Darts Handicap Betting Explained: Master Your Bets

For a fairly niche sport, darts has become enormously popular in recent years. Major darts tournaments attract huge (and rowdy) live audiences and millions of viewers - and they offer staggeringly high prizes for the winners.

The total prize fund for the 2024/25 PDC World Championship was a staggering £2.5 million!

It’s therefore not at all surprising that betting on darts has taken off too. More and more bookmakers are offering darts matches, and with broad ranges of markets.

As well as straightforward match winner markets, you’ll see match doubles and trebles, first 180, correct score, handicap markets, and more.

In this article, we’ll talk you through the way handicap bets work, both in general and in darts specifically, why you might want to place a handicap bet, and how they can be harnessed for Matched Betting purposes.

You’ll be a veritable expert by the time you reach the end!

Darts Betting Markets Explained

If you’re into darts already, you probably don’t need this section - but if you’re newer to the world of darts betting, we’ll run you through the major markets bookies will offer on darts matches.

Match winner

This one is pretty self explanatory; you’re betting on the overall winner of the match.

Outright

This is a bet on the outright winner of a competition, such as the World Championship or Premier League. In many cases, as well as a straight bet on the winner, you’ll be able to place an each way bet on a player to win or place, as you would in horse racing.

180 markets

There are a few different options when betting on 180 markets. Depending on the bookie, you’re likely to encounter the following:

• Most 180s. As it sounds, you’re betting on the player to score the highest number of 180s.

• Total 180s. An over/under market, where you bet on the total number of 180s in a match.

• Player 180s. Much like total 180s, except you’re betting on the total number of 180s scored by an individual player.

• First 180. Another self-explanatory one; you’re betting on the first player to score a 180.

• 180 in first leg. A bet on whether a 180 will be scored in the first leg of the match.

Total legs

A bet on the total number of legs within the match. This will be in the over/under format, and you’ll usually have a default number as well as a range of other options under ‘alternative total legs’.

Correct score

This can either refer to the number of legs won, or to the number of sets won, depending on whether the match in question is being played in sets (as is the case for the PDC World Championships, for example).

Match double/treble

These markets are a bit more complicated, and refer to three of the most significant statistics in a darts match: who won the match, who got the most 180s, and who got the highest number of checkouts.

Match double markets allow you to bet on who will be the victor in different combinations of two of those statistics (e.g. you could bet that Gerwyn Price wins the match but that Luke Humphries gets the most 180s).

Match treble markets, meanwhile, allow you to bet on who will be the victor in all three of those statistics. Traditionally, a match treble bet specifically involves betting on one player to win in all three categories, but some bookies (such as Bet365, as shown below), will allow you to mix and match your players and markets.

Lead after

The ‘lead after’ market will usually refer to which player is winning after a certain number of legs. For example, in the market shown below you’d be betting on which player will have a lead after 4 legs.

Highest checkout

This market allows you to bet on the player who succeeds in gaining the highest score for a checkout (the highest possible score being 170).

What Does Handicap Mean?

Generally, handicap in sports betting means that a team or player has been given a hypothetical goal or points deficit in advance of the match, meaning that they have to win by at least that amount for your bet to win.

Particularly for very uneven match-ups, a handicap bet can be more worthwhile, and more interesting, for punters to bet on.

As an example, we’ll take a look at an upcoming match between Arsenal and West Ham. Arsenal are the favourites by a huge margin, meaning that the odds are heavily skewed in their direction.

However, if we give Arsenal a goal handicap of -2, meaning that they have to win by more than 2 goals for your bet to win (or that West Ham have to lose by less than 2), the odds become much more even, and the bet becomes much more interesting.

There are a number of varieties of handicap, two of the most common being Asian handicap and European handicap, but they all work on these essential principles, across pretty much all sports.

Horse Racing

The exception to this is horse racing, where handicap is an entirely different beast.

Although handicap in horse racing is a similar concept - that of giving stronger competitors a disadvantage to level the playing field - in practice it doesn’t work the same way at all.

Rather than giving a competitor a theoretical disadvantage that applies only to a betting market, in horse racing a handicap means a physical disadvantage, in the form of weight that’s added to a horse’s saddle.

Horses that compete in handicap races are regularly assessed and assigned a certain handicap weight by dedicated officials.

The aim is to even out the differences in ability between horses in a race, as perfectly as possible. Although this isn’t something that can ever be entirely achieved, it still results in much more competitive races, and much more exciting betting as a result.

As this is a very different system to handicap in other sports, it’s important to be aware of the difference when it comes to your betting activity.

Darts Handicap Betting Options

When it comes to darts, bookies will assign a certain leg or set handicap (depending on the type of play for the match) to a player, in order to even up the odds.

For example, for the match between Gerwyn Price and Luke Humphries we’ve been looking at above, the standard handicap market is -1.5 for Luke Humphries, meaning he’d have to win by 2 legs or more for your bet to win.

Alternatively, if you were to bet on Gerwyn Price with a handicap of +1.5, he’d have to lose by 1 leg or less (or to win outright) for your bet to win.

There will also be alternative handicap markets available, with somewhat less even odds, as you can see below.

The bigger the event, the more markets you’re likely to see. It can seem confusing if you’re confronted with a vast array of markets, but handicap markets will always work in roughly the same way, so shouldn’t ever be too tricky to figure out.

Advantages Of Handicap Betting In Darts

The obvious problem with highly uneven match ups is that there’s little point in betting on either side.

If you bet on the favourite, the odds you see result in a pretty minimal profit for the amount of money you’ve got at risk - even if the likelihood of your pick losing is quite small.

Conversely, betting on the underdog may get you great odds, but the chance of a win is so small you’ll probably feel like you’re just throwing your money away.

A handicap bet solves this problem, evening up the odds and making either the favourite or the underdog a much more worthwhile choice.

A bettor is therefore more likely to place a bet, and so this benefits the bookie too - from their point of view, more bets being placed is always a good thing!

Does Darts Handicap Betting Work With Matched Betting?

Absolutely! Darts handicap betting can be really useful when Matched Betting, especially for qualifying bets.

One of the chief problems for matched bettors is finding a good match when completing an offer for sports like darts, which are more niche than horse racing or football.

If the upcoming darts matches available happen to be very one-sided affairs, it may well be tricky to find a suitable match, with the odds high enough to meet the qualification requirements but low enough to keep your qualifying loss low.

A handicap market can solve this problem, and widens the range of markets available at the same time.

The only potential problem is finding a lay market for your darts handicap bet. Not every exchange offers darts at all, let alone a range of handicap markets.

However, you’ll usually be able to locate handicap markets for major darts matches at the bigger betting exchange sites, such as Betfair - just make sure to double check that there’s a good lay market available before you place your back bet.

Summary

Although handicap markets can seem intimidating at first, especially if you’re a comparatively new sports bettor, they’re actually pretty straightforward.

Much like with other sports, darts handicaps are a useful tool for both bettors and bookies, evening up the odds to make betting on a particular match-up more exciting and potentially profitable.

When combined with Matched Betting, you can take advantage of darts handicap markets to track down ideal odds for your qualifying bets, helping you to make the most of the offer you’re completing.

And if you’re wondering what this Matched Betting business is all about, you can find out more about how this hugely profitable side hustle in our dedicated beginner’s guide - or if you want to dive right in, why not give our free trial a go? You’ll be making money before you know it!