The PDC World Championships – the hunting ground for Phil “The Power” Taylor. Its spiritual home is the Circus Tavern, but it’s now found its home in the Alexandra Palace. It’s been the tournament that has the most TV coverage, the most prize money and, most importantly for us, the most betting opportunities. 69 televised matches in 2009 gave us plenty of opportunity to find the value, especially as the bookmakers tend not to get 69 matches priced up correctly over the space of two weeks.

There are usually more markets than any other tournament for us to “play” with, from bets covering the whole tournament (number of 180s, outright winner etc.) to match betting on all 69 matches in the tournament.

It has the most famous names in darts and due to the coverage that Sky give the PDC, form lines are easy to find, especially from the TV tournaments. With a slew of knowledge helping us and with all the markets on offer, it really is Christmas for us bettors, which is apt considering the time of year that it’s held.

So while the tournament has almost become the “Phil Taylor Benefit” in recent years, there is still lots of money to be made in the two weeks and even if the final doesn’t throw up any value bets, you’re still guaranteed a fantastic show of darts.

1994: Dennis Priestley beat Phil Taylor 6-1
1995: Phil Taylor beat Rod Harrington 6-2
1996: Phil Taylor beat Dennis Priestley 6-4
1997: Phil Taylor beat Dennis Priestley 6-3
1998: Phil Taylor beat Dennis Priestley 6-0
1999: Phil Taylor beat Peter Manley 6-2
2000: Phil Taylor beat Dennis Priestley 7-3
2001: Phil Taylor beat John Part 7-0
2002: Phil Taylor beat Peter Manley 7-0
2003: John Part beat Phil Taylor 7-6
2004: Phil Taylor beat Kevin Painter 7-6
2005: Phil Taylor beat Mark Dudbridge 7-4
2006: Phil Taylor beat Peter Manley 7-0
2007: Raymond van Barneveld beat Phil Taylor 7-6
2008: John Part beat Kirk Shepherd 7-2
2009: Phil Taylor beat Raymond van Barneveld 7-1