Luke Littler has won the World Darts Championship final with a sensational 7-3 victory over Michael van Gerwen at Ally Pally.
The 17-year-old went one better tonight, following last year’s loss to Luke Humphries in the tournament on debut. This though was completely different, he remained in charge throughout.
van Gerwen by contrast misses out on his 4th World title after a difficult year on the circuit, and the disappointment was compounded with defeat to the teenager from Warrington.
The Nuke rocketed into a four set lead with van Gerwen still scoring well but struggling on the checkouts.
“THE WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP FINAL COULD TURN INTO A ROUT” 😱
Luke Littler takes a 4-0 lead 💥 pic.twitter.com/OWd7ZpbEhV
— Sky Sports Darts (@SkySportsDarts) January 3, 2025
As the teenage prodigy threatened to give a legend of the game an absolute hiding, MVG answered with his first set – but Littler replied by sinking an arrow into his favoured double ten to win the sixth and put himself on the path to victory.
The Nuke responded to Mighty Mike taking the seventh set with a whitewash in the eighth, eventually securing his dream in the 10th by taking out double 16. Watch the moment he lifted the trophy below:
Luke Littler gets his hands on the Sid Waddell trophy 🏆 pic.twitter.com/mCarHpobNn
— Sky Sports Darts (@SkySportsDarts) January 3, 2025
How Luke Littler became one of country’s most loved sportsmen despite losing last year’s World Darts Championship final
Luke ‘The Nuke’ Littler rose to stardom after making the 2024 World Darts Championship final, aged just 16 years and 347 days.
The British darts player finished as runner-up to world number one Luke Humphries, losing out 7-4, despite going into the tournament at 66/1 odds of winning, and ranked 164th in the world.
It wasn’t by chance either; the prodigy got his hands on a set of magnet darts at just 18-months-old, and would go on to boss games against grown men, aged just 11.
At 16, his boyhood coach Karl Hodden claimed: “At nine he was good. Before he was 11 he was extremely good.
“He’s a freak of nature, honestly, he really is. I’d say he’s the (Cristiano) Ronaldo of darts.
“He is one of the best players in the world at the age of 16,” Hodden stated.
Speaking about his rapid rise to fame, prodigy Littler admitted that the ‘world has gone mad’ over the past year or so.
Littler now has 10 Senior PDC titles to his name, and it looks like there’s a lot more to come.
How much winner of tonight’s World Darts Championship will earn
Luke Littler will take home a hefty sum with his win tonight, as the sport of darts continues to grow and offer more opportunities for athletes to earn money.
The Dutchman will still head back to the Netherlands with an eye-watering £200,000, though it does fall quite short of how much the winner pockets.
That figure stands at £500,000, though it’s more than the £2.5 million prize pot that’s driving these titans of the sport.
How prize money works in the World Championship is basically based on the two-year Order of Merit system.
All the prize money earned at the World Championship is added to a player’s ranking based on the system, so if a player ranked second were to get knocked out in earlier rounds, they would have ‘lost’ the prize money they were defending from tournament performances in the previous two years.
If that makes sense.
Luke Littler and Michael Van Gerwen’s routes to final
Littler got off to a shaky start in this wear’s WDC, Managing to overcome a slow start by winning the game 3-1, including an average of 140.91 in the fourth set, a World Championship record.
But he made his way to the final without much bother after this, eventually besting Stephen Bunting by an emphatic 6-1 scoreline last night (2 January) in the semi-final.
Van Gerwen beat Chris Dobey, also by 6-1 in sets, in the semi-final that took place just beforehand.
It will be the 13th meeting between the two, with their previous meeting split evenly at 6-6.
Record-breaking career Michael Van Gerwen has had so far
Michael van Gerwen is one of the most recognisable names in the Darts world.
Similarly to Littler, he broke through as a teenage wonderkid in 2006 to win the 2006 World Masters in the BDO, though he had to wait until 2012 to pick up his next televised title.
He didn’t slow down after this though, going on to win 157 PDC titles in his career, and the former world number one will be looking to add another to his tally.
Van Gerwen is a three-time World Champion, and a win against Littler puts him on four.
Widely regarded as one of the best darts players of all time, van Gerwen is the second most successful player in PDC history, behind the great Phil Taylor.
Staggering amount Luke Littler made in 2024 debut season aged 17
Luke Littler might only be a teenager, but he’s one that’s made a lot of money over the past year or so.
His rapid rise to stardom is one thing, but his jaw-dropping earnings might make you want to head down to your local pub to start practicing.
After coming second in the World Championship finals last year, he pocketed a cool £200k before embarking on the first successful year of his professional career.
The biggest winning came in May, when he got revenge on world champion Luke Humphries in the Premier League final, earning him £275,000 in prize money.
In total though, with 10 senior PDC titles under his belt, Littler made a whopping £1,018,750 throughout 2024, as reported by Sporting Life.
A win tonight means he kicks off 2025 having already made half of what he earned last year.
