In his latest column, PDC Stats Analyst Christopher Kempf analyses the prospect of the 2025 BetMGM Premier League being a record-breaking campaign in terms of maximum hitting...
When Phil Taylor was at the height of his powers in 2009, setting world records (for their time) of a 116 average in a match and a 104 tournament average, he threw 65 180s in 185 legs for his highest-ever output of maximums in a Premier League event.
Across the many years in which each player contested only one match per night, no player managed to throw more than 80 (Michael van Gerwen maxed out at 73 in 2016, and Gary Anderson's 79 in 2011 was never beaten).
With the adoption of the nightly elimination tournaments, however, players have the potential to score 180s in as many as three matches per night and 30-40 in a season, and that once-invulnerable record has been broken every year since the format change.
Luke Littler threw down the gauntlet in last year's Premier League, not only by winning the tournament, but by recording 128 maximums in so doing.
He had to play nearly twice as many legs as Phil Taylor did in 2009 to reach that total, but finished the tournament at almost the same rate of 180s thrown per leg as 'The Power's best effort.
Luke Humphries, in finishing the tournament as runner-up, actually exceeded Littler's output of 0.347 per leg with his own figure of 0.352, but fell well short of the numerical record because he played 11 fewer legs than the eventual champion.
Only Gary Anderson (in 2011) has sustained a rate of 0.4 180s per leg across the entire four-month span of the Premier League, but three players are threatening to add to that list in 2025.
Littler and Van Gerwen - each having played only four matches thus far - have lit up the crowds 17 times each with maximums, and Chris Dobey's total of 14 is not far behind.
Van Gerwen, having done so in matches as short as seven and eight legs, leads the way with 0.459 180s per leg versus Littler's 0.42.
If each player were to contest as many legs as they did last year at the same rate as their first two weeks (combined), Van Gerwen would surpass the record set by Littler last year with 135 maximums - but Littler himself would dwarf it with his own 153.
In recalling how Littler's 180-output continued to increase even after his Premier League victory last year, such a colossal record seems very possible on the basis of the new World Champion's recent performances.
Record number of 180s in a PL season:
128 - Littler (2024)
120 - Price (2023)
117 - Humphries (2024)
105 - Smith (2023)
99 - van Gerwen (2023)
Highest rates of 180s per leg (excluding one-off 'challengers' and 'contenders')
0.459 - van Gerwen (2025, provisional)
0.415 - Littler (2025, provisional)
0.403 - Anderson (2011)
0.385 - Chisnall (2018)
0.378 - Dobey (2025, provisional)
0.372 - Chisnall (2015)
0.372 - van Gerwen (2016)
0.371 - van Gerwen (2018)