2025 Night 1 Premier League Darts Preview

James Punt finished off well at the Winmau World Masters and he’s hoping to carry that momentum into tonight. He has already penned an outright betting preview, check out his 2025 Night 1 Premier League Darts preview below.

Chris Dobey vs. Gerwyn Price

Both players have happy memories of Belfast’s SSE Arena. In 2023 it was Chris Dobey who won the opening night in the same venue. That turned out to be his only nightly win in the whole league and he went on to finish seventh, with only Peter Wright below him. Gerwyn Price hit two nine dart legs here in 2022, a 170 checkout, and averaged 107 across his three matches.

In terms of recent form, Chris Dobey has not been playing well. He has lost his last three matches and while he did reach the semi-final of the World Championships, he didn’t dazzle. He did beat Gerwyn Price 5-3 in the quarter final, but that was a match that Price lost, as much as Dobey won. Price was 2-0 up, but he missed a few doubles and then just fell apart. He ended up missing forty one doubles and he threw the match away.

Enthusiastic Price

Since then Price has played nine matches and won six. He has looked more enthusiastic and trying harder, but his weakness on the outer ring is still evident.

Their H2H record is 15-2 to Price, which made that World Championship quarter final win all the more unlikely. They played in five PL matches in 2023, and Price won the lot.

Price is the 1.68 favourite. He has been playing the better darts in 2025 so far, while Dobey has not been firing on all cylinders. We are on Price to finish in last place, but he will win matches, and his will be one that he knows he should win. His doubling could be his downfall, but the odds are just about good enough for him to back him to get back to winning ways against Dobey.

2025 Night 1 Premier League Darts Tip: 1 point Gerwyn Price to win @ 1.68 with Livescorebet

Stephen Bunting vs. Rob Cross

An interesting match. Bunting has been winning plenty of matches and even picked up a tournament win, albeit the Bahrain Darts Masters, pretty low in the prestige stakes. He was a semi-finalist in the World Championship, won in Bahrain, was runner up in the Dutch Darts Masters and was a quarter finalist in last weekend’s World Masters. He has won ten of his thirteen matches in 2025 so far, and his scoring has been strong and very consistent.

Rob Cross will have been very annoyed to have lost his first round match to William O’Connor at the weekend. Cross averaged 103, but with a brutal format it was more about timing than scoring, and his timing was off.

Cross ended 2024 with a whimper. He lost the Grand Slam quarter final to Martin Lukeman, lost the first round of the Players Championship finals 0-6 to Luke Littler and lost his opening match in the World Championship to Scott Williams.

Dutch Darts Masters Win

Voltage started 2025 with a 3-6 loss to Paolo Nebrida in Bahrain, the first PDC player to lose a first round match there. He then bounced back by winning the Dutch Darts Masters, beating Stephen Bunting 8-5 in the final. Cross is playing well, but needs to convert that into winning matches, and become more consistent at winning.

Their H2H record is 13-3 to Cross. Bunting has not beaten him since May 2022, eight matches ago. They did play a PL match back in 2020 when Bunting was one of the ‘contenders’. That ended 6-6.

Despite that H2H record, and Cross’ recent win in the Dutch Darts Masters final, it is Bunting who is the 1.67 favourite, Cross 2.28. I think that is a bit generous about Cross.

2025 Night 1 Premier League Darts Tip: 1 point Rob Cross to win @ 2.28 with Livescorebet

2025 Night 1 Premier League Darts Tip: 1 point over 9.5 legs @ 1.91 generally available

Luke Littler vs. Michael van Gerwen

Luke Littler averaged 108.50 in the World Masters quarter final against Jonny Clayton on Sunday and lost 2-4. OK, it was a strange format, but the fact remains that Littler has missed out in the first three tournaments of 2025 and has lost three of his last ten matches. That is absolute top form for most pros, but short of expectations for the World Champion.

Littler averaged 106.10 across his matches last weekend and has hit eight ton plus averages in his last ten. He is very hard to oppose, but such is the standard of opposition, he still loses around 25% of his matches. In last year’s PL his win rate was 66%, which goes to show how tough it is.

Unhappy MVG

MVG was very unhappy with his performance when losing to 3-4 to Van den Bergh in the second round last weekend. He averaged 98.63, but it is just a sign of the times that MVG loses matches he would have won a couple of years ago.

Van Gerwen has played seven matches in 2025 and lost four, two of them to Luke Littler. The first was the World Championship final, and the other in the Dutch Darts Masters. Both were comfortable wins for littler.

Their overall H2H record is now 8-6 to Littler and he has won their last four, easily. In last year’s PL, it was 4-3 to MVG.

It is pretty clear that Littler is the better player, and it is MVG who is coming into their matches a little intimidated. The crowds love Litter, and MVG is no longer the crowd favourite, and he doesn’t like that.

Littler is the 1.44 favourite and I expect he will cover the handicap.

2025 Night 1 Premier League Darts Tip: 1 point Littler to win -1.5 legs @ 1.80 with Livescorebet

Nathan Aspinall vs. Luke Humphries

Humphries is fresh from winning the World Masters, where he dismissed Cullen, Rock, Heta and Noppert with relative ease, before being taken right to the wire by Jonny Clayton, winning the final 6-5. Humphries has played nine matches in 2025 and won seven. One of those wins was against Nathan Aspinall, who he beat 6-5 in the Bahrain Darts Masters.

Aspinall has played seven matches in 2025 and won just three. He has played some good stuff, as he did in his 5-6 loss to Humphries in Bahrain, where he averaged 101.90, but he has lacked in the consistency department so far.

Their H2H record is 10-7 to Humphries, and he has won their last four. They played six times in last year’s PL, and it was 3-3. Six of their last nine best of eleven leg matches were over 9.5 legs, and another would not be a surprise. Aspinall lost his opening match to Gerwyn Price 4-6 in Cardiff and he was one of four players in last year’s league to have a positive leg difference, so he keeps his matches close on the whole.

Humphries is the 1.33 favourite and Aspinall a 3.50 shot.

2025 Night 1 Premier League Darts Tip: 1 point over 9.5 legs @ 2.25 generally available

Five bets for the opening night of the PL may be a bit ambitious, but all the players have played recently, so we have a reasonable amount of form to go on, and hopefully we can get a first night profit.

It is off to Glasgow next Thursday and there are the first two Players Championships of the season in between.

-JamesPunt