Luke Littler polished off a dominant title defense at Alexandra Palace with a 7-1 demolition of Gian van Veen, cementing his status as darts’ unstoppable new force and pocketing a record £1 million winner’s check at the World Darts Championship.
The 18-year-old joins Phil Taylor, Adrian Lewis and Gary Anderson as the only players to win back-to-back PDC world crowns. A year after a breakout run announced him to the wider sporting world, Littler returned to the sport’s biggest stage and left no doubt he intends to stay there.
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His recent form underscores the point: Littler has won five of the last six major tournaments, a run of supremacy that has invited comparisons with Taylor’s two-decade reign. He is, for now, careful with predictions, but not shy about his ambitions.
“It’s so far away. Yeah, 14 to go. Another 15, 16 years, I’d say and I’ll start thinking about it,” Littler said, referencing Taylor’s record haul of 16 world titles. “If it happens, it happens. I’ll be around for a very long time and I’m here to win.
“It’s something any darts player could do, myself, being so young and already picking up two of these. Who knows if I could reach it. If I get five or six, I’ll be happy. I think I could if I stay around for long enough, keep the hunger. Once the hunger goes, there’s no point playing. But there’s a lot of hunger left inside of me.”
There was nothing starry-eyed about the way he went about this final. Littler kept the pressure on from the start and never allowed Van Veen to build any foothold. The victory made him the new king of Alexandra Palace, and the manner of it suggested an era that may stretch well beyond an early surge.
Even his pre-match routine underscored the poise behind the power. Littler said nerves almost got the better of him — until a simple fix at the venue.
“In the build-up there were a lot of nerves in the household,” he said. “I actually turned up to the venue and realised I hadn’t eaten anything all day. So I got a margherita pizza and scranned that. And yeah, I was good to go.”
Van Veen, 23, arrived in his first world final on the back of a breakthrough campaign that included victories over former world champions Luke Humphries and Gary Anderson. For all his momentum, the last step proved a stretch against Littler’s relentless tempo.
Still, the Dutchman leaves Ally Pally with a foothold in the sport’s top tier and a slate of firsts to come. He will rise to world No. 3 in 2026 and is in line for a debut in the Premier League, acknowledging that the past year has changed the trajectory of his career.
“2025 has been the best year in my career, the best year of my life so far, with everything that’s happened, it’s been fantastic,” Van Veen said. “Hopefully, 2026 is going to be as good a year, but it’s difficult to top 2025. I’m already looking forward to it. I’m going to enjoy every single minute of it, because you don’t know if it’s going to be the first or last time, or maybe many more years to come. I’m going to enjoy every single minute of it.”
Littler, Humphries, Michael van Gerwen and Van Veen are confirmed for the Premier League, which begins Feb. 5. The remaining four places will be filled by wild cards to be announced Monday, with Josh Rock, Danny Noppert, Stephen Bunting, Nathan Aspinall, James Wade and Gerwyn Price among those in contention.
What separates Littler from the pack right now is less a single statistical edge than an unmistakable certainty in big moments. His finishing has been ruthless, his pace unruffled, and his composure — from the practice room to the walk-on — belies his age. The pizza anecdote will grab headlines; the substance is what counts. Twice now, under the sport’s brightest lights, he has been the steadiest hand in the room.
Back-to-back world titles at 18 guarantees no one anything beyond a heavy target on the back. But the benchmark of a dynasty is not just how often a champion peaks; it is how quickly he resets the standard. Littler is already doing so. He leaves London with two Sid Waddell trophies, a record payday and a calendar that, at least for now, looks like it belongs to him.
“I’ll be around for a very long time and I’m here to win,” he said. It sounded less like a boast than a working plan. The hunger is still there. Everyone else will have to play through it.
By Abdiwahab Ahmed
Axadle Times international–Monitoring.
