The biggest event in the darts calendar is almost upon us. The PDC World Championship begins at the Alexandra Pavilion and has a total prize pool of £1.65 million this year. The question is, will anyone stop the two-time reigning champion Gary Anderson from making it a hat-trick of wins? The player in form this year has clearly been the Dutch wizard Michael van Gerwen. The Flying Dutchman has almost been winning tournaments at will and in 2016; very few players have been able to stop him.
Can Anybody Stop Van Gerwen
All of the major bookies have Van Gerwen at odds-on with Paddy Power being 8-11. Despite his massive success this year, that price does seem like poor value. What tends to happen in markets like these is that the price is too low simply based on previous successes and over reaction in the market. The same thing happened with Phil Taylor a few years ago. Taylor lost enough world championships to mean that opposing him at such short odds was a viable strategy.
Michael van Gerwen is by no means a certainty to win this event. He has failed to reach the final of the last two world championships. He did win the world title back in 2014 but has performed poorly by his standards since then. Gary Anderson is second favourite at an interesting 13-2 with BoyleSports. Many people believe that he isn’t in the right form to challenge van Gerwen as he has only picked up one decent title all year outside of retaining the world title in January.
Can Somebody Come Through the Field?
If there is one lesson that we can take from past results in this tournament and it is that outsiders haven’t done too well. It has always been the big established names that have either won it or contested the final. So if you want to pick a winner then staying with the top eight in the world is a sensible policy. Moving away from the big names just seems like wasting money.
Phil Taylor can be backed as high as 11-1 with BoyleSports who also quote the same odds for Peter Wright. Outside of these top four players, the next bunch of players in the betting order are around the 33-1 mark. This is a clear sign that the bookies simply do not rate the rest of the field when it comes to winning the world title.
If you want to find value at the PDC, a one point bet on both Anderson and Van Gerwen will show you a nice profit if Anderson wins and only a small loss should Michael van Gerwen win the event after Christmas. In fact, if you are artful with your staking levels then you will show a profit regardless of which of them wins.
