WORLD SERIES OF DARTS FINALS TIPS: TWO ACCAS & A 4/1 OUTRIGHT VALUE BET FOR AMSTERDAM
Amsterdam’s AFAS Live has become something of a second home for Michael van Gerwen.
The Dutchman arrives as defending champion and looking to make it seven World Series Finals appearances in the winner’s circle since 2015.
It’s Luke Littler who heads into the 32-man field at the head of the outright market, with the Nuke still chasing a historic clean sweep of the majors in 2026.
The draw technically delivered its first twice before a dart’s even been thrown, when visa issues forced Lourence Ilagan and Alexis Toylo out of the tournament.
Daryl Gurney and Maik Kuivenhoven stepped in as late replacements, with Gurney drawing the unenviable task of opening against Van Gerwen himself.
With four days of action at AFAS Live we’ve dug into the odds, the numbers, the head-to-heads and the shape of the draw to find where the value sits beyond the obvious names.
When is the 2026 World Series of Darts Finals & where to watch
- Location: AFAS Live, Amsterdam, Netherlands
- Dates: Thu 17th Sep – Sun 20th
- Format: Leg play (first and second rounds best of 11; quarter-finals best of 19; semi-finals & final best of 21)
- Defending champion: Michael van Gerwen
- How to watch: Live on ITV4
- Markets: Bet on darts
Tip 1 – Gian van Veen to win quarter two @ 4/1
Gian van Veen’s route through this section starts against Chris Dobey, a stern enough test in round one, before a second-round meeting with whichever of Karel Sedlacek or Ben Robb survives their own tournament debuts.
Assuming the higher-ranked and more experienced Sedlacek comes through, the numbers lean heavily toward Van Veen: a 4-1 head-to-head record, a healthier year average (96.37 against 93.01) and close to double the maximums this year with 519 to Sedlacek’s 304.
His finishing gap is the real separator, though, with the Giant’s 42.7% for the year far outstripping Sedlacek’s 37.2%. Win that and Luke Humphries likely awaits in the quarter-final.
Recent form favours Humphries, who has won the last handful of meetings after Van Veen spent a stretch between March 2025 and January 2026 eliminating him from four separate majors.
But strip away their BetMGM Premier League nightly fixtures and Van Veen leads their major stage head-to-heads 4-1. Van Veen has also reached the semis or better in three of this season’s four non-Premier League singles majors, a return Humphries has matched only once with his run to the World Masters final.
Making finals without winning them has become a bit of a theme for Van Veen this year – he made four during the BetMGM Premier League season, one on the European Tour and another in the World Series – but for a quarter-final outright at 4/1, simply reaching the latter stages again is all that’s required.
Tip 2 – Opening night acca @ 9/2
Four selections make up Thursday’s opening night acca. We’ve gone for:
- Van Duijvenbode to beat Tingstrom
- Van Gerwen to beat Gurney
- Doets vs Smith over 9.5 legs
- Bunting vs Rock over 9.5 legs
Dirk van Duijvenbode to beat Viktor Tingstrom: The gulf in ranking between Dirk van Duijvenbode and Viktor Tingstrom – 23rd versus 92nd – is backed up by their recent history.
The pair have met twice this year with the Dutchman winning both reasonably comfortably – 6-1 behind a 98.3 average in May, plus a 6-3 in February. Tingstrom failed to reach a 91 average in either match and his floor results elsewhere this year tell a similar story.
Kevin Doets vs Ross Smith over 9.5 legs: Doets and Smith are locked 4-4 in the head-to-heads and their only meeting this year needed every part of both of them – Doets averaged 104 and landed the big fish yet still lost 10-6 in the first round of the Matchplay.
Stephen Bunting vs Josh Rock over 9.5 legs: The underlying numbers for Bunting and Rock are near-identical this year with over 900 180s between them, both hitting around 0.32/0.33 maximums per leg and both under 39% on checkouts.
Yet the scoreline rarely reflects that closeness when they face off, with only two of their 10 meetings finishing within even two legs of one another and never once on a major stage.
Michael van Gerwen to beat Daryl Gurney: Sixteen previous meetings at major level have produced 10 wins for Van Gerwen while Gurney’s 2026 has been modest with one European Tour semi-final, no last-eight finish at a major and DNQs at both the Matchplay and Grand Prix.
Their solitary meeting this year was closer than the head-to-head suggests though. Van Gerwen edged their Belgian Open tussle 6-5 with both men averaging over 108.
MVG has never lost an opening tie in the World Series Finals either; the smart money says that’s still the case come Friday morning.
BETMGM’S 9/2 OPENING NIGHT ACCA
- Van Duijvenbode to beat Tingstrom
- Van Gerwen to beat Gurney
- Doets vs Smith over 9.5 legs
- Bunting vs Rock over 9.5 legs
Tip 3 – Top six acca @ 6/1
We’ve created a six-fold for the opening matches containing the world’s top six ranked players:
- Littler to beat Noppert
- Humphries to beat Wattimena
- Van Veen to beat Dobey
- Price to beat Klinge
- Clayton to beat Kuivenhoven
- Wade to beat Heta
Luke Littler to beat Danny Noppert: There’s a growing sense that if nobody catches Littler in the first round or two then nobody catches him at all – the Phil Taylor template in other words.
Noppert, world number 10, is a stern enough name to open against but Littler thrashed him 6-0 in Prague less than a fortnight ago and holds six wins from their seven meetings overall.
Luke Humphries to beat Jermaine Wattimena: Humphries is not immune to an opening-round shock – it happened at the Matchplay for a second straight yer this summer – but a stumble tends to sharpen him rather than rattle him.
Wattimena has form as a Cool Hand-slayer on the major stage, having knocked him out of the 2025 European Championship, yet Humphries has had the better of him this year with an 8-4 floor final win following a 6-1 European Tour rout.
Gian van Veen to beat Chris Dobey: Dobby has made the quarter-finals in each of his last two visits to this event but his wider major record tells a rockier story – he has had as many first-round exits as he has last-eight appearances since the 2024 World Championship.
Their only meeting this year went Van Veen’s way despite Dobey averaging 102, undone by a checkout return of just 23% against a finisher whose whole game is built on the exact opposite.
Gerwyn Price to beat Brody Klinge: Klinge arrives off the back of an Australian Darts Masters final run that accounted for Jonny Clayton, Van Veen and Ross Smith, so this is no formality. But Price has rarely faltered at the first hurdle over the past 18 months, with one first-round exit at major level in that span and three semi-finals and a final in 2026 alone.
Jonny Clayton to beat Maik Kuivenhoven: Clayton lost to Kuivenhoven on the floor back in May but a big stage tends to change the equation and the late replacement now walks into a 2021 winner of this event in near-career-best territory.
Clayton has made two finals – including the World Cup pairs event – four further semi-finals and a clutch of quarter-finals across the last 18 months, making a repeat of that May shock unlikely.
James Wade to beat Damon Heta: Arguably the form man in the field, having just won the Flanders Darts Trophy, Wade also reached the UK Open final this year for a second straight time alongside quarter-final appearances at both the Matchplay and the Masters.
Heta once looked capable of a major title himself but has cooled lately, with Wade holding the recent edge between them after a 7-4 win in Antwerp last week. The Machine, a past World Series Finals champion and three-time semi-finalist, will expect to progress here.
BETMGM’S 6/1 TOP SIX ACCA
- Littler to beat Noppert
- Humphries to beat Wattimena
- Van Veen to beat Dobey
- Price to beat Klinge
- Clayton to beat Kuivenhoven
- Wade to beat Heta
Odds correct at time of publication but subject to change.
