2024 Grand Slam Of Darts Preview

Now, it is time for James Punt’s 2024 Grand Slam of Darts outright betting preview. Luke Humphries won it in 2023, can he repeat the trick?

2024 Grand Slam Of Darts

The PDC likes to make each of their ranked Majors a little different from the others and the Grand Slam is the one tournament where you can lose, but still win the title.

In the first stage of the competition, there are eight groups of four, played in a Round Robin format. The top two players qualify for the second stage, which is a straight knockout.

Group stage matches are very short, best of nine legs. The knockout stage matches are longer. Best of nineteen legs for the second round, and best of thirty one legs for the remainder of the tournament.

The format means that you often see players playing each other twice, once in the group stage and then in the knockout stage.

Group A

Player	Best Group Odds
Luke Humphries	1.40
James Wade	4.50
Mickey Mansell	17.0
Rowby John Rodriguez	17.0

Luke Humphries

Has won eight of his last ten matches and hit seven ton+ averages. Humphries is the defending Champion, and he reached the semi-final in 2022. Strong favourite to win the group, and the tournament. He has won his group for the last two years.

James Wade

A three time runner up and he has reached the semi-final of the last two Grand Slams he has qualified for. Wade has won eight of his last ten matches and will be hard to beat. The Machine has won his group in five of his last six Grand Slams.

Mickey Mansell

Qualified via the Tour Card holder’s qualifier. Mansell has won seven of his last ten matches, and he ended Gerwyn Price’s hopes of qualifying. He is making his tournament debut and his record in Majors is underwhelming. His slow pace of play can be off putting for some opponents. He also hit a 110 average in his first qualifying match. Mind you, he lost his last Pro Tour match of the season with a 77 average the day before.

Rowby-John Rodriguez

Qualified by being runner up in the World Cup of Darts. A pairs event. Surely it is time that particular path to the Grand Slam was binned? His win rate in 2024 is just 37%, he has lost six of his last ten matches. The whipping boy of the group?

To Qualify

Humphries and Wade, and Humphries to win the group. No surprises here, but Mansell may be a more difficult opponent than many expect. Humphries is the 1.40 favourite to win the group, James Wade 4.33. Hard to argue with those prices.

Group B

Player	Best Group Odds
Danny Noppert	3.25
Cameron Menzies	3.50
Martin Schindler	3.50
Beau Greaves	6.00

Danny Noppert

One of the seeded players, but he had to come through the Tour Card holders qualifier. That sums Noppert up. Good enough to be the world number twelve, but the idea of this event is that it is about tournament winners, and runners up. Noppert tends to lose at the quarter or semi-final stage.

Noppert has played in five previous Grand Slams, getting through the group stage three times, but never going beyond the second round. His consistency should see him through the group, but he must be getting a complex about losing in the later stages of events. Noppert has won eight of his last ten matches and is in good form.

Martin Schindler

Won two Euro Tour tournaments to qualify and he is making his fifth Grand Slam appearance. He has failed to get beyond the group stage in his four previous Grand Slams. He hasn’t made much impression in the Majors this season. His recent form sees six wins from his last ten matches, but his last six were low scoring, with no average above 93.

Cameron Menzies

Last played in the Grand Slam in 2017, going out in the group stage. He comes here now as a PDC title winner, having picked up a Players Championship title last week, and followed that up by coming through the Tour Card holders qualifier.

That means Menzies has won nine of his last ten matches and his confidence levels will be off the chart. His consistency is not the best but he has wins over the likes of Noppert, Wade and Bunting, and they don’t come easy. Must have a good chance of a decent run at the 2024 Grand Slam of Darts.

Beau Greaves

The best female player on the planet. Greaves didn’t make it through the group phase last year, but she beat Ricardo Pietreczko 5-1 and took Aspinall and Heta to deciding legs.

Greaves started playing in some Development tour events this year, reaching seven quarter finals, a semi-final and won one title. The fact is that she is too good for Women’s tournaments, but she hasn’t really wanted to play against the men, or not yet anyway.

