2025 Hungarian Darts Trophy Betting Preview

James Punt is back in action this weekend. His 2025 Hungarian Darts Trophy outright betting preview is below.

2025 Hungarian Darts Trophy

The fifth Hungarian Darts Trophy is the twelfth of fourteen on the 2025 European Tour Championship. It is getting to squeaky bum time for players like Chris Dobey (31st), Joe Cullen (34th), Raymond van Barneveld (35th) and Rob Cross (37th).

The cut off point for the European Championship is looming and these players are all in action this weekend and will be keen to have a good run to try and secure a place in the European Championship. Joe Cullen has not qualified for ET13 and he only has this and ET14 to stake his claim. At least he comes into this in good form, and as a past winner.

The cut off for the World Grand Prix is at the end of play at next weekend’s Swiss Darts Trophy, and this is another chance, the penultimate chance, for Barney and Pietreczko, to make the cut for another Major Championship.

Four Different Winners

The four previous Hungarian Darts Trophies have produced four different winners. Gerwyn Price, Joe Cullen, Dave Chisnall and Michael van Gerwen. Last year’s tournament was the first Euro Tour event to see three nine dart legs. The entry list sees a full line up of the top names, but I assume we will get a few late withdrawals.

With the draw made a short time ago, we have indeed had three withdrawals. Gary Anderson, remember him? He is a no show as usual. Jonny Clayton is taking the weekend off, and surprisingly, the Eastern European qualifier, Boris Kcrmar is not coming. I had given him a nice write up as well, the git.

Those withdrawals mean that Schindler and De Decker are elevated to seeded status and the three players from the reserve list are Veenstra, Huybrechts and Dennant.

1 Luke Humphries 

Made his first Euro Tour final of 2025 in Prague and went on to beat our outright selection, Josh Rock. It was not the greatest performance from either player but it was a welcome return to the winners’ circle for Humphries, just as we are entering the big money event season.

Of course, Humphries had won the Czech Darts Open twice before, but his record here sees only a runner up spot in 2023. Humphries has won seven of his last ten matches and while he is in good form, he is not yet at his best form. He lost 5-20 in last weekend’s World Series quarter finals. Remains a contender.

2 Luke Littler 

Runner up to MVG in the World Series finals and he didn’t look best pleased with the crowd’s involvement in Amsterdam. It was a very partisan mob and he made the mistake of getting involved, goading the crowd to give him their worst. They did, he lost.

He gets a comfortable ride in 90% of his matches, but he needs to learn when he just needs to get his head down, and beat the other player, not the crowd. The Nuke has won eight of his last ten matches and with a much less hostile crowd this weekend, he will be hard to beat.

3 Michael van Gerwen 

Won the World Series of Darts Finals on Sunday night. He had two secret weapons. The first was bringing his young daughter to the event, to show her what the old man could still do. The second was a home crowd that jeered and whistled at every dart his opponents threw.

Those weapons will not be present in Budapest, but at least his confidence will have got a serious boost. Before we get too carried away, that was only his second title of the year, the other being ET4 in April. He has won six of his last ten matches and played well last weekend, but we shall just have to wait and see if he ‘is back’.

4 Stephen Bunting 

Took a couple of days off before the World Series finals but lost in the first round to Danny Noppert. Bunting has been playing in just about everything going in 2025. He has played in nine Euro Tours, seven World Series events, the Premier League, fourteen Players Championships and the four ranked TV tournaments. That’s 145 matches played. He played a total of 164 matches in 2024.

Bunting wants to play in next year’s Premier League and the best way to do that is to be an automatic selection by being in the top four of the rankings. He is currently 4th, but not quite comfortable yet.

Has he played too much? He is still scoring well but has he maybe just lost a bit of sharpness? It is a game of fine margins and maybe he is just missing a few more big darts than was the case a few weeks ago.

5 James Wade 

May be a threat to Buntings fourth place in the rankings. Runner up in the last two Majors, has been a semi-finalist in the last three Euro Tour events and picked up a Players Championship title.

He has only played 107 matches in 2025, but has won 68% of them, hence rising up to fifth place in the world rankings. His recent form sees six wins from his last ten but the problem is that he is finding somebody too good too often at the business end of events.

The money is good but he does not win many titles, just two Players Championships in the last four years. That makes him hard to pick for outright bets, unless the odds make an e/w bet worth the risk.

6 Chris Dobey 

The sixth seed and he has not yet really secured his place in the European Championships. Dobey has lost five of his last ten matches and on the Euro Tour, he has played in ten events and lost seven of his opening second round matches. In total, he has played seventeen Euro Tour matches and won seven. Very hard to fancy.

7 Gerwyn Price 

Blew a great chance to beat Luke Littler in the World Series semi-final. His doubling went AWOL and he went from 9-5 up to losing 10-11. He has won eight of his last ten matches and is playing very well, but he does have that tendency to lose his doubling at times.

However, he has picked up four Players Championships, a Euro Tour title and a World Series event this season, so he knows how to win. He was the first winner of this title in 2021 and is very much a contender to win it again.

8 Rob Cross 

Another seeded player who is not certain of qualifying for the European Championship. Cross is £4k outside of the provisional top 32 places.

Voltage is a two time European Champion but he has won just four of his seven second round matches and has not got beyond the third round. Cross has lost five of his last ten matches, his seasonal win rate is just 56%, but his scoring is still very respectable.

His form is a bit of a head scratcher, but he does need to get his finger out, so maybe he will be a bit more focused in this, and the remaining two events.

9 Damon Heta 

Another player who scores well but has struggled to win as many matches as he should. Heta has lost five of his last ten matches and has lost eleven of twenty-two on the Euro Tour.

10 Dave Chisnall 

The 2023 champion remains stuck in a rut. He has lost five of his last ten matches and on the Euro Tour it is worse. He has now lost his last six second round matches and as a seeded player, that means he has not picked up a single ranking penny.

Chizzy is 29th on the provisional entry list, and likely to need to win at least a match in the remaining three events.

11 Ross Smith 

Started the Euro Tour season like a train, with a final, a semi-final and two quarter finals in the first five events. Since then? He has failed to get past the third round. His recent form sees seven wins from his last ten matches, but while his A game is eye catching, there is enough B and even C game on show to make winning titles unlikely.

12 Peter Wright 

Has already done enough to be comfortably inside the qualifying list for the European Championship. Three quarter finals in the first six events, but in the last five, he withdrew from one and won just two matches in the other four.

His overall recent form sees just three wins from his last ten matches, and that is a fair reflection of his game right now. There is the odd strong performance, but he hasn’t strung many wins together since May.

13 Josh Rock 

Going for a hat-trick of Euro Tour finals. Lost one narrowly to Littler in Belgium and was a bit disappointing against Humphries in Prague. He has made two quarter finals in Budapest and he should be in the frame again.

Reached the quarter final in Amsterdam at the weekend but lost 6-11 to MVG and the big home crowd. So long as he is not getting a bit jaded, Rock should be in the hunt this weekend.

14 Danny Noppert 

Won just two matches in the first six Euro Tour events, before reaching three quarter finals in the next four. He has lost six of his eleven second round matches. Overall, Noppert has won seven of his last ten matches, and he reached a quarter final and a semi-final in last week’s Players Championships.

He was the surprise winner against Bunting in the first round of the World Series Finals but then lost 0-6 to Rock in round two. He is a money farmer, not a tournament winner.

15 Martin Schindler 

Once more gets elevated to seeded status on the Euro Tour. Schindy is in decent form, winning seven of his last ten matches, but is lacking the kind of consistency required to have a good run. In those last ten, Schindler has hit three ton plus averages and a couple of sub 90s. Schindler has gone out at the third-round stage seven times in 2025, and in both of his previous visits to Budapest.

16 Mike de Decker 

Is another player who is lacking the consistency to be considered as a possible winner. He has lost five of his last ten matches and you just do not know what to expect from him. In his last ten he has hit a 108 average, an 82 and everything in between.

Best Of The Rest

Joe Cullen 

Is the GOAT back? Cullen won his second Players Championship of 2025 last week, beating Gerwyn Price, no less, in the final 8-7. He played well all day, got better as he went along, but followed it up by losing 3-6 to Florian Hempel in a Euro Tour qualifier, and losing 1-6 to Damon Heta in the World Series Finals, averaging 83.78 and 80.79 respectively.

He has played in ten Euro Tour events in 2025 and won seven matches. The Rockstar has not yet got beyond the third round, but as he is a qualifier, he picks up ranking money for every match won. Not just from round two onwards as is the case for the seeds.

Cullen is a couple of grand off the provisional qualifying list for the European Championship. He will play in ET14, but if he could reach the third round, he would have one foot in the door. He won this event in 2022 and his event record is QF/W/3/1, so he has won plenty of matches here. It will be interesting to see his draw.

Gian van Veen 

It is a mad system that has Peter Wright seeded into the second round, and one of the best players in the world coming in at the first-round stage.

Van Veen’s inexorable rise to the top table of darts goes on. His has not been an explosive rise, but he just gets better and better. He has not been at his best for much of the Euro Tour in 2025, but he made one final and has been a quarter finalist and semi-finalist in the latest two.

Gian was runner up to Price in PC26 last week, has won seven of his last ten matches and hit five ton plus averages. There have been a couple of flat performances, but he looks like he is coming to the boil. A contender.

Wessel Nijman 

Coming along nicely. Has had two semi-finals and two quarter finals on the 2025 Euro Tour. He reached his first Euro Tour quarter final here last year.

Nijman had a Players Championship quarter final last week and then missed a dart to beat MVG in the first round of the World Series finals. He is still just 25 years old and learning the ropes, so he will make mistakes like that. He is just lacking the consistency to think that he can go all the way, but he has the talent.

The 2025 Hungarian Darts Trophy Draw

First Quarter

The winning quarter in Prague, and it is packed with talent once again. Luke Humphries is the top seed and he is joined by Mike de Decker, Rob Cross and Damon Heta as the other seeds.

The first-round entrants include Nathan Aspinall, who will face Humphries in round two, if he beats a local qualifier. Dirk van Duijvenbode will face De Decker if he beats Tom Bissell. Daryl Gurney has a tougher task if he is to play Rob Cross on Saturday.

Superchin faces the improving Leon Weber on Friday. The final first round match is a belter, with Gian van Veen playing Niko Springer for the chance to play Damon Heta in round two.

It is a tough draw for Van Veen, but he is playing very well and he can beat anyone. Humphries is not quite at his best but comes here on the back of winning in Prague and his tail will be up. The winner of the quarter is between those two, but whoever wins it will have done well.

Second Quarter

This looks a bit more straightforward. Bunting, Rock and Wade are the three most likely to make the semi-finals. Rock has reached the last two Euro Tour finals. Will it be a case of third time lucky? Bunting has already won a Euro Tour title in 2025, but he has also gone out early in five events. He looks like he might have come off the boil a little in the last couple of weeks.

James Wade is in good form and enjoying himself on the Euro Tour, reaching the last three semi-finals. That is the thing, he finds it tougher at the business end of things and he has not made a Euro Tour final since 2018. He will be hard to beat and should make another quarter final, but he should be facing Rock (2-5) or Bunting in the quarter final.

He has lost to Rock in the semi-final of ET10 three weeks ago and beat Bunting in ET11. There is nobody coming in at the first-round stage who should bother the big three. It looks like Rock or Wade to me.

Third Quarter 

Luke Littler is the top seed in this quarter, joined in the second round by Schindler, Price and Chisnall. Chizzy is on the cold list and Schindler is a bit too inconsistent for me right now. Gerwyn Price is in good form but blew a very good chance to beat Littler at the World Series finals last weekend.

First round entrants include the GOAT, Joe Cullen. When he beats Lucas Wenig 6-0 in round one, he will face Littler in round two. Littler is 2-1 vs. Cullen and 2-0 on the Euro Tour, including a 6-3 in ET4 earlier this year.

Cullen might fancy his chances having recently won PC27, and being a former Hungarian Darts Trophy winner, but the bookies will make Littler a very strong favourite, but what do they know? It is so disrespectful!

Other first round entrants include a very motivated/under pressure Raymond van Barneveld. He faces a local qualifier in round one and then faces an out of form Dave Chisnall. Win those two and he will have done his chances of making the European Championships and Grand Prix, no end of good.

Littler, or maybe Price, to make the semi-final.

Fourth Quarter

World Series winner, Michael van Gerwen, will want to back that up with another good run. He won’t have home advantage this weekend and that is important. I don’t think he would have won at an away venue, such was the barracking his opponents were getting.

He is joined in the second round by Danny Noppert, and MVG usually smashes Noppert up. Chris Dobey can safely be opposed on the Euro Tour, and the final seed is the underachieving Ross Smith.

Smudger is playing well. He usually loses to MVG, but he has beaten him in Europe twice, both last year. Smith was a semi-finalist here last year and you can never rule out a good run from him, but he still loses matches when he is playing his A game. He has failed to get past the third round in his last six Euro Tour events and he struggles to realise his talent too often for my liking.

Nijman Appeals

Of the first-round entrants, Wessel Nijman makes the most appeal. He should face Dobey in round two and he can win that. Nijman is playing a lot of very good darts and he has the talent to beat anyone, but he does lose a lot of important matches in deciding legs.

He lost 5-6 to MVG last weekend, he lost 5-6 to Price in the quarter final of PC26 last week. He lost the quarter final of ET11 5-6 to Humphries, he lost the first round of ET10 5-6 to Sedlacek and the semi-final of PC23 to Lucas Wenig 6-7. I could go on, but those were all in the last six weeks. It might be becoming a ‘thing’. His biggest problem might be that that he is 0-4 vs. MVG.

I do not think we can say that MVG is back just because he won the World Series of Darts Final, but it will have boosted his confidence, and that is what he has been lacking. This quarter is well within his grasp.

2025 Hungarian Darts Trophy Selections

My short list consists of Humphries, Van Veen, Rock, Littler, Price and MVG. I can’t pick them all, but which throwers represent the best value?

Littler is the 3.50 favourite and on the Euro Tour in 2025 he has won two from four played. As such, his odds do offer some value. However, there is always the question of how he gets on with the crowd.

He lost the battle with them in Amsterdam last weekend, he won’t play in Germany as the crowds there have his number. Is it a coincidence that his two Euro Tour titles came in Belgium? The fairest crowds in darts? I think not. Littler didn’t play here last year so we don’t have any form to go on, but I will pass on him at short odds.

Humphries 6/1

Luke Humphries is the 7.00 second favourite. He picked up his first Euro Tour of the year title two weeks ago and was runner up here in 2023. He has won two of his last eight Euro events, and again, his odds do offer some value.

Cool Hand is in a very tough group, however. It is the group of death and I would rather take a chance on Gian van Veen at 26.00. The young Dutchman is coming into some very good form and he is a top class operator.

Josh Rock kept the account straight in Prague last time on the Euro Tour and with back-to-back finals you can’t knock his form. You can say that his tournament win rate is a little bit disappointing. He needs to start converting his great firepower into titles more often.

Iceman Looks Value

Gerwyn Price is a 10.00 shot and would be an easy pick if he wasn’t likely to face Littler in the third quarter. He really should have beaten him last weekend and that is now five in a row he has lost to Littler. Is Littler getting into his head? Hopefully not as he is one of the players who can beat him on merit.

Michael van Gerwen is the defending champion and won a TV title last weekend. He has a kindly draw and has a good chance to make the semi-final. Odds of 9.50 are not huge, but he makes some sense as a pick.

Gian Van Veen 0.5 point e/w to win the 2025 Hungarian Darts Trophy @ 26.00 with Belfair, Livescorebet, Hills

Josh Rock 0.5 point e/w to win the 2025 Hungarian Darts Trophy @ 11.00 with Betfair, Skybet

Gerwyn Price 0.5 point e/w to win the 2025 Hungarian Darts Trophy @ 10.00 with Betfair, Skybet, Hills

Michael van Gerwen 0.5 point e/w to win the 2025 Hungarian Darts Trophy @ 9.50 with Livescorebet

We have another Euro Tour – Formula 1 clash this weekend, so there will be no darts coverage on Sunday, but I’ll previews for the sessions on Friday and Saturday.

-JamesPunt