Premier League Darts 2019 Betting Tips and Odds

Betting Online Team

Darts Betting Tips

5 August, 2024

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It’s nearly that time of year again when ten of world darts’ leading lights set off on a 17-week tungsten roadshow across the UK, Ireland and parts of Europe. Here are our Premier League Darts 2019 betting tips.

The 2019 Premier League campaign will take in dates at destinations as far-flung as Aberdeen and Rotterdam; it kicks off in Newcastle on February 7 and zig-zags all the way to London for finals night on May 23.

This event is considered a major now on the PDC calendar. The winner trousers a cheque for £250,000 and the losing semi-finalists still walks away with £80,000. There are plenty of reasons for the participants to give the darts Premier League their full attention.

The man they are all trying to catch, as ever, is Michael van Gerwen. He has won the last three editions of the Premier League; he’s got his hands on this trophy four times in total and has appeared in the final every single time he has been selected to play in the tournament.

Is there any way that the doyen of Dutch darts can be stopped in 2019?

Tournament History & Format

The first edition of the Premier League was devised in 2005, and it took place in rather less salubrious surroundings than the players are used to these days.

Phil Taylor and co took to the likes of Carlisle’s Sands Centre, the Kidderminster Glades Arena and Kingsway Leisure Centre in Widnes. The Power eventually came out on top and pocketed a ‘measly’ £50k for his troubles.

As darts’ popularity has grown, so too has the Premier League. The field has increased from seven players to ten and the prize pot enhanced from a total of £150k all those years ago to the £850k the players will battle for in 2019.

There has been a slight change in format for this year’s edition too. As normal, the ten players will take each other on in a round-robin set-up. After those nine weeks, the pair sat in the relegation zone in the league table will be dumped out of the competition.

The second phase will see the players take each other on once more; however, this year it will be one match per night for all; rather than in previous year’s where two players have had to take to the oche twice in one night. To compensate, all second phase matches are longer at best-of-14 legs.

The top four then progress to the O2 Arena, with the semi-finals played over the best-of-19 and the final being a race to eleven legs.

The Field

Most of the Premier League field picks itself.

Messrs Van Gerwen, Rob Cross, Peter Wright and Gary Anderson have been given automatic invites based upon their top four rankings in the PDC Order of Merit.

The PDC can then dish out four wildcards, which they have given to Daryl Gurney, Michael Smith and Gerwyn Price, who are ranked five, six and seven respectively in the Order of Merit. Their fourth card went to James Wade, who won the World Series of Darts and European Championship in the second half of 2018.

Sky Sports also get two wildcards, and they handed the first to Mensur Suljovic. The Gentle, ranked eighth in the world, won the German Masters last year and produced a scintillating – albeit losing – performance in the final of the World Matchplay.

The last spot could have gone to any number of players; however, in the end, Sky opted for the commercial pulling power of Raymond van Barneveld over the world ranking of Simon Whitlock.

They say there’s no room for sentiment in sport; however, Barney surely deserves his spot in his final year as a professional dartist. A trailblazer of the modern era, the Dutchman may be down to 28th in the world rankings but he still puts bums on seats and, most pertinently,  can produce world-class performances when the mood takes him.

Whitlock will feel aggrieved to miss out no doubt, as the world number nine should, but a fallow final few months of the 2018 campaign cost the Wizard dearly.