Greaves was nervous last year and didn’t play her best, but she was close to coming through the group 3-0. With that experience behind her, hopefully she can relax a bit more and play nearer her best.

Tough Group

Her best is good enough to have a chance of getting through the group stage, but she has landed in a tough group. Her problem is that she can win easily on the Women’s tour with low 80 averages, but that won’t do at this level.

Her A game is ton plus, but her seasonal average just 86.65. She can raise her game when pushed, and I suspect that if she were to play more Development or Challenge tour events, her scoring would improve. She gave Wessell Nijman a couple of good matches on the Development tour, but lost the lot, so we need to be realistic about her chances.

To Qualify

I’ll take Noppert and Menzies, and Menzies to top the group. He has winning H2H records against Schindler and Noppert. He has Fallon Sherrock as a practice partner, so he will not be fazed by playing against a woman, which will help against Beau Greaves. 

Group C

Player	Best Group Odds
Rob Cross	2.20
Peter Wright	3.25
Martin Lukeman	6.00
Leonard Gates	11.00

Rob Cross

Not in great form, having lost five of his last ten matches, and three of his last four saw sub 90 averages. He isn’t playing as well as he was this time last year when he was runner up to Luke Humphries. Cross has always made it through the group stage in his previous seven Grand Slams, but he has only won his group once in seven appearances.

Peter Wright

After the season Wright has had, it is strange to see him in the tournament that is for tournament winners (and runners up), but it is easy to forget, Wright won the German Darts Championship at the start of September.

His recent form is poor, losing seven of his last ten matches. He looked like he was on the way back in September, but his game has gone into reverse again. He still has the odd very good performance, but there is too much poor stuff to think that he can have a deep run.

His 0-6 drubbing by Jermaine Wattimena in the European Championship was a real low, averaging just 74.81. Wright has gone out at the group stage for the last two years, and this could be three in a row.

Martin Lukeman

Made the quarter final of the UK Open but didn’t qualify for the last three Majors. Smash came through the qualifying event last week and his recent form sees six wins from his last ten, but he was on fire in the qualifier, hitting four ton plus averages (104.39 across the four), and dropping just five legs in his four matches. When he is in form, Lukeman is a great player.

This is his tournament debut. Lukeman is a practice partner of Ritchie Edhouse, who won the European Championship two weeks ago. I was interested to see if that success for his pal would have a positive effect on his game. I think that performance in the qualifiers tells me that it has. A dark horse?

Leonard Gates

The popular American qualified by winning the CDC Continental Cup. He has won three CDC Pro Tour titles in 2024 and has a seasonal average of 87.33. he was knocked out in the group stage in 2022, his only previous Grand Slam appearance, losing all three matches. He does love the big stage and playing on TV.

To Qualify

Lukeman and Cross, and Lukeman to top the group.

Group D

Player	Best Group Odds
Ross Smith	2.88
Dave Chisnall	2.88
Ritchie Edhouse	5.00
Conor Scutt	8.50

Dave Chisnall

Comes here in poor form, losing seven of his last ten matches and five in a row. This is not the time to lose your form. Has it got to do with the ‘best player never to have won a TV Major’ tag playing on his mind?

He got thrashed 0-6 by Michael Smith in the first round of the European Championship, and he has won just one match in the last three Majors. Chizzy has gone out at the group stage for the last two years and his form in the Majors for the last two or three years is not great. Seeing Ritchie Edhouse winning a Major two weeks ago, and Mike De Decker before that, must be galling for the nearly man.

Ross Smith

Only once from three appearances has Smith gone beyond the group stage, and he lost in the second round in 2022. His recent form is only OK, winning six of his last ten matches, but he hasn’t shown a lot of consistency. It just isn’t working out for him on TV. He has losing H2H records with the other three players in the group.

Ritchie Edhouse

The latest Major champion, Edhouse went all the way at the European Championships two weeks ago. He was a 251.00 outsider to win the title, and it was his first PDC title of any kind. He wasn’t playing particularly well going into the European Championships, but something lit his fuse and he took his chances and played some great stuff.

