Australian Darts Masters 2024 Predictions: Voltage and Heat to star in Oz

The PDC gets back into gear after an amazing Betfred World Matchplay in Blackpool, as we head to Wollongong for the Australian Darts Masters which runs from Friday 9th to Saturday 10th June.

As always, we’ve asked our darts expert Sean Rafferty to preview the event and give us his Australian Darts Masters Predictions.

History, Location and Format

The 2024 Australian Darts Masters is the first ever staging of this PDC event and is the sixth event in the World Series of Darts.

The tournament is held at the WIN Entertainment Centre in Wollongong, Australia, with this year’s event running from the 9th to 10th August and will be shown on DAZN, Viaplay and PDCTV.

The field is comprised of eight top ranking players from the PDC Order of Merit and then eight regional qualifiers.

The draw sees the PDC Order of Merit players taking on a local player in the first round.

Prize Money

There is a total prize fund of £60,000 on offer to the 16 participants.

Draw

Although they are more than justified favourites, I simply can’t have Luke Littler or Luke Humphries, both priced at 2/1, which is too short when they are pretty inseparable at the moment in terms of stats/numbers.

Humphries has yet to win a World Series event, so it will be a priority of his to pick one of these titles up. However I’m going to gamble and take two selections from the half that doesn’t include either Humphries or Littler, in the hope one of them make the final and can cause an upset.

2 units Rob Cross e/w (1/2, 2 places) @ 15/2

Cross was a bit of an auto-pick for this as soon as I saw he was in the opposite half of the draw from Littler/Humphries. He’s the standout player in this bottom half of the draw in my opinion, with Gerwyn Price still not showing any signs of rediscovering his top form (hasn’t gone beyond the last 16 in any of his last nine events).

Voltage may take a bit of getting over his World Matchplay exit at the QF stage – he looked arguably the best player in the event until an absolute horror-show on the doubles gave himself no chance of winning against Michael Smith. His woes on Double 16 saw him hit just 20% of his doubles in a 16-7 rout at the hands of Bully Boy.

Cross didn’t go beyond the last 64 in any of the three Pro Tour events that followed but it’s not a massive concern as he still averaged 97+ in three of his five matches. Cross will be looking for a repeat of last year, where he won back to back events in this part of the world, winning the New South Wales and New Zealand Masters titles.

He also enjoyed World Series success in June when he won the US Darts Masters. The Londoner looks to have an easy going first couple of rounds – he does have one of the tougher opening games for a seed against Haupai Puha who now holds a tour card, but Voltage should still take care of him.

Then he would have arguably just as easy a tie against the winner of Peter Wright/Simon Whitlock who are both a million miles off their best in recent times. I think Cross makes the semis with relative ease and will be the favourite in that match to make the final and gain each way returns for us at the very minimum.

1 unit Damon Heta e/w (1/2, 2 places) @ 14/1

It was between Heta and Price as to who my second selection would be but Heta looks miles the better value at 14s in comparison to 13/2 for Price, given the lack of recent form from The Iceman that I touched on above.

Heta has gone through a quiet spell in the last couple of months, with a disappointing effort on his behalf for Australia at the World Cup, then an opening round exit at the World Matchplay to Ryan Searle. However, I was interested to discover that Damo was using new darts at the Pro Tour events last week, which were relatively successful for him.

He won eight of 11 matches and made the semis at PC15. He averaged 103+ in four of those matches so was obviously feeling comfortable enough with the new equipment. He faces John Herring in the opening round who he should see off comfortably, then likely faces Gerwyn Price who he beat in Australia a year ago.

He’s on home soil so will be looking to impress in front of what should be a good support for him, he has tasted World Series glory once before in 2019, winning the Brisbane Darts Masters, also on home soil, which started his initial rise into the top level of the game. He made the final of the New South Wales Masters last year also and will be looking for a similar run here as he tends to put in a good run in his native country. 14/1 isn’t too shabby at all for The Heat to taste glory.

Australian Darts Masters Odds

You can find all Sean’s latest Darts Betting Tips on our main Insights content hub.