Who Are the Players to Watch in Darts Premier League 2025?
Luke Littler is 11/8 favourite to win Darts 2025’s Premier League, but 14/1 Stephen Bunting is in red-hot form.
Stephen Bunting has hit form ahead of the 2025 BetMGM Premier League. © Kelly Deckers/PDC
Key Facts:
- £1 BetMGM Premier League Darts begins this week.
- Luke Littler is the 11/8 competition favourite.
- Bahrain Darts Masters winner Stephen Bunting is in red-hot form.
- Gerwyn Price’s poor Premier League form makes him a player to avoid.
2025’s BetMGM Premier League Darts tournament will begin this Thursday. Belfast’s 10,800-seater SSE Arena will host the first of 17 nights of action where reigning World Champion Luke Littler versus seven-time Premier League winner Michael van Gerwen is a stand-out clash. It could set the tone for the entire £1 million competition.
The Premier League is like no other darts tournament. Players must maintain a strong level of form for much of its four-month duration to reach the Play-Off stages (the final four). Then, for one night only, they must be at their devastating best in the cauldron, The O2, London, for two matches played over ‘the best of’ 19 and 21 leg formats.
Predicting the well-being of any athlete months into the future is no easy task in any sport. Darts is no different. Form students are acutely aware that the winner of the preceding World Championship has gone on to claim the Premier League title just once in the past seven years.
Premier League Betting Value and Best Bets
Here, we look at the current form and profile of all eight contenders for this year’s Premier League Darts competition. Our preview includes outright competition betting and considers where the value may lie amongst the odds offered by the best online betting sites.
Luke Littler
The 11/8 competition favourite topped the points table in last year’s Premier League and promptly collected the title with a 10-5 semi-final drubbing of Michael Smith and an 11-7 verdict over Luke Humphries in the final.
Success in January’s World Championship is a negative on form, and the past few weeks could have gone better for Littler. First-round Bahrain Darts Masters’ success over Filipino player Lourence Ilagan was followed by a 2-6 loss to Gerywn Price. Afterwards, Stephen Bunting eliminated him at the semi-final stage of the Dutch Darts Masters.
Littler did win four of 16 weekly Premier League fixtures in 2024. However, it was not until week 9 that he found the winner’s circle. The teenager was beaten in his opening match just three times throughout the competition. So, he clearly likes the format.
Luke Humphries
Humphries, the Premier League 11/4 second favourite, ended his outstanding 2024 campaign with a disappointing showing in the World Championship. He had been outstanding during the year, so has his form dipped?
This month, Stephen Bunting got the better of him in the semi-final of the Bahrain Darts Masters, and he was well short of his best when beaten 6-3 by Jermaine Wattimena in the Netherlands a week ago. Based on this evidence, online bookmakers’ 11/4 quote makes minimal appeal.
On the bright side, Luke Humphries also won four Premier League fixtures in 2024, and his leg difference was +40 – the highest of all players. The 2024 World Champion is also the only player to truly go toe-to-toe with Luke Littler during the past 12 months.
Michael van Gerwen
Eleven appearances in the Premier League have yielded the Dutchman nine visits to the final, producing seven victories. This level of consistency makes his 11/2 odds very attractive – especially to each-way players with teams of 1/3rd the odds for a 1-2 finish.
Van Gerwen (MVG) skipped the Bahrain event at the start of January and got stung 6-3 by Luke Littler in the second round of the Dutch Masters. Littler is quickly becoming MVG’s Achilles, and his defeat to the younger rival in the World Final would have hurt.
Nevertheless, it was honours even in the 2024 Premier League, with six regular-week face-offs delivering three wins apiece. Ultimately, MVG is never one to dismiss lightly, and while not as deadly as he once was, he will probably have a big say-so in proceedings.
Stephen Bunting
Posting an outstanding 105 average during an impressive run to the semi-final of the World Championship, Bunting will have many supporters at his 14/1 Premier League odds. The 39-year-old spent a decade world-ranked between 16 and 24, but now he is up to fifth and, claiming the 2024 Masters, is the winner of a TV major.