Madhouse may still be residing on cloud nine and it is hard to say how he will play, but obviously, he will see himself as a Major Champion now, and it will be interesting to see what he does in the next year or so. He might kick on, or stagnate, a bit like Ross Smith. Obviously, this is his tournament debut.

Connor Scutt

A very interesting player, and he will be contending for a place in the knockout phase. Scutt qualified as the Challenge Tour OOM winner. He won two Challenge Tour titles and also reached the final of a Players Championship event.

He is a heavy scorer and hit four ton plus averages in his last ten matches, of which he won eight, all Challenge Tour matches. When he has had the chance to play in Players Championship events, he has tended to struggle against the big name players, but he has a more than reasonable chance to get through this group.

To Qualify

A tricky group to call. There are question marks over all four players. Edhouse and Scutt would be my choices, but they could both fall flat on their faces, just as easily as they could qualify for the knockout stage.

Group E

Player	Best Group Odds
Michael Smith	2.25
Mike De Decker	2.63
Jermaine Wattimena	8.00
Mensur Suljovic	13.00

Michael Smith

Winner of six of his last ten matches, but playing with no great consistency, struggling with doubling and looking a bit frustrated. Certainly not at the top of his game.

Smith has a good tournament record, having reached three quarter finals, two semi-finals and winning the title in 2022. He has won his group in eight of his ten events. Smith is now defending £150000. He can live with losing that, but he then defends £500000 at the upcoming World Championships, and that will be a lot of pressure.

Mike de Decker

Winner of the Grand Prix, De Decker has played seventeen matches since that career changing win, and he has won twelve. His scoring has dropped a fraction but he is still a dangerous opponent.

He has only played in one previous Grand Slam and failed to get out of the group stage. De Decker is quite hard to assess. He doesn’t look like he is going ‘to do a Humphries’ and go on a run of Major finals and titles, but he knows he has the game to win now, so I’d expect to see some progress.

Jermaine Wattimena

Made his first Major final two weeks ago at the European Championships. He fell to bits in the final and lost 3-11 to Ritchie Edhouse, but he seemed happy enough afterwards. It was his best performance in any tournament and his game is on an upward trajectory.

Wattimena has won six of his last ten matches, but his four matches, post that final, saw three sub 90 averages, and a ton plus. A bit like De Decker, he is hard to call. Wattimena has played in two previous Slams and made the second round once.

Mensur Suljovic

The other World Cup runner up. Suljovic has dropped off the radar, but he has been back playing more regularly. He has won seven of his last ten matches, but half saw sub 90 averages.

Suljovic has only qualified for one of the last six ranking Majors. He was a top 10 ranked player between 2016 and 2018, but he has now slipped down to fifty seventh. It is hard to see him making any sort of run, but his slow pace of play is not going to suit Smith or Wattimena in particular.

He is 9-1 vs. Wattimena and 14-11 vs. Smith, including a win in 2024. He is 6-2 vs. De Decker, but the Belgian did get a 6-5 win against Suljovic in March. It is all very old form on the whole, but Suljovic may play a bigger part in the outcome of the group than expected.

To Qualify

Recent form suggests that De Decker and Wattimena are the likely qualifiers, but Smith can kick off at any time and he has an excellent group winning record. Suljovic could be a real spoiler for any of the other three. I am happy to avoid making any firm predictions for this group, although Wattimena at 7.00 is tempting.

Group F

Player	Best Group Odds
Luke Littler	1.36
Dimitri Van Den Bergh	4.50
Keane Barry	15.00
Lourence Ilagan	23.00

Dimitri van den Bergh

Last played in the slam back in 2020, when he made the semi-final. Van den Bergh is a different player on TV. His win rate in 2024 is just 48% and his seasonal average has dropped a full point, but he has won the UK Open, was a quarter finalist at the Matchplay, and a semi-finalist in the Grand Prix.

That he didn’t even qualify for the European Championships says something about his general form. His Pro Tour form sees him just 47th on that OOM, and he ended up 40th on the Euro Tour OOM. His success in Majors, means that he is ranked 11th in the world rankings.

