Premier League Darts - Wk 3
Right, I take it all back. Whilst last week’s Premier League bets didn’t leave us sleeping on mattresses of pound notes, there is at least a decent array of value selections to go after again in my view this week.
Price v Wade
Gerwen Price kicks things off against James Wades and it would be hard to find a closer match-up. This one really could go either way. In pure numbers, few players are so similar – they both have a pretty low 180 conversion rate, and both always choose the D20 / D10 check out route whenever practical. It’s on the latter point that brings up our 1st bet. My data suggests we have around a 63% chance of the match ending on either a D20 or a D10 (perhaps 40% on the former and 23% on the latter). Bet Fred offer even money on the match finishing on either D20 or D10 and that looks decent value between these players.
3pts Match Won on D20 or D10 at evens – Bet Fred
Lennon v Wright
Steve Lennon gets his turn this week as one of the challengers facing Peter Wright. He’s arguably one of the weakest of the challengers and it’s hard to see anything but a Wright victory, but perhaps the 8/15 on offer is short enough with the draw always a live runner in this format.
Instead we’re heading to Bet Fred again, where they appear to have underestimated both players in their “1st Three Darts Score” market. Lennon is offered at 11/4 to score Over 100, when his true price should be nearer 5/2 – the value isn’t sufficient to warrant a bet there really though. Wright is on offer at 7/4 when he should really be around 6/4 – with the large data set available on him, that’s good enough for a small bet.
The match winning double is a 3/1 shot to be D20 – I’d expect that to cop around 27% of the time, so again it’s marginal value but we can be pretty confident of the true price, so I'm happy to be a backer at that price.
In the 180s market, Wright should be in for around 0.25 180s per leg played, while Lennon is considerably lower than the PDC average – he’ll typically average around 0.15 per leg. Our model makes Wright around an 8/13 shot to shoot more than Lennon, so even money with Bet Victor is too long.
Finally in this match, a bit more gut feel this one, but Wright will be throwing on even numbered legs (2nd, 4th etc). If he wins, it’s likely it might be 7-3 or 7-5 and we’ll back the latter at 11/2 with SportingBet at attractive odds of 11/2. What would you rather be on when comparing to the 8/15 in the match winning market?
1pt Peter Wright Over 100 1st 3 Darts Score at 7/4 – Bet Fred
2pts Peter Wright most 180s at evens – Bet Victor
1pt Peter Wright to win 7-5 at 11/2 – SportingBet
1pt Lennon v Wright to end on D20 – 3/1 – Betfred
MvG v Cross
MVG is nothing short of a miracle and all the evidence points to another win for the Dutchman. Rob Cross is in great form again though – averaging over 100 in 13 of his last 22 matches and there will be better opportunities to support van Gerwen.
The best bet in this match looks to be backing MvG to score over 100 on his first visit at 6/4. That’s more like a 6/5 shot from my database in this one as he continues to raise the bar time and time again.
It’s going to be a terrific match, of that I have absolutely no doubt, and I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see MvG just nick it with a single break to win 7-4 at odds of 9/2 with SportingBet.
2pts MvG to score over 100 1st 3 Darts - 6/4 Betfred
1pt MvG to win 7-4 at 9/2 – SportingBet
Smith v Gurney
Michael Smith v Daryl Gurney hasn’t thrown a great deal up, but I wouldn’t put anyone off Betfred’s 7/4 on Smith hitting over 100 on his first visit. He’s achieving that 39.5% of the time over the past calendar year, so 7/4 is too long. The market makes Smith a good fav to win the match, and while I wouldn’t argue that too vociferously, his World Championship performance will probably be edging the value away from him much of the time – so he’s probably worth leaving off your accas this week.
1pt Michael Smith to score 100+ 1st 3 Darts at 7/4 (Betfred)
Suljovic v van Barneveld
Finally, Mensur Suljovic faces Raymond van Barneveld, and the market offers 7/4 about the Austrian hitting the most maximums in this. He’s averaging 0.25 per leg versus 0.23 for Barney, and over an 11 leg match (we’re expecting around 10.7 on average in this one) that would come out as Mensur out-maxing Barney around 44% of the time based on my model – in other words, a 5/4 shot. Snap up the 7/4 on this one is the advice as it won’t be available come Thursday evening.
2pts Suljovic most 180s at 7/4 (General)