PDC Home Tour Free Bets, Betting Offers and How It Works

Thanks to everything that’s going on in the world stopping live sport from being able to take place, the various sporting industries are having to think outside the box. That’s obviously easier for some to do than others, with football being a good example of a sport that simply can’t occur without everyone being in the same place at the same time because of the nature of it.

The same isn’t true of darts, however. Whilst there are all sorts of psychological and pressure-based things that go into live games, the darts players don’t actually interact with each other and can therefore take their goes in different locations, provided they both have boards and darts. That’s the theory behind the PDC’s new Home Tour that launches on Friday 17th April.  The league phase will run for 32 consecutive nights after which 32 winners will enter a knock-out phase from 26th May to 5th June.

With little else going on you can expect the bookies to take a big interest in this, which means competition and competition means value for punters.  Below we’ve collated some of the best promotions that can be used for betting on the PDC Home Tour.

Latest PDC Home Tour Offers & Free Bets

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What Is The Home Tour & How Can You Watch It?

The idea behind the Home Tour is simple enough; four players will take part in some darts action each evening in a league format (six matches each evening), prior to a knockout stage taking place towards the end of the Tour. During the league phase darts will take place for 32 consecutive nights, offering darts fans a chance to watch some live sport. Obviously it’s not perfect, but it’s not bad.

The matches will be broadcast on the Professional Darts Corporation’s own channel, with the players using live video calls to ensure that they can be seen. Darts fans can catch all of the action by tuning into the PDC subscription channel, though it wouldn’t be a shock to see the likes of BT Sport or Sky Sports offering to cover it given they haven’t got much else on.

The key thing is that the action will be free to watch for everyone, provided you have registered with PDCTV. You can have a free membership or a paid one and you’ll still get the same access to the coverage, with a number of selected bookmakers also have the rights to stream the action via their websites, so the audience should be relatively sizeable.

Format and How It Will Work

Every Tour Card Holder in the PDC’s ranks has been given the chance to take part in the Home Tour. It will kick off with a nightly league, with four players a night going up against each other once in matches that will be played over the best of nine legs. A winner will be crowned each night, with 32 winners then progressing to the knockout stages.

The world’s top darts players will be taking part, with the league stage planned to last for the initial 32 consecutive nights. At that point the knockout part of the tournament will kick in.

The Last 32 onwards will be played over the best of 11 legs in a round-robin four-player group format.  The first stage will feature 8 groups of 4 with players seeded into pots based on ranking order.  The 8 group winners then progress to the last 8, which features two groups of 4 players who again play in a round-robin format.  The two group winners then progress to the Championship final on the 5th June.

By having group stages all the way up to the final it ensures that the PDC maximise the number of matches, although you can’t blame them given people are begging for live sport right now.

The Natural Follow-On Of Darts From Home

The decision to launch the Home Tour came about after the PDC noted the success of the recent ‘Darts From Home’ weekly tournaments, which were broadcast on Facebook Live, YouTube and the PDC’s own channel. Players such as Nathan Aspinall and Devon Petersen have been taking part in it, using webcams to join the video calls.

As with the Darts From Home series, Dan Dawson will provide the commentary. The fact that all Tour Card Holders have been invited to take part means that punters will get a chance to see some relatively unknown names up close and personal, as well as the better-known darts players. It may also lead to some previous darts-sceptics begin to take an interest in the sport.

DIY Darts

The Darts From Home series gave guys something of an insight about what we can expect from the competition, with all participants having a good laugh as they played. Luke Humphries needed to disappear at one point when his phone needed charging, for example, whilst Matt Edgar blamed his loss in one of the legs on his dog running across the oche.

Chris Dobey, Devon Petersen, Luke Humphries, Ted Evetts and Matt Edgar were the five players involved in the Darts From Home tournament, with Petersen eventually emerging as the winner. It wasn’t without its notable moments, including a bet between Humphries and Edgar during their final game with the loser having to wear the winners’ shirt at the next live PDC event.

How It Will Be Monitored and Adjudicated?

There is obviously going to be a certain amount of trust put into the players when it comes to this competition. There is going to be a referee watching every event, as well as a scorer. The problem is that the focus will obviously be on the dart board, rather than the player, so there will be no way for the referee to ensure that players will be stood behind the oche line.

That’s where the trust will come in, however, and no one is really suggesting that this is being run under strict tournament conditions. It isn’t the World Championship, but is instead an opportunity for darts players to play competitive games and get into some sort of rhythm ahead of live darts returning at some point in the future, though no one has any idea when that will be.

Barry Hearn Is Excited

The Chairman of the Professional Darts Corporation, Barry Hearn, made a statement in which he firstly praised the National Health Service and those working on the frontline, correctly saying that ‘we all owe an immense amount of gratitude to our key workers’. He then went on to talk about his ‘great excitement’ about the ability to deliver ‘lives darts’ in ‘unprecedented times’.

Upon the announcement of the Home Tour, Hearn said,

“The PDC Home Tour will provide a regular supply of live sport to fans, showcasing the talent and unique characters of our players to both existing and new audiences”.

The Darts At Home series was popular with both players and fans alike, so Hearn and the PDC will be hoping that the same level of interest is shown in this.