Dimitri’s recent form is poor, very poor. He has lost six of his last ten matches and hit nine sub 90 averages, not counting the double in format at the Grand Prix. It is hard to think that just getting on to a TV stage will be enough to turn that around, but it just might.

Luke Littler

Starting to suffer with the Tall Poppy syndrome? The tabloids are trying to create a narrative that Littler is losing it, and that may bother him, if he pays any attention to it. He has lost five of his last ten matches and he hasn’t won a title since September, but he is still hitting ton plus averages on a regular basis.

The Nuke isn’t hitting them at quite the same rate as he was a couple of months ago. Changing his darts for a while didn’t help, but while he is not in top form, his bad form is good enough to beat most players.

He lost in the first round of the European Championships, 4-6 to Andrew Gilding, but he won’t be the last favourite to lose to Captain Weird. That he has lost in the first round of the last three ranking Majors is not encouraging, but he is not washed up.

Keane Barry

Making his Grand Slam debut after coming through last week’s qualifier, where it must be said, he got a good draw.

Barry has not had a good year at senior level. He was only 69th on the Pro Tour OOM, but was 3rd on the Development tour OOM, which is enough to get him to Ally Pally for the World Championships. He has won six of his last ten matches and he is playing OK, but not showing the kind of consistency which suggests he will have any great impact in this.

Lourence Ilagan

A Grand Slam debut for Ilagan. He is a regular in the World Championships, where he has won just one match, and at the World Cup where he has been equally unsuccessful.

He is the 2024 PDC Asian champion, and there are plenty of handy players in that, and he was second on the PDC Asian tour OOM, so he can play, but he is a little overrated in my opinion. He has a ton plus A game, so he could win a match, but there is little consistency in his game and his seasonal average is only 85.

To Qualify

Littler is too good to not come through this group, probably as the winner, but who joins him? Will TV Van den Bergh turn up, or the pub player we get away from the big stages? Is Keane Barry good enough? Barry can make it, if Van den Bergh cannot find his stage form.

Group G

Player	Best Group Odds
Michael Van Gerwen	2.10
Gary Anderson	2.30
Ryan Joyce	8.00
Noa-Lynn Van Leuven	34.00

Michael van Gerwen

It looked like MVG had got his form back when he won PC21, the Hungarian Darts Trophy just four days later and PC 27 three weeks after that. But he went out of the Grand Prix in round one, with a very poor performance and he lost 4-10 to Gary Anderson in the second round of the European Championships. He was poor in that match as well.

Van Gerwen has won seven of his last ten matches, and he is generally playing well, but he does hit a flat spot every now and then. I thought his confidence would come back after those three wins, but it seems to be as fragile as we have become used to in the last year or two.

Van Gerwen is a three time tournament winner, but the last was back in 2017. He was runner up in 2021, and reached the quarter final in 2022, but he has failed to get beyond the second round in five of the last seven years. His group winning record is very good, winning nine of his last ten

Gary Anderson

Played well to get to the quarter finals of the European Championships. He beat Bunting and MVG, before losing 5-10 to Ritchie Edhouse. He just ran into someone playing out of his skin. A bit like when he lost to Martin Lukeman in the UK Open, also a 5-10 defeat. He suffered another 5-10 loss to Michael Smith at the Matchplay.

Anderson reached the quarter final here last year but lost out to Luke Humphries. The Flying Scotsman seems to save his best form for the floor events these days, and there are just too many players around now who can pull out a great performance and beat him, very much like MVG.

Anderson has won six of his last ten matches and he has never failed to get through the group stage in sixteen appearances.

Ryan Joyce

Made the second round in his last Grand Slam appearance in 2021, winning his group. He has won seven of his last ten matches and reached the semi-final of the Grand Prix last month. He made a Players Championship quarter final three weeks ago and came through the Tour Card qualifier last week. His scoring has not been great in most of his recent matches, but he is feeling confident and getting wins.

