Darts Betting Advice

Darts provides excellent entertainment for sports betting fans and is a very spectator friendly sport for television. Each year around Christmas and New Year we enjoy watching first the PDC World Championships which features most of the big name professionals like Phil “The Power” Taylor and Raymond van Barneveld then the BDO championships which are the rival organisation filled with the regional and county players.

Darts betting is a fun way of taking part in the live matches which can be very close and entertaining. The crowd at the “Ally Pally” (Alexandra Palace) where the tournament takes place are amazing and really make the occasion. Here are some betting tips and advice for making the most of your darts betting.

Let’s look at the different bets you can place by using the match to be played tonight between Phil Taylor and Robert Thornton as an example. Most of the other live matches have similar bets although the handicaps may be slightly different.

Phil Taylor 1.02 versus Robert Thornton 10.00

The above odds are from bwin.com and of course Phil Taylor is a massive favourite to win the match due to him winning 14 World Darts Championships during his amazing career. Rather than betting on the match result you can look at some of the other bets (although some would consider 1.02 value such is Taylor’s domination of Darts!)

You can bet on who has the highest check out in the match. The highest check out in Darts is 170 where the player hits two consecutive treble twenties with their first two darts then the bullseye with the third dart. Because Taylor is heavy favourite for the match he is favourite at 1.29 to have the highest check out due to the expectation that he wins more legs. Thornton is 3.40 and the draw is 26.00.

Taylor is very good at hitting 180’s and Thornton is a top player also. Similar to corners betting in football you can bet on the over/under of 180’s in a match. Bwin have set the over/under for this match at 8.5. If you think the match will have more than 8.5 (9 or more basically) 180’s scored you can bet on that with odds of 1.60. Less than 8.5 180’s have odds of 2.20. You can also bet on the first player to score a 180 in the match and who will win the first set.

Some of the more obscure special bets include which colour bed the winning double will be at the end of leg 1. If Taylor, for example, wins the leg and uses double 16 as his winning double, bets on the green bed would win. If Taylor (or Thornton) wins the leg with double 20, 10, or 18 then red wins. As the more common doubles in red are 20, 10, 8, 18, 12 and green 16, 4, 5 and 1 you can see that more common doubles are red, but players accurately hitting double 16 ensure there are plenty of green bed wins. At 2.60 betting green could be a good bet as Taylor uses double 16 a lot. You can also have a separate bet on exactly which double will be used to win the first leg of the match.

Another very popular bet available is the handicap. The odds for this match are:

Phil Taylor -3.5 1.75 Robert Thornton +3.5 1.95

The match is a race to four sets so if Taylor wins 4-0 you would win the bet at 1.75 with the handicap. Personally I think Thornton is good enough to win one set from Taylor but only one, however I would be happier betting on Taylor who is likely to average over 103 for the match to win each set. Opponents can play well and still win no sets against Taylor and many allow him to win thanks to giving up feeling helpless against him.

Darts betting is a fun way to enjoy the live Darts on television. The BDO championships follow the PDC championships so there are plenty of darts betting opportunities to be wagered on during the next few weeks.

By Malcolm Clarke