Lakeside 2017 World Professional Darts betting review
Memories of the Ritz and glamour of the PDC World Championships where MvG romped to the title have already stated to fade - which signals the excitement and start of the Lakeside World Championships on the BDO side of the fence where it’s feasible for a total unknown to scoop the massive Global World Title.
Whatever your take on BDO v PDC standards it offers an amazing spectacle of new players and perhaps more than anything the chance to see several players you may have never seen in your life throw some decent arrows and compete for an often life changing £100k at the same time.
For our money it’s this excitement and opportunity that makes Lakeside 2017 World Professional such exciting 11 days darts, so here’s our form guide on the event.
The hardest thing building a form guide on the BDO is actually getting enough averages from the year leading upto qualification for Lakeside. Unlike the PDC, a lot of BDO players only really peak at Lakeside as it’s such a huge event for them in the calendar year.
Glen Durrant at 13/8 has a good draw and as you need to average around 95 to win Lakeside Durrant is obviously hot favourite as he has been averaging around 95 for nearly the last 3 years.
Of previous Lakeside Champions 3 names spring immediately to mind with Mitchell 14/1 Waites 12/1 and Adams 20/1 all in decent form and more than capable living with the magic 95 average. You can probably add Danny Noppert 6/1, Jamie Hughes 11/1, Dean Reynolds 20/1 and Mark McGeeney 20/1 to that list but outside of these 8 players we can’t see anyone else with a real chance of winning it.
None of the above 7 players are even in Durant’s quarter so 13/8 is pretty decent on Durrant. Dean Reynolds and Scott Mitchell are in the easier quarter of the other half of the draw so if you’re looking for a Durrant alternative we’d probably pick one of these 2.
In fact at present the only the only minus we can find for Durrant is that he’s never won The Lakeside Title before or the £100,000.00 first prize and as we saw at the Winmau World Masters on the same Lakeside stage against Wes Harms he can have the odd wobble so maybe he could bottle it a bit if someone pushes him.
For any remote chance on a total outsider you’ll have to look abroad. As the BDO overall standard is not as high as the PDC it gives the foreign players more of a fighting chance. However, by foreign we mean not English, Belgian or Dutch.
We saw last year that a low 90’s average with decent finishing got Jeff Smith to the final.
Krzysztof Ratajski is a good player with his last known average at a PDC euro event where he lost 6-1 to Chris Dobey, but still had a 93.69 average also winning a low standard Hungarian Classic in November.
Craig Caldwell, confident on stage averaged over 92 when he pushed Scott Mitchell all the way in the first round last year and is a regular winner of tournaments in New Zealand.
Raymond Smith is completely unknown but when does a bad player come through the Australian qualifying on either side of darts? In last year’s world cup he won 4 matches including beating Martin Phillips in the last 16 before narrowly losing in the Quarter finals to Darius Labanauskas.
Speaking of Labanauskas he’s won 7 tournaments in the last 2 years which is more than anyone apart from Durrant in the field and his odds have tumbled from 100/1 to 33/1 showing his popularity.
With Craig Caldwell is 150/1, Krzysztof Ratajski 200/1 and Raymond Smith 250/1 and we can’t see anything in the international form guide that makes Jeff Smith any better than these 3 players and he’s 20/1.
Match betting on the first round is often a lottery at the Lakeside and it’s not unusual for more than half the Top 16 seeds to lose in the first round! We would certainly not put too much on anybody who is odds on.
Craig Caldwell to beat Dennis Harbour stands out where we think the bookies may have got the wrong favourite and Ross Montgomery to beat Richard Veenstra looks decent value. Seigo Asada to beat Jeff Smith at 4/1 seems a bit excessive as we have seen him average over 90 and he’s no mug.
So whatever you think we hope you enjoy the excitement that the Lakeside Darts has to offer, and remember if you do have a flutter bet responsibly.
ENDS – odds provided by Paddy Power Sport