2025 Paddy Power World Darts Championship: Preview, schedule, results, how to follow
The 2025 Paddy Power World Darts Championship is here.
In this article, we’ll tell you:
- where it’s happening
- who’s involved and how the draw works
- the prize money on offer
- who the favourites are for the title
- how to follow the event
Where will the PDC World Darts Championship take place?
For the 18th straight year, the PDC World Darts Championship will be played at the Alexandra Palace, London. It will happen from Sunday 15 December 2024 to Friday 3 January 2025.
All standard tickets are sold out.
What’s the draw and who’s involved?
The full draw for the 2025 Paddy Power World Darts Championship is as follows:
2025 Paddy Power World Darts Championship Draw
Section One
(1) Luke Humphries v Thibault Tricole or Joe Comito
(32) Raymond van Barneveld v Nick Kenny or Stowe Buntz
(16) James Wade v Jermaine Wattimena or Stefan Bellmont
(17) Peter Wright v Wesley Plaisier or Ryusei Azemoto
(8) Stephen Bunting v Alan Soutar or Kait Gotthardt
(25) Dirk van Duijvenbode v Madars Razma or Christian Kist
(9) Damon Heta v Connor Scutt or Ben Robb
(24) Mike De Decker v Luke Woodhouse or Lourence Ilagan
Section Two
(4) Luke Littler v Ryan Meikle or Fallon Sherrock
(29) Ritchie Edhouse v Ian White or Sandro Eric Sosing
(13) Danny Noppert v Ryan Joyce or Darius Labanauskas
(20) Ryan Searle v Mensur Suljovic or Matt Campbell
(5) Rob Cross v Scott Williams or Niko Springer
(28) Gian van Veen v Ricardo Pietreczko or XiaoChen Zong
(12) Nathan Aspinall v Cameron Menzies or Leonard Gates
(21) Andrew Gilding v Martin Lukeman or Nitin Kumar
Section Three
(2) Michael Smith v Kevin Doets or Noa-Lynn van Leuven
(31) Krzysztof Ratajski v Richard Veenstra or Alexis Toylo
(15) Chris Dobey v Stephen Burton or Alexander Merkx
(18) Josh Rock v Karel Sedlacek or Rhys Griffin
(7) Jonny Clayton v Mickey Mansell or Tomoya Goto
(26) Daryl Gurney v Florian Hempel or Jeffrey de Zwaan
(10) Gerwyn Price v Kim Huybrechts or Keane Barry
(23) Joe Cullen v Wessel Nijman or Cameron Carolissen
Section Four
(3) Michael van Gerwen v James Hurrell or Jim Long
(30) Brendan Dolan v Chris Landman or Lok Yin Lee
(14) Gary Anderson v Jeffrey de Graaf or Rashad Sweeting
(19) Ross Smith v Jim Williams or Paolo Nebrida
(6) Dave Chisnall v Ricky Evans or Gordon Mathers
(27) Gabriel Clemens v Niels Zonneveld or Robert Owen
(11) Dimitri Van den Bergh v Willie O’Connor or Dylan Slevin
(22) Martin Schindler v Callan Rydz or Romeo Grbavac
How does the draw work?
The draw for the 2025 Paddy Power World Darts Championship sees the top 32 players on the PDC Order of Merit qualify for round two automatically. They make up the 32 seeds for the event.
The top 32 players on the Pro Tour Order of Merit, who are not already on the main Order of Merit, qualify for round one, as do 32 international qualifiers.
The Pro Tour players and the qualifiers play each other to take on a seed in round two.
The seeded player then faces the winner of a round one game. Whoever wins that moves onto round three, where 32 players remain. If all the seeds qualify, then it would be 1 v 32, 2 v 31, and so on.
The semi finals will be the winner of section one v winner of section two. The winners of sections three and four will play in the other semi final.
The two semi final winners will play in the final, with the victor winning the World Darts Championship.
What’s the prize money?
The prize fund remains at £2.5 million as it did last time around. It’s broken down like this:
- Winner – £500,000
- Runner up – £200,000
- Semi finalists – £100,000
- Quarter finalists – £50,000
- Fourth round losers – £35,000
- Third round losers – £25,000
- Second round losers – £15,000
- First round losers – £7,500
Michael Smith will defend £500,000 on his Order of Merit ranking, having won this title two years ago. If he does not regain his title, he could drop to 15th in the world.
Michael van Gerwen is defending £200,000 on his ranking, after finishing runner up.
You can view the live Order of Merit on the DartsRankings website.
What’s the schedule of play for the 2025 World Darts Championship?
You can view the schedule of play and results on our website.
Who are the favourites for the title?
Last year’s beaten finalist Luke Littler is the current favourite to lift the World Darts Championship. He’s 7/4 with title sponsors Paddy Power, with defending champion Luke Humphries second favourite at 3/1.
Two time winner of the Sid Waddell Trophy Gary Anderson comes next at 10/1, with three time champion Michael van Gerwen next at 11/1.
World Grand Prix champion Mike de Decker and 2023 champion Michael Smith are both at 25/1, with Wessel Nijman and Gerwyn Price at 28/1.
Last year’s beaten quarter finalist Chris Dobey is at 33/1.
You can view the full outright market on the Paddy Power website.
How can I follow the 2025 World Darts Championship?
The 2025 World Darts Championship will be shown live on Sky Sports in the UK and Ireland. If you’re outside the UK or Ireland, you can watch it via the PDC broadcast partner in your country, such as Viaplay or DAZN.
In the UK, there will be live radio commentary on most sessions via talkSPORT or talkSPORT 2.
You can also live stream the event. Find out more here.
We’ll also have you covered here at Online Darts, with reaction from winners direct from Alexandra Palace. Head over to our YouTube channel and hit subscribe so you don’t miss a video.
We’ll give regular updates on:
- TikTok
Finally, after the games are done, join us for The Fallout Bar. Our team will get you caught up on all the stories of the day, plus have interviews from the headline makers. It will be broadcast live on our YouTube channel straight after play every day of the tournament, and be available to download as a podcast the following morning from all good providers.
Follow all the drama of the 2025 Paddy Power World Darts Championship with us here at Online Darts.