Noa-Lynn van Leuven

The Gammons are going to have a field day with Noa-Lynn, the first trans woman to play in a PDC Major. She played in four Players Championship matches earlier in the year, and lost the lot, including a 0-6 to Gary Anderson.

She finished 27th on the Challenge Tour OOM and won a title, and second in the PDC Women’s series, winning four titles. She has won five of her last ten matches, but her normal level of mid 80 averages isn’t going to work in this group.

Since women players have been playing in the Grand Slam in 2019, only Fallon Sherrock has got through the group stage and eight of the ten have finished last in their group.

To Qualify

Anderson is a shoe in given his record. MVG will be hard to stop getting through, but Joyce is no mug, and in the very short best of nine leg format, he cannot be dismissed. MVG’s group winning record is excellent and at 2.10 he could be massively underrated, but we must remember, he is not the player he was. Anderson beat him in his last match at the European Championship, so that will be fresh in his mind.

Group H

Player	Best Group Odds
Stephen Bunting	3.20
Josh Rock	3.50
Wessel Nijman	3.75
Gian Van Veen	5.50

Stephen Bunting

The old man of a youthful group. Bunting has been awaiting the birth of his second child and withdrew from the final Players Championship to be at home. I am not sure if it has happened yet, and that is important.

He has been in good form all year, winning the Masters in February, and winning 69% of his matches. His conversion rate of good runs into tournament wins is poor. He has lost six Players Championship finals, three Euro Tour quarter finals and two semi-finals.

His tournament record is decent, he was a semi-finalist last year and he has got through the group stage in four of his five appearances.

Josh Rock

Closed out the 2024 Players Championship event by winning PC30 two weeks ago. He has won nine of his last ten matches and is in good form.

Rock will be looking to improve a poor run in the Majors in 2024, losing in the first round of the last three. His best result in a ranking Major was reaching the quarter final here last year, and he has made it through the group stage in his two previous appearances.

He only dropped four legs in the group matches last year, and only just lost 15-16 to James Wade in the quarter final. Rock has had a mixed year, but he has won three titles and he wants to start making a bigger impact in the big ones.

Gian van Veen

Losing six of his last ten matches is not ideal preparation, but he is not playing badly. His last ten matches have all been 90+ averages and five 96+. He has been a bit unlucky to keep on running into players at their best.

Van Veen has not made a breakthrough in 2024, as many expected. He made a Euro Tour final and won a couple of Development Tour titles, but he has gone out in the first round in five of the six TV events he has played in 2024. Van Veen made his debut last year and lost all three  group matches.

Wessel Nijman

Van Veen will have been watching his fellow young Dutchman, Wessel Nijman taking all the plaudits in his debut season on the Pro Tour. Nijman has won a Players Championship title and made one other final and also reached a Euro Tour quarter final.

The Dutchman does look to be a real prospect. He does lack experience in Majors, having only played in two. He lost in the first round in the World Championship and won a couple of matches in the UK Open.

Nijman qualified for this by topping the Development Tour OOM and doing so by a wide margin. He is the best youth player in the game and is making an impact at senior level. He has won seven of his last ten matches and was having some good Pro Tour runs last month, making a semi-final and a quarter final.

For such a young, inexperienced player, he plays with a good deal of consistency, not usually the case with the young players coming through the ranks.

To Qualify

Every player in the group has proper claims to making the knockout stage. They are all playing well and perfectly capable of getting through. Bunting has a ton more experience but where will his head be? Is he a new dad, or awaiting an urgent call?  If it is the former, I’d back him to get through. And joined by….who knows.

Nijman is 2-0 vs. Bunting, and it was Bunting he beat in the final of PC24, so he has good memories of playing The Bullet. He is 3-2 with Van Veen in 2024, but he is 0-2 vs. Rock in 2024, both 5-6 results. Rock has lost all three of his matches vs. Bunting, and is 1-5 vs. Van Veen, so he has poor H2H records to overcome. That said, he is in good form, so why not Rock?