Winner of the Bahrain Darts Masters in mid-January and a finalist in the subsequent Dutch Darts Masters, Bunting is in red-hot form. He is a very different player from the 2015 version of himself, which endured a miserable time in the Premier League during his only previous appearance.
Gerwyn Price
Price’s fortunes are headed in the opposite direction. World ranked number one at the end of 2021, he is now tenth, and the Welshman never progressed beyond the fourth round in a TV major in 2024. He’s 16/1 to buck the trend and win the 2025 Premier League.
Bunting beat Price 8-4 in the Bahrain final, and Price reached the semis a week after in Holland. That is reasonable form, but Price has traditionally been very poor in the Premier League. He finished seventh in 2022 and 2024, but in 2018 – when ten players were in the tournament – he finished last without winning a single match.
Chris Dobey
Ranked a career-best 15 at the end of the 2024 season, Chris Dobey has done well to make the Premier League field. He has reached just one TV major final during his career – the January 2023 Masters, which he won.
That success gave Dobey his only Premier League appearance when he finished seventh with 15 losses and eight wins in 2023. Resultantly, he is 22/1 to win this year’s competition. A 6-0 loss to Stephen Bunting in Bahrain (with an 84 average) and first-round defeat by veteran Raymond Van Barneveld in the Netherlands last week make Dobey odds appear skinny.
Rob Cross
Consistency has never been Cross’s friend. A case in point is his first-round loss to little-known Paolo Nebrida in Bahrain on January 16 when he posted an 82.3 average in defeat. Nine days later, he collected the Dutch Darts Master trophy with an 8-5 final victory over Stephen Bunting, recording a 101.9 average!
A top-10 ranked player for seven consecutive years, Cross is a class act on his day. Those days are hard to predict. They are not Thursdays, as he has only finished ahead of four rivals in the final league standings in his last three Premier League appearances!
Online betting sites have not gone down with a dose of generosity in offering 25/1 about the 2018 World Champion showing a sudden love affair with the Premier League and taking 2025’s title.
Nathan Aspinall
At 40/1, it could be argued that Aspinall is better betting value than Chris Dobey. He has won two TV majors. He has been ranked in the top 11 for five of the past six years and has missed the Play Off stages of the last two Premier Leagues by just one spot.
A winner of two weekly finals in last year’s League – and one of just four players to finish with a positive leg difference – Aspinall seems custom-made for this format, and the stats suggest he could outplay his odds.
Our 2025 Premier League Conclusion
Littler is the rightful outright competition favourite, but the key stats are against him. Based on his current form, his 11/8 odds may drift out following a few poor results that could be attributed to a post-World Championship hangover.
Luke Humphries is also short enough in the early Premier League betting. Has he endured a form blip – a fourth-round World Championship defeat could not have been envisaged – or has he stalled?
MVG is reliable in this competition. That fact is reflected in his odds. But it is Stephen Bunting who is currently enjoying the most significant upward form trajectory. He could easily go on a hot streak and, like Aspinall, outplay his competition odds.
Premier League Dates
- Night 1 – The SSE Arena, Belfast – February 6
- Night 2 – OVO Hydro, Glasgow – February 13
- Night 3 – 3Arena, Dublin – February 20
- Night 4 – Westpoint Exeter – February 27
- Night 5 – The Brighton Centre – March 6
- Night 6 – Motorpoint Arena – March 13
- Night 7 – Utilita Arena, Cardiff – March 20
- Night 8 – Utilita Arena, Newcastle – March 27
- Night 9 – Uber Arena, Berlin – April 3
- Night 10 – AO Arena, Manchester – April 10
- Night 11 – Rotterdam Ahoy, Rotterdam – April 17
- Night 12 – M&S Bank Arena, Liverpool – April 24
- Night 13 – Utilita Arena, Birmingham – May 1
- Night 14 – First Direct Arena, Leeds – May 8
- Night 15 – P&J Live, Aberdeen – May 15
- Night 16 – Utilita Arena, Sheffield – May 22
- Play-Offs – The O2, London – May 29
The BetMGM Premier League is broadcast exclusively live on Sky Sports on Thursday nights. Coverage begins at 7 pm.
