In each tournament, there are 16 players who enter through their rankings in the PDC Order of Merit and a further 16 who have to play in qualifying rounds in the PDC ProTour Order of Merit. Once the darts players enter the competition, the 16 Order of Merit players are seeded against the 16 qualifying players, and they play in a first to 10 legs round. The players who win the first round are then paired and play in the second round that is played to the first to 11 legs. This is followed by quarterfinals, which are played to the first to 16 legs, semi-finals, which are played to the first to 17 legs, and it culminates in the final, which is played to the first to 18 legs.
The champion not only receives the Phil Taylor trophy, but also receives a cash prize of £150,000. The runner up receives £70,000, semi-finalists receive £50,000, quarterfinalists receive £25,000, nd those who finished in the second round receive £15,000, and those who finish in the first round receive £10,000.
World Matchplay 2022
The 2022 World Matchplay will be highly exciting as it features many top darts players as well as many potential future stars. The players announced to compete through the PDC Order of Merit are mostly the same players as last year, but there are a few new players. Defending champion Peter Wright returns to the competition in the first place in the Order of Merit, followed by Gerwyn Price, 2015 and 2016 winner Michael van Gerwen, Michael Smith, 2007 winner James Wade, 2018 winner Gary Anderson, Jose de Sousa, 2020 winner Dimitri Van den Bergh, Jonny Clayton, Joe Cullen, Dave Chisnall and Krysztof Ratajski. Danny Noppert, Luke Humphries and Dirk van Duijvenbode all featured in last year's competition as well, but this time around, they entered the competition through their rankings in the PDC Order of Merit.
From the PDC ProTour Qualifiers, there are players such as Callan Rydz and Martin Schindler, who are far younger than their opponents are, but both show excellent promise. Rydz played in last year's tournament and managed to make it to the quarterfinals before being knocked out by eventual winner Peter Wright. There are also a handful of players who have played in the competition before, but qualified through their PDC Order of Merit rankings, such as Nathan Aspinall, Kim Huybrechts, Adrian Lewis, and Daryl Gurney. Damon Heta, Martin Lukeman, Brendan Dolan, Stephen Bunting, Gabriel Clemens, Andrew Gilding, and Ross Smith have also all played in the World Matchplay before, whilst Madars Razma and youngster Martin Schindler are the only darts players to make their debuts in the competition.
World Matchplay Betting
Match Winner
For each individual darts match, there will be bets on which player will win the match. These are two-way bets, where odds will be offered on either darts player. For example, in a game between Peter Wright and Michael van Gerwen, there will be a bet on Wright to win, and another bet on van Gerwen to win.
Leg Spreads
Spreads are bets where punters can make it harder to win a bet on a player by setting a negative spread and thus lengthen the odds, or do the opposite. These are basically numbers that will be added or subtracted to or from a player’s score in legs at the end of a match.
There will be numerous spreads offered, and punters can pick the one that has the preferable odds to risk ratio. The value of the spreads offered will depend on whether the match is played in a first to 10, 11, 16, 17, or 18-leg format. In a match that is played in a first to 10 legs format, there may be spreads with values such as -2.5, -3.5, -4.5, and so on. If a punter choses a value of -4.5, this will require the player picked to win the game by at least 5 legs for the bet to win. Larger spreads will create longer odds, but also come at higher risk.
Bets can be placed with positive spreads. These will be offered with the same numerical value as the negative spreads, only they will be added to a player’s score at the end of the game. Larger positive spreads will shorten the odds of betting on the player but they will also drastically reduce the risk.
Leg Totals
These are bets on how many legs there will be in a single match. In the same way as the spreads can vary depending on the length of a game, leg totals will have a similar range. There will be several betting lines that a punter can choose from, and they can bet on whether the match will end with over or under the number of legs defined in the line.
In a match that is played in a first to 10 legs format, there may be bets such as over/under 7.5, 8.5, 9.5, 10.5, 11.5, and so on. In a match that is played in a first to 16 legs, the line will start with a higher value and have more options, for example: 10.5, 11.5, 12.5, 13.5, all the way up to 20.5, 21.5, and so on.
Game Props
In addition to the main bets, there are plenty of aspects in darts games that can be bet on, and these bets can be found as game props. There may be bets on certain statistics in a game, and there may also be bets on whether some feats may or may not happen during a game.
For example, there may be the option to bet on which player will throw the most triple 20s, which leg will have the highest number of triple 20s, which player will have the highest checkout in the match, how large the checkout will be in the first leg, will there be a nine-dart finish in the game, how many bullseye finishes a player will throw, and many more.
The other types of props, that relate to how a game may be won, may include bets such as, will a player win the game in straight legs, will a player win the match after going behind by X legs, will the match be decided in the last leg, which player will have the better average, exact leg score, and many more.
Live Betting
Placing live bets during a match can be even more enjoyable than pregame bets. These will include all the main bets and some props, as well as some special live bets that will relate to ongoing legs or what will happen next in the match. All of these bets will be offered with live odds, meaning they will go up and down during the course of the match to reflect how likely they are to win.
These special live bets can include what the checkout of the ongoing round will be, which player will throw more 180s in the round, will there be a bullseye finish, will a player win two legs in a row, which player will reach X legs first, and many more. These bets are usually resolved within minutes as they relate to events that will happen in the immediate future. Therefore, it is always worth keeping a close eye on the live betting markets.