James Hubbard’s Betting Tips for the PDC World Darts Championship Final

• Over 10.5 Sets: 4/6 at BetVictor
• Over 35.5 180s In The Match: 1/1 at Ladbrokes
• Luke Littler to average over 102.50: 10/11 at AK Bets
• Luke Littler to Win, Hit a 180 in every set and 1+ bull finishes in the match: 3/1 at Bet365

Luke Littler has come through his side of the draw in outstanding fashion and makes it through to his second World Championship Final on the trot. It's honestly mind-blowing what he is doing at this age.

After he won the World Youth Title last year, he said he wanted to be in the top 32 by the end of 2024. Well, he is miles ahead of schedule on that and with a win this evening he will become World Number 2.

Littler came through his Semi Final match against Stephen Bunting pretty convincingly 6-1 but in my opinion, the score line did not reflect the match. Bunting missed multiple opportunities in the first 4 sets and could easily have been ahead.

It was a let off for Littler and the game could well have been completely different. It wasn't though and the young man breezed through with a 105.48 average, 13 180s and a 170 checkout. His scoring power was once again relentless and his first 9-dart average was 116.42.

The way ‘The Nuke’ scores I have honestly never seen the like and that includes prime MVG. The relentless barrage of big scores meant that in the semi-final he left a finish after 12 darts in 30 of the 31 legs played (96.8%) and left 40 or less after 12 darts 43% of the time. That stat is honestly ridiculous and just shows you how incredibly accurate he is during his scoring visits.

Since the start of last year's PDC World Championship and after last night's Semi-Final, Luke Littler has hit 50.7% of his attempts on stage at D10 across all events. Another ridiculous stat that shows how deadly he is on his favourite double.

Littler comes into this year’s World Championship Final with a running average of 102.13 and a staggering 64 180s. He will need 20 tonight to break Michael Smith’s record of maximums hit in a single World Championship campaign but I think he’ll do it.

Littler’s first season on the Pro Tour has been quite remarkable. He has won 10 senior PDC titles including The Premier League, Grand Slam and World Series Finals. He has hit four 9 darters this season with 2 of them coming on TV, his most recent being in the Premier League final at the 02 arena against Luke Humphries. Unsurprisingly this also set a new record as the youngest player to hit a televised 9 dart leg.

With a victory tonight, the 17-year-old sensation will break yet another record in his already outstanding career by becoming the youngest PDC World Championship winner in history, surpassing Michael van Gerwen’s record at 24.

Michael van Gerwen has probably surprised a lot of people and amazingly gone under the radar slightly to reach his 7th PDC World Championship Final. All the talk was about Luke Humphries and Luke Littler and I think that has certainly woken the Dutchman up and he will be looking to prove a point tonight.

He breezed through his semi-final tie against Chris Dobey 6-1 in a match that Michael never looked like losing. Dobey was certainly under par and after missing set darts in the 2nd set he was never really the same after that and MVG took full advantage.

An average of 98.84 and 8 180s was enough to get the job done but I expect him to be much better than that this evening. The biggest positive from that match was how he moved up the gears and showed his killer instinct in the final set to get the match won with a 108.65 average. He will certainly need more of that tonight and the fact his last two matches on that stage have been very impressive, will give him plenty of confidence to know it's still in the locker.

‘Mighty Mike’ has won 7 consecutive set-deciding legs, and 11 of his last 12 in the PDC World Championship which shows again how he seems to get his timing right in the big moments.

He has a tournament average of 99.75 and has hit 43 180s. All the signs are extremely positive here for Michael and the fact he has already played in 6 World Championship Finals before tonight is a huge advantage.

He’s also successfully defending the money on his rankings from his run to the final 2 years ago so it will be a straight shootout tonight as to who goes into next season at the World number two.

I spoke out in a tweet about how I was extremely surprised at how comfortable both Nathan Aspinall and Stephen Bunting made it for Littler, by fist pumping, smiling and showing miles too much respect to the young man. I can say 100% that MVG will not entertain that tonight and will be bang on it from word go trying to put Littler under the cosh and I think that's the only way you can beat the 17-year-old right now.

Like I said previously the signs are certainly there that MVG is on his way back to form but the prime MVG we have seen over the last decade or so still isn't quite there, so he will have to draw on every bit of experience possible to win a 4th World Title tonight.

His price of 21/10 to win the match is still very enticing though and it's pretty unfathomable to see MVG at that price in a World Final but that just shows you how good Littler is. Van Gerwen will be bang on it from dart 1 tonight though and I expect him to be really up for this as he’ll definitely want to prove to the world he’s still the man to beat.

Littler though is just on a different planet right now and it will take a monumental performance from MVG to stop him winning his maiden World Crown. The problem sometimes Littler has is that he seems as though his concentration wavers at times and he doesn't get as many sets won 3-0 as he should. He will have to be very careful if he does that tonight though because the Dutchman will almost certainly be there to pounce.

We haven't seen a 13th set in a PDC World Championship final for 10 years and it certainly wouldn't surprise me if that happened tonight. This is a fascinating match and I think first of all the safe bet is the amount of sets because I can't see any of these two running away with this match.

Secondly, I expect a huge number of 180s in this match as Littler needs 20 to break the record and always hits a lot and also MVG has started finding his maximum hitting again, especially in his Quarter Final against Rydz where he hit 14. Also because I expect it to be a close match with many sets going the distance, it gives them both the chance to hit a lot.

Littler has a running average in this tournament of 102.13 so I think the price on him to average over 102.50 is way too big.

Finally, as tempting as the price for an MVG win is, I just can't see past the consistency and scoring power of ‘The Nuke’. I think this is Luke Littler’s time to make even more history and win his first World Championship.