World Matchplay Outright Tips

The 33rd staging of the World Matchplay takes place from July 18 to 26 at the Winter Gardens in Blackpool.

For the first time in the event's history, the total prize fund will hit seven figures, with £1 million up for grabs and the winner taking home £225,000.

The last nine renewals have produced nine different champions, but it's odds-on for that trend to end this time. Defending champion Luke Littler leads the betting at Evens to retain his crown, with 2024 winner Luke Humphries next in line at 4/1.

Between them, they’ve mopped up the lion’s share of major titles over the past two and a half years, and combined to become World Cup champions with England last month.

Their most recent appearance came at the US Darts Masters at Madison Square Garden, where they were again a cut above the rest of the field. They met in the final, with Humphries edging out ‘The Nuke’ 8-7.

That's not to say they can't be beaten. Humphries suffered a first-round defeat at the hands of Gian van Veen last year, while Littler exited at the first hurdle against Michael van Gerwen in 2024.

There are no easy draws in this 32-man field, but Littler has been handed one of the kinder routes and isn't someone tipster Ben Smith is looking to oppose with his four selections using odds from BetMGM, one of the best darts betting sites for this tournament.

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James Wade to Win the World Matchplay (Each-Way 40/1)

Littler will be happy with his first-round draw against Niko Springer, while he has generally had the measure of potential second-round opponent Nathan Aspinall.

Humphries, on the other hand, faces a tougher path. He opens against Cameron Menzies, who won Players Championship 23 last week, before a potential meeting with either Ross Smith or the much-improved Kevin Doets. That's before the prospect of facing Gerwyn Price or Rob Cross. More on Voltage shortly.

Ultimately, I'm happy to take a chance on a couple of players in this half in the hope that Humphries is dealt with. The fourth quarter looks the place to start, with Gian van Veen, the top seed in that section, enduring a tough spell by his standards. His average across the last four months is below 94, a significant drop from the 97.98 he produced throughout 2025.

Fellow Dutchman Wessel Nijman is the favourite to win the quarter, and it's easy to see why. He sits second on the year-to-date Order of Merit, just £7,000 behind Littler, after winning six Pro Tour titles and two European Tour crowns in 2026.

At some point, it will surely happen for Nijman on television, but it hasn't happened yet. With the ever-reliable James Wade lurking in this section, it's a pretty straightforward decision as to where my vote is going.

Two decades on from his maiden Matchplay final, the 2007 champion remains capable of a deep run at any major. He reached the semi-finals here in 2024 before going one better by making his seventh Winter Gardens final last season.

Wade has shown he can still mix it with the best, reaching the UK Open final in March, and his numbers have been steady enough in recent months for me to commit to a small investment at 40/1 each-way.

Rob Cross to Win the World Matchplay (Each-Way 40/1)

My second each-way interest comes in the shape of another former champion, with Cross hitting his stride at the ideal time.

By the numbers, Voltage has performed at a top-five level in the world over the past two months, averaging over 97 since his run to the semi-finals of the Austrian Darts Open in early May. That result came somewhat out of the blue, but proved the start of a sustained spell of high-level darts.

He reached another semi-final at the next European Tour event in Riesa before making the final of the Slovak Darts Open last month, just days after claiming his first Players Championship title since February 2025.

Ordinarily, a first-round meeting with Danny Noppert would put me off, but the Freeze has struggled this year and Cross is favourite to reach the last 16.

It gets trickier from there, but at this sort of price, it's worth taking a chance on a player who has had a knack throughout his career for turning good spells into titles.

Players to Contest the Final: Luke Littler & Rob Cross (33/1)

If Cross does fire his way to another Matchplay final, he'd have a good chance against anybody not named Littler.

The 20/1 available for the place part of the each-way bet still appeals, but I want to protect the win portion by splitting my stakes and also using the Name the Finalists market.

Littler is 8/15 to reach the final, a price that's difficult to dispute.

Jonny Clayton to Win Quarter 2 (7/2)

Michael van Gerwen, Jonny Clayton and Gary Anderson headline one of the toughest quarters to call, but the Ferret gets my vote at 7/2.

Clayton finished second in the Premier League table, ending the league phase on 34 points compared with Van Gerwen's modest return of 18. That's indicative of the difference in consistency between the pair on TV over the past year.

Van Gerwen won last year's World Series of Darts Finals on home soil, but has reached just one further quarter-final in an individual major since, and that also came outside the UK at the 2025 European Championship, where he got to the semis.

Clayton, meanwhile, reached four major semi-finals last year, making the final in one of them. In addition to his Premier League semi-final berth, he's reached two further televised quarter-finals this season.

I'm also happy to swerve Anderson, with the Flying Scotsman winning just three matches across his last five visits to Blackpool.

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