2025 Premier League Darts Playoffs Preview

At long last, the Premier League comes to a climax on Thursday night at the O2 in London. James Punt is hoping to finish with a flourish, check out his 2025 Premier League Darts Playoffs preview below.

Night 16 Reflections

Last week saw a 1.87 point profit, but the Price to win 6-2 hit the bar, Price going 5-2 up before Dobey went mental and won the match 6-5. That means that sixteen weeks of punting produced a loss of -1.55 points.

We also had some ante post outright bets. Aspinall to make the play offs won 6.00 points. MVG to make the play off lost 2.00 points. Gerwyn Price to finish last lost 1.00 point, and we still have 1 point running on Luke Humphries to win the PL at 4.00.

That is the good news. If Humphries loses, we end the campaign +0.45 points up, not enough for that pint, but if he wins we are 3.45 points up, nearly enough for a round. I am so excited…. but of course, there are two semi-finals to bake into the cake before the final tally.

The Play-Offs

The matches are a longer format for the play-offs. The semi-finals are best of nineteen legs, the final best of twenty one.

The final night is often a bit of an anti-climax. The last three year’s semi-finals produced just one close match when MVG beat Michael Smith 10-8 in the semi-final and the best final was in 2022 when MVG beat Joe Cullen 11-10.

Since the final was made a best of 21 legs format in 2015, only two have gone to a final leg decider. The first was when MVG beat Peter Wright 11-10 in 2017 and when MVG beat Cullen.

Of the last ten winners, six had won the league stage of the competition. The most common score in the final is 11-5 which has happened three times, 11-7 twice, 11-10 twice and one each for 11-8, 11-4 and 11-3.

Luke Littler vs. Gerwyn Price

A month ago I would be looking at this match and thinking that Gerwyn Price would be the value bet. However his form has deserted him at just the wrong time. The whole PL thing is about slogging through sixteen weeks of the league stage and hopefully arriving at the O2 Arena in good form.

Unfortunately, for Price, he comes here having lost five of his last six matches. The manner of his defeat to Chris Dobey last week was a worry. He was winning 5-1 but lost five legs on the bounce to lose the match 5-6. Price hasn’t won a match for three weeks.

Luke Littler has only had eyes on this prize for the last six weeks. He hasn’t played in any Euro Tour events, nor any Players Championships, just the PL. He has won eight of his last ten matches and his two defeats were in deciding legs, one to Humphries, the other to Dobey.

Their H2H record is 7-6 to Price and The Iceman had a run of six consecutive wins over Littler, but that spell was ended on Night 10 with a 6-3 victory for Littler in Manchester, and there was another 6-3 win for Littler on Night 14.

Littler is the 1.36 favourite, Price 3.50.

2025 Premier League Darts Playoffs Tip: 0.5 point Littler to win 10-5 @ 9.00 with Livescorebet

2025 Premier League Darts Playoffs Tip: 1 point Littler to win -2.5 legs @ 1.80 with Livescorebet

Luke Humphries vs. Nathan Aspinall

Humphries was the only one of these four players to travel to the Netherlands for last week’s Dutch Darts Championship, but despite a weakened field, he lost in the semi-final to Jonny Clayton.

Cool Hand has won seven of his last ten matches and while he is scoring well, he is not at his best. He has not picked up a ranking title since winning the Masters at the start of February. That will not be doing his confidence any good at all.

Nathan Aspinall’s target was to reach the playoffs and he has done it. He was the 41.00 outsider at the start of the tournament and has overcome injury and his Dartitis to get this far. He will be feeling quite pleased with himself.

The Asp will pick up £85,000 for making the semi-final and the pressure is off him now. He is the outsider and free rolling. His recent form sees just five wins from his last ten matches and his scoring is not in the same league as even a slightly out of sorts Humphries.

H2H

Their H2H record is 13-9 to Humphries and he is 4-2 up in 2025. Humphries is 7-3 up over their last ten. The Asp has won their two long format TV matches, both in 2022, 10-5 in the World Matchplay and 16-12 in the Grand Slam.

Luke Humphries is the 1.36 favourite to win the match, Aspinall 3.50. I hope that Humphries wins, and he should do, but he is the one under pressure. Under pressure and not full of confidence. Against a player who has nothing to lose. Aspinall has played in two playoffs and made the final in his first and only lost the semi-final of the other 9-10.

Maybe Aspinall can make Humphries work hard for the win.

2025 Premier League Darts Playoffs Tip: 1 point over 16.5 legs @ 1.95 with Ladbrokes

The Final

I expect the final to be a Littler vs. Humphries affair and it is just a 2.20 shot. We are on Humphries to win @ 4.00, so in effect, we would have 4.00 in a match bet on Humphries to win.

Littler is 13-9 against Humphries and 5-3 in 2025. Littler beat Humphries 11-7 last year and something similar would be no surprise. My guess is that If we do get the Littler vs. Humphries final Humphries will go off around 2.65, so you could lay off for a small profit, but for a 1 point stake, I will let it ride and probably get a good value loser.

-JamesPunt