Nearly 1 in 7 People Believe They Could Beat 3x Darts World Champion

Perhaps emboldened by the fairy tale story of 16-year-old Luke Littler at the World Championships, darts fans are brimming with confidence. At least that’s according to a recent survey of over 2000 arrows fans who were asked a range of questions about the sport.

The queries varied from what respondents thought was the best walk-on song – James Wade’s entrance to the sounds of Thin Lizzy’s ‘The Boys are Back in Town’ takes the crown – to which pro, past or present, would they most like to play against.

That honour was shared between two of the sport’s greats. 22% of fans claimed they would most like to face off against 14-time world champion, Phil Taylor. The Power won 11 of the first 13 PDC World Championships. The other name topping that list was Eric Bristow, one of the sport’s early greats.

Plenty of Confidence against 3x World Champion

The latest player to lift the Sid Waddell Trophy was the new World No. 1, Luke Humphries. Cool Hand Luke won his first World Championship at the Ally Pally on Wednesday night. That followed the best year of his career in 2023, with victories at the World Grand Prix, Grand Slam of Darts and most recently, the Players Championship Finals.

The eventual winner Humphries beat Lee Evans, Ricardo Pietreczko, Joe Cullen and Dave Chisnall in the early knockout stages to get his place in the semi-finals. There he thumped Scott Williams 6-0 to secure a spot in the final.

Williams had just knocked out the number 2 seed and three-time World Champion, Michael Van Gerwen. Mighty Mike was the subject of the most eye-catching question on this survey from bet365 and Better Collective.

Over 2000 darts fans were asked: ‘If Michael van Gerwen started on 501, what number would you have to start on for a chance to win the leg?’

14% of respondents believed they could start on 501 and still have a chance of winning a leg against Van Gerwen.

MVG holds the record for the highest televised average in the sport at 123.40 which he achieved against Michael Smith in 2016.

The most common responses were either 201 or 101, with 17% of those surveyed saying they’d fancy their chances of winning a leg against MVG while starting on those numbers. Some were a little more coy about their chances. 15% of respondents said they’d fancy their chances when starting on 32…

Mardy or Foolhardy?

When breaking down this data a little further, a couple of cities emerge as the most confident. Sheffield is the home town of the 2001 World Championships winner, John Walton. Clearly, having John Boy as a local resident has buoyed the confidence of the region. Over 1 in 5 or 22% of Sheffield residents claimed they could have a chance of winning a leg against Van Gerwen when starting on level terms.

The confidence appears to have drifted across the Irish Sea. Coming in second place is the city of Belfast, where 21% of respondents from the Northern Irish capital said they’d still fancy their chances against MVG if they started on 501.

Perhaps that belief is justified. In another question for the survey, a whopping 47% of the respondents from Northern Ireland claimed they had hit a 180 in their lifetime. That’s the highest of any region in the UK and well above the overall average of 37% for the survey.

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