Who's the luckiest player in darts? The 2026 table
We worked out how many matches each player's averages should have won at this year's big events. Luke Littler has beaten them by the most and Michael van Gerwen has fallen furthest short. It is part luck, part nerve.
+6.4Luke Littler's wins above what the averages predicted
Averages decide most darts matches, but not all of them. Across 328 matches at this year's televised majors, we took what both players averaged and worked out how likely each result was. Adding those chances up gives the number of wins each player's scoring should have produced.
Luke Littler won 40 of 52 matches, 6.4 more than the averages predicted. Michael van Gerwen won 14 of 32, 4.3 fewer.
Wins above the averages, 2026
The eight players with at least 15 matches in the 2026 World Championship, Premier League, World Matchplay, World Series Finals and European Championship.
| Player | Played | Won | Averages predicted | Above |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Luke Littler | 52 | 40 | 33.6 | +6.4 |
| Jonny Clayton | 45 | 29 | 23.8 | +5.2 |
| Gian van Veen | 43 | 24 | 19.1 | +4.9 |
| Gerwyn Price | 45 | 27 | 26.5 | +0.5 |
| Stephen Bunting | 33 | 15 | 16.5 | -1.5 |
| Josh Rock | 32 | 12 | 13.9 | -1.9 |
| Luke Humphries | 39 | 21 | 24.6 | -3.6 |
| Michael van Gerwen | 32 | 14 | 18.3 | -4.3 |
The least likely win we can name
In the Premier League, Michael van Gerwen averaged 104.07 and Stephen Bunting 95.70, and Bunting won 6-3. On those averages Bunting had about an 8% chance.
Is it really luck?
Partly. An average counts every dart the same, so it cannot see who took their doubles when the leg was on the line. If this were all skill, the same players would come out on top each year, and they mostly do not: comparing players from one year to the next since 2012, the number carries over only weakly (a correlation of 0.18). So being high on this table is mostly fortune with some nerve mixed in, and the very best may well be doing something the averages miss.
How this works: how we work out each chance.
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