Phil “The Power” Taylor is now priced 4/7* with Skybet to win his 14th World Championship darts title which will be held over the Christmas period after winning the PartyPoker.com Grand Slam of Darts title .

Taylor defeated Terry Jenkins by 18 legs to 9 in Sunday’s final to win £100,000.  Taylor is usually the hot favourite for the world championship as he has been world champion 13 times.  He has also won the last 3 major televised darts tournaments organised by the Professional Darts Corporation.  This has shortened the odds on Taylor winning another world title.  Although Taylor has dominated darts for the past 15 years, he hasn’t won the world title since 2006 and it isn’t a foregone conclusion he will win back the title in the 2009 championship.

His opponent in the Grand Slam of Darts final, Terry Jenkins, has been runner-up on six occasions in major televised events.  If you think he will go one better in the World Championship, you will get odds as high as 50/1* with Extrabet - which is good value.
Last year’s champion John Part of Canada, hasn’t performed well recently but then he did surprise most people by winning the title last year.  For Part to defend his title, the betting  exchange Betfair are currently offering odds of 79/1*.

The player most likely to win the title apart from Taylor is Dutchman Raymond Van Barneveld.  He already has five world titles to his name and with Betfair you can get a good price at 34/5*

James Wade is the best of the young players to have emerged in the past few years.  At the age of 24 he has already won the World Matchplay and has a long future ahead as a top darts professional.  With Betfair you can get odds of 41/5* on Wade securing his first World championship title.
Adrian Lewis is another young player who has burst on to the PDC darts scene.  The 23 year-old from Stoke is fourth favourite with most bookmakers, with Betfair offering odds of 54/1*.  Kirk Shepherd is another good young player, and was defeated by Part in last year’s final.  He is an outside bet at 500/1* with a few bookmakers including Stan James to win the 2009 title.

Of the rest, Wayne Mardle who also plays in poker events, is priced at 100/1* with Stan James and Peter Manley is 125/1* with Stan James.

In darts there is a rival organisation to the PDC called the BDO. The BDO is the original world darts organisation and its world championship is televised on the BBC with the PDC event shown on Sky Sports.  Players must choose which world championship they play in as they are not allowed to play in both Gary Anderson is a player who the bookmakers feel may choose to play in either.  Therefore they are offering odds of 50/1* that he will win the PDC event and he is favourite to take the BDO title with odds of 9/4* both with Stan James.  He is most likely to play in the BDO event as he has done for the past few years.

2008 BDO champion Mark Webster is second favourite at 4/1* to hold on to his BDO title.  The England darts team captain Martin Adams is an 8/1* shot with Sportingbet to regain the title he won two years ago.

Former champions Ted Hankey and John Walton are 33/1* and 80/1* respectively with Stan James.
A good outside bet could be Phil Nixon - who was runner-up in 2007.  He is a good price at 100/1* with Sportingbet. 

*Odds are correct as of time of writing
 

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