Betting on darts by Clydebank29

For most people the only time they watch darts is during the World Championships. I particularly remember Keith Deller beating Eric Bristow in 1983 because it was a huge shock equivalent to Joe Johnson winning the World Snooker Championship and among the biggest upsets in professional sport in recent years. Deller won the princely sum of £8,000, significantly more than the £3,000 Leighton Rees won in the first Embassy final in 1978. I also particularly remember the sketch on the excellent Not The Nine O'clock News, which propelled Rowan Atkinson, Mel Smith and Gryff Rhys Jones into stardom, of Fatterbelly and Even Fatterbelly. It had me in fits of laughter as the two "arrers champions" downed their pints.

At the time darts was blessed with some rather portly players. Jocky Wilson, Big Cliff Lazerenko, and the late Leighton Rees were beautifully rotund. Eric Bristow was a waif by comparison, and Keith Deller, well he was a normal healthy looking bloke, at least he was then. Twenty two years and a few shandies later he has really grown into the role. Now we have Andy "The Viking" Fordham, the 2004 BDO World Champion, and star of Celebrity Fat Club, who is probably bigger than the lot of them. I don't know how he got the nickname Viking, but if your average Viking warrior looked like that they would have never of got out of their boats. Come to think of it the boats would have probably sunk before they got here.

The image of the overweight dart player being so contrary to the image of a professional sportsman is why many people question the right of darts to call itself a sport, and refer to it instead as a pub game. The Oxford English Dictionary defines sport as "an activity involving physical exertion and skill in which an individual or team competes against another or others". Darts clearly meets these criteria and is rightfully recognised as a sport by Sportengland.

There are 38,000 players playing at inter county level and many many more people who play casually. You don't have to be six feet tall to reach the top like in basketball or swimming, or built like a brick **** house like in American football to be competitive, nor is your career finished in your thirties. Judged on results a dart player generally reaches his peak in his late thirties and can still be competitive in his fifties. Bob Anderson just reached the final of the PDC World Championship aged fifty seven.

Neither is participation restricted by cost, or performance affected by equipment, as it is with similar sports such as golf, snooker and archery. It is a game of skill open to people of all ages, of all sizes and from all backgrounds. Not only is it a sport, but I believe it is one of the most competitive sports in this country. Besides, since I am just the right side of forty there is still hope for me yet.

Darts might not be the most high profile sport around but it is a great betting medium especially in running. The games don't last too long and the odds can fluctuate significantly several times throughout a match. You have to have your wits about you as the players throw so quickly. A bet that seemed good value just prior to placing can be bad value by the time it hits the screen as the player you have opposed suddenly hits successive treble twenties.

If you imagine the mythical scenario of a best of 7 set match between two evenly matched players. The score is 2 sets to 1 and 2 legs a piece. If the match levels out at 2 sets all both players will end up about evens. Should it end up 3-1, the player 2 sets behind will be about a 7/1 chance as he has to win the next 3 sets to win the match. Assuming there is no advantage in throwing first he would be about even money to win each set and an even money treble is equivalent to 7/1. The odds in that leg can swing wildly backwards and forwards as first one player and then the other looks like winning it.

Before darts split into 2 camps, the BDO and the PDC, I used to remember The Embassy World Title (the BDO version) as the first world sports title in the calendar year, being as it was the first full week in January. It was obviously a strategy used to give the event, and darts in particular some vital TV coverage and it worked. Upon splitting, the PDC stole a march on their rivals, by starting their version just after Xmas so that it finished even earlier in the year, and during the early rounds of the BDO tournament. Therefore taking the limelight away from the BDO title. Whilst having 2 championships offers us gamblers even more opportunities to win and lose money, the week between Xmas and the New Year is not a good week for gambling if you have a young family and a wife desperate to prize you away from the computer like me. As such I tended to concentrate my efforts on the BDO event. In the very first match of that tournament Shaun Greatbatch was playing Mike Veitch, two of the lower ranked players. The score was 2 sets all and Veitch was winning the 3rd set 2-1 and had 3 darts at a double to win the match. His opponent Greatbatch was on 25. This wasn't a market I was actively playing, but rather one I just happened to look in on at that time. At this point in a very weak market somebody came in to back Veitch to win the match at 1.03 for £3,000. This seemed ridiculously short for a player, who with the greatest respect, is not the best player around and who would definitely be feeling the pressure throwing for the match. I laid some of the 1.03, and sure enough, six darts later it was all square, with both players now available at even money again. Veitch actually ended up winning the match and I didn't lay off, so I ended up losing on that match but it does highlight the value you can sometimes find.

The highlight of the 2 championships in my opinion was probably the match between Colin Lloyd and Chris Mason in the last 16 of the PDC version. Lloyd was the clear second favourite for the title while Mason had been playing well in previous rounds and was seen by many as a possible finalist. Earlier in the year Mason had been beaten at 1.01 in the quarter finals of the World Grand Prix where he missed an incredible 11 darts at a double to win the match. If you don't know what happened next you can guess. Colin Lloyd was well out of form and Mason raced into a 3-1 set lead in the best of 7 sets encounter and promptly won the first 2 legs of the 5th set. At this point I believe several thousand pounds had been matched at 1.01. But once again Mason couldn't close the match out despite having two match darts in the following legs. Lloyd won the set and came back to win the match 4-3. There can be few players or teams that have managed to get beat at 1.01 twice. I wonder if he can manage the hat trick?