Darts is one of the most entertaining sports in the UK and partners perfectly with betting. It is ever growing in popularity and for good reason.
The 2018 World Championship final saw a peak audience of 1.4 million people and a peak audience of 2.7 million in Germany. But, darts can be as unpredictable as any other sport and is often quite hard to bet on. Yet, you can find some great value if you put in the research and check out the smaller markets.
Darts is especially good when betting in-play or live. Games can change so fast, with just one big score turning the tide of a match. Be on the lookout for favourites losing early, but they are still throwing well. They will often get into their rhythm and come back to win the game.
If you are fairly new to betting on darts, check out some successful tipsters for betting inspiration and match previews.
Darts Markets and Betting Strategy
Darts may not have a huge number of markets compared to football, but they have more than enough to find value in a bet. I will focus on the main markets while giving you some tips for each one.
Match-winner
The match-winner market will often have terrible odds for the favourites in darts. But, for the close matches, there can be value. Check players recent form and how they play on stage. Some professionals struggle to hit their best form in TV events and often crash out in the early stages of the tournaments. Also, check their head to head record against each other. Sometimes it can show a big win percentage in favour of a player. For example, Michael Van Gerwen has a 94.12% win percentage against Darren Webster after meeting him 17 times and winning 16 while losing just 1.
Sets/legs totals
Depending on the tournament, professionals with either play to a set amount of sets or legs. Totals can provide good value if you think a player will cruise the match, or if it looks too tight to call. If you think a player will cruise the match, you will often get better odds on their being under a set amount of legs/sets than them to win outright. Similarly, if you think the match will be tight, placing a high leg/set total can give much better odds than picking a winner.
Most 180’s/total 180’s
Look at the stats when it comes to this market as you can often find great value. Of course, other factors will influence their 180 scoring, but most of the time the big hitters stay consistent at the top level.
If you can’t decide who will hit the most 180’s, it’s probably a good idea to look at the match totals instead.
