Simon Whitlock Odds

The man they call The Wizard has been entertaining darts fans since he first started playing professionally as a teenager. With his distinctive appearance, there’s no mistaking Simon Whitlock as he steps up to the Oche.

The Australian may have reached the age of 50 in 2019 but while he’s hit his own personal bullseye, he remains a feared opponent on the circuit among other darts players. Let’s now take a look back at Whitlock’s career while seeing what the future may hold for the popular darter.

Career

The Simon Whitlock darts journey starts in 1984 when he first started playing professionally as a 15 year old. Born in Cessnock, New South Wales in 1969, Whitlock developed his talent at a very young age and it wasn’t long before he started playing local events in his native Australia.

We pick the story up in the early 2000s as Whitlock began to make inroads with the Professional Darts Corporation (PDC). In 2003, he reached the last 16 of the PDC World Championships and this was the time when the darts game started to take notice. Switches between the PDC and the BDO made it difficult to keep up with The Wizard’s career but some solid performances in both codes showed that a real talent was emerging.

It was in his native Australia that Whitlock enjoyed his best returns. The Australian National Championship title was secured in 2008 while The Wizard also has four Masters and four Grand Masters trophies to his name. A host of minor Aussie tournaments can also be added to that list and for a period between 2007 and 2010, Simon Whitlock was the favourite for any event Down Under.

During this time, Simon Whitlock darts fans were used to seeing their hero perform in BDO events and he was a runner up in the World Championship in 2008. Whitlock was untroubled for much of the early rounds and a quarter final victory over Ted Hankey saw the Wizard whitewash the Count by a 5-0 scoreline. He seemed destined for the biggest prize of his career but Whitlock eventually went down 7-5 to Mark Webster in the final.

As far as PDC Majors are concerned, the standout in Whitlock’s career is a win in the 2012 edition of the European Championships. In this event, The Wizard saw off a host of quality opponents before breezing past Wes Newton 11-5 in the final.

It was around this time that other darts players had begun to fear Simon Whitlock and the reputation had really started to grow after the Australian reached the final of the PDC World Championships in 2010. The Wizard breezed through the early rounds before recording an impressive, 6-5 victory over Raymond Van Barneveld in the semis. Unfortunately, Whitlock ran into a dominant Phil Taylor in the final and like many before him, he couldn’t live with The Power on that occasion.

Whitlock has yet to repeat that achievement and it may be too late to win a World Championship. He has a number of runner up and semi final appearances to go alongside that European Championship victory in 2012 so it’s certainly been a distinguished career but is there more to come?

Record

Here is a summary of Simon Whitlock’s record in big PDC and BDO events.

Based on those returns, it could be said that Simon Whitlock is the ‘nearly man’ among professional darts players. He’s a tough opponent for any player but perhaps he should have added more PDC Premier titles to that European Championship win in 2012.

He has been dominant in Australia for a number of years and few would argue that he’s been the greatest tungsten thrower that the country has ever produced. Whatever happens between now and Whitlock’s eventual retirement, his reputation will remain as a top performer but will be be lifting trophies before he calls time on his career?

Odds

As we have seen, Simon Whitlock’s darts game remains steady but is he a continued threat in the big tournaments? He was a runner up in the PDC World Championship back in 2010 but there isn’t a lot of support for The Wizard in the market for 2020.

With less than a month to go until the first dart was thrown, Whitlock was quoted at 100/1 with most sportsbooks while Unibet came in with the best industry odds of 200/1. Those figures put him way down the list of live darts players and clearly there are few punters set to get involved at those figures.

We should never write Simon Whitlock off completely: He’ll always be a difficult opponent and for individual match betting, he will always offer some value throughout any tournament.

Those long odds also mean that we are unlikely to see any enhanced odds offers or price boost deals attached to any Simon Whitlock darts tournaments. At best, we could see some small price lifts of a point or less on individual games but that’s about it.

He’s now in his 50s and while his best darts years may be behind him, we may yet see Simon Whitlock lift some major silverware. We may not experience the consistency from previous years but we cannot disregard him completely so don’t be surprised if The Wizard has some magic left as he reaches the tail end of his career.