2024 Grand Slam of Darts Recommended Bets

Group Betting

Cameron Menzies to win Group B 1 point @ 3.25 generally available

Martin Lukeman to win Group C 1 point @ 6.00 with Ladbrokes

Ritchie Edhouse to win Group D 1 point @ 5.00 with Ladbrokes

2024 Grand Slam of Darts Outright Betting

In the last ten years, a seeded player has won eight, and the number 1 seed four. The last two winners were both seeded fourth. Two non-seeded players have won it, Gerwyn Price in 2018 and Jose de Sousa in 2020. Four runners up have been unseeded, including the last three.

We have seen the last two Majors being won by big priced outsiders, Mike de Decker, and Ritchie Edhouse. That will not have been lost on the less fancied players going into any Major right now.

There is a good argument to say that any outright bets should be made after the group stage has finished. Three best of nine leg matches are three banana skins, but one loss is not the end of the world.

Certainly, for the shorter priced players, their odds will not shorten that dramatically if they make the knockout stage. The outsiders odds will get slashed if they make the knockouts, especially given recent outcomes.

Usual Suspects

It is the usual suspects at the top of the 2024 Grand Slam of Darts market. Luke Humphries is the 4.00 favourite. Luke Littler is 5.00, MVG 8.50, Anderson 13.00.

Obviously, Luke Humphries has won five of the last nine ranking Majors. He couldn’t defend the Grand Prix, losing the final to De Decker. He lost in the quarter finals of the European Championships. Cool Hand deserves to be favourite and the odds are fair enough.

Littler, having lost in the first round of the last three Majors, and losing five of his last ten matches, does look too short at 5.00. MVG and Anderson are still playing well, but not getting the results in the ranking Majors that their odds suggest they should be.

Humphries fits the profile of past winners, being a seed, and being the number one  seed. I have backed Cool Hand for the last two Majors and came up dry, so my enthusiasm is dimmed, but of all the seeds, he makes the most sense.

Tournament specialist Gerwyn Price did not even qualify, and while the two Lukes will have plenty of support, there are a few players coming here thinking they could emulate Edhouse and De Decker.

Lively Outsiders

Of the rank outsiders, three names are on my mind. Connor Scutt, Martin Lukeman and Cameron Menzies

Scutt is a 151.00 shot and he has won eight of his last ten matches. They were only at Challenge tour level, and those are easier gigs, but he hit four ton plus averages and a 99. He was good enough to make a Players Championship final in September and his A game is very strong. However, he is not even a Tour Card holder right now and he has struggled against the big named players. He could be a good bet for the group matches, but just not quite there for an outright.

Smash

Martin ‘Smash’ Lukeman was brilliant in the qualifiers. Four big ton plus averages in a row shows what he can do. He has a great A game, but it is his association with Ritchie Edhouse that appeals to me. Inspiration by association.

His practice partner goes out and wins not just his first senior title, but a ranking Major. That has to put some positive thoughts in Lukeman’s head. If Ritchie can do it, why not me? He was certainly inspired in the qualifiers. He has reached two ranking Major quarter finals already, including this year’s UK Open.

We have selected Lukeman to win his group at nice odds, and if he does that, he is three wins from the final. He is in the same side of the draw as Humphries, and that is where a dream could end, but I can’t resist a very small wager at very big odds, just in case this trend for outsiders continues.

0.25 point e/w Martin Lukeman to win the 2024 Grand Slam of Darts @ 176.00 with SpreadEx

Cameron Menzies is in great form and has that recent first PDC title under his belt, just to turbo boost his confidence. There is still a touch of the Loon about him, but there is no denying that his game has improved in leaps and bounds in the last year or so.

He is ranked 11th for scoring average over the last 12 months. We have backed him for the group win and his outright odds are ‘only’ 51.00. He does look to have a potentially harder draw than Lukeman, although we won’t quite know until after the group stage.

He is very likely to get to face Humphries or Wade in the second round, whereas Lukeman wouldn’t face that mountain until the semi-final. I will stick with Menzies, but just for the group win.

I will have another one of two outright picks for the 2024 Grand Slam of Darts, but I will leave it until after the group phase is over.

-JamesPunt