode is that he’s probably going to smash in the 180s - The Aubergenius is averaging 0.35 180s per leg over the last three months, combine this with Littler’s 180 hitting rate and it comes to 0.84 180s per leg. If they continue at that rate together, 25 legs will be enough to hit over 20.5 180s between them. With the form Littler’s in, we probably won’t even need that amount of legs to see us reach that target.

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