Luke Littler vs Luke Humphries: The Rivalry, The Finals And The Rankings Gap

One of them is 19 and has won every televised major he has entered this year. The other is 31, spent a long spell as world number one, and is still the only man who reliably drags the phenomenon into a deciding leg. Luke Littler vs Luke Humphries is the fixture darts now builds its biggest nights around, and this is what the rivalry actually consists of — the finals, the scorelines, the rankings gap and what happens next.

Where it started: Ally Pally, January 2024

It began with the most-watched darts match in the sport’s history. A 16-year-old Littler had turned the 2024 PDC World Championship into a national story, arriving as a qualifier nobody outside darts had heard of and reaching the final. Standing across from him was Humphries, who had just won three televised majors in a row — the World Grand Prix, the Grand Slam of Darts and the Players Championship Finals — inside two months.

Humphries won it 7–4. Four majors on the bounce, a first world title, and top spot in the PDC Order of Merit. It should have been the defining night of his career. Instead it became chapter one of somebody else’s.

That is the slightly unfair shape of this rivalry: Humphries has beaten Littler on the biggest stage there is, and most people still file it as the night Littler announced himself.

Luke Littler vs Luke Humphries: the televised finals so far

Rather than quote an aggregate head-to-head that shifts every fortnight, here are the meetings that matter — the finals played in front of a television audience with silverware on the table:

• 2024 PDC World Championship, Alexandra Palace — Humphries beat Littler 7–4
• 2026 World Masters — Littler beat Humphries 6–5
• 2026 Premier League, The O2, 28 May — Littler beat Humphries 11–10
• 2026 US Darts Masters, Madison Square Garden — Humphries beat Littler in a deciding leg to retain the title

Look at the margins. A single leg in the World Masters. A single leg in the Premier League. A single leg at Madison Square Garden. Littler has won five ranking TV majors in 2026 from five attempts, and the only two of those finals that went to a deciding leg were against Humphries. Nobody else has taken him that far on a major final stage this year.

Two completely different players

The rivalry works because the styles are opposites rather than mirrors.

Littler scores. He plays quickly, he punishes any leg that drifts, and he can turn a major final into an early night — the 7–1 dismantling of Gian van Veen in the 2026 World Championship final and the 18–9 World Matchplay win over Gerwyn Price are both examples of a man removing an opponent from the building rather than beating him.

Humphries finishes. The nickname — Cool Hand Luke — describes a smooth, unhurried throw and a doubling percentage that barely moves when a match tightens. He does not out-score Littler. He stays close enough for long enough that the finishing decides it, which is precisely why so many of these matches end 11–10 and 6–5.

There is a temperamental contrast too, and Humphries has never hidden his half of it. By his own account he has dealt with panic attacks and anxiety on stage, and came close to quitting the professional game before any of the success arrived. Our Luke Humphries profile covers that in full; our Luke Littler profile sets out the scale of what he is now up against.

The rankings gap is the honest scoreboard

Finals are the fun part. The Order of Merit is the cold part.

Littler tops the two-year PDC Order of Merit on roughly £3.1m. Humphries sits on about £1,000,500 — around No.3, with Gian van Veen ahead of him by a margin of roughly £2,250. That is thin enough to flip on a single quarter-final, so the No.2 and No.3 order is worth re-checking before anybody states it as settled.

Either way, it is roughly a three-to-one gap in ranking money between first place and the pair chasing it. Calling this a rivalry at the summit of the sport flatters Humphries in ranking terms and undersells him in competitive ones: he is nowhere near Littler on the money list, and he is closer than anyone else at the oche. Both things are true at once.

He has also kept winning away from the ranking majors. Dave.Sport reported his Players Championship 28 win, which halted a Littler run on the floor, and his back-to-back US Darts Masters titles at Madison Square Garