Players Championship Finals Preview & Betting Guide

Players Championship Finals Preview

The 2025 Players Championship Finals sponsored by Ladbrokes is the eighteenth edition of the tournament. This tournament started back in 2009 when Phil 'The Power' Taylor lifted the inaugural trophy with a 16-9 win over Robert Thornton picking up a cheque of £50k for winning.

That figure has steadily risen over the years and for winning the 2024 tournament, Luke Humphreys picked up prize money more than double that with his £120k for being Champion.

The tournament is at home at the Butlins Resort in Minehead where it has been held every year since 2012 except for 2020 when it was held at the Ricoh Arena in Coventry.

Who is the reigning Players Championship Finals Champion?

Luke Humphries retained his title in 2024 when defeating Luke Littler in the final, Humpries produced the highest average for the final in the past seven years with 103.69 which also ranks third on the all-time list for the final of this tournament.

Format for the Players Championship Finals

Sixty-four players start in this tournament, those are the top sixty-four earners from over the thirty Players Championships events during the season.

Those sixty-four players are split into four sections and the first round of matches is a pretty straightforward draw, it is based on seeds and it is 1 vs 64, 2 vs 63, 3 vs 62 and so on.

There are two sections in the top half and two in the bottom half, in each section there will be three rounds before the final game in each section for the two remaining players which acts as the quarter-final.

The first and second rounds are both best of 11 legs, the third round and quarter-finals are best of 19 whilst the semi-final and final will be best of 21 legs.

Players Championship Finals Schedule

• Day One (22nd) - 32x First Round Matches
• Day Two (23rd) - 22x Second & Third Round Matches
• Day Three (24th) - Quarter-finals, Semi-final & The Final

Who are the Favourites to win the Players Championship Finals?

You have your usual suspects towards the head of the market, Luke Humphries who will be looking for three on the spin and will be bound to be challenging for favouritism pre-tournament along with the teen sensation Luke Littler.

For Players Championship Finals predictions from profitable tipsters head over to the best darts tipsters page, on here only those who have been profitable over the past twelve months and have open tips are shown.

Players Championship Finals Favourite Statistics

Here we can see how successful favourites have been over the last ten Players Championship Finals tournaments, these include matches where there was an outright favourite in the match.

In the early years of this tournament, they were not that reliable with just 58.06% in 2015, however, they have been pretty consistent since then which is since the tournament was expanded to 64 players.

If we are talking consistency then the tournaments between 2021 & 2023 highlight just that, the favourites have had the same outcome, 46 winning from 63 games for a success rate of 73.02%!

Players Championship Finals Odds Breakdown

Next up, we have a breakdown of the outcome of players when they are priced up in a certain odds range. As you would expect those very short have a high win rate and then it decreases as the odds go up.

There are a few ranges which do rise compared to the previous one, those between 1.40 & 1.49 jump up to 75.71% compared to the previous range which was 68.63% and when you consider the 1.40 to 1.49 is the equivalent of an implied percentage of 67.1% to 71.4% then that 75.71% is a very good return.

Another couple of areas which look decent is between 1.90 to 1.99 (50.3% - 52.6%) which comes out at 56.10% and 1.70 to 1.79 (55.9% - 58.8%) which comes out at 64.58% which when you look at the implied percentages those are both well above for that range.

Players Championship Finals Previous Winners

Here are the past ten winners of the Players Championship Finals along with the runners-up, the winning score and the averages in the final of both players.

Players Championship Finals Records

Who has appeared in the most Players Championship Finals?

Two players have appeared in all bar one of the tournaments, both with sixteen appearances are Michael van Gerwen and the veteran Mervyn King.

Who has made it to the most finals at the Players Championship Finals?

Michael van Gerwen is by far the most frequent to a final, during his sixteen tournaments he has made it to nine finals, the next best is Phil Taylor with four and then no one else has made it to more than two.

Who has been crowned champion the most at the Players Championship Finals?

It will be no surprise as we have already mentioned that he has made it to nine finals, Michael van Gerwen has gone on to win seven of those finals whilst Phil Taylor (3) and Luke Humpries (2) are the only other multiple winners.

Has there been a nine-dart finish at the Players Championship Finals?

Yes, there have been four in total and two of those came in finals with Michael van Gerwen hitting nine darters in both the 2022 & 2023 finals, he also hit one in the last of 32 round in 2019 with the other coming from Alan Norris during the 2016 tournament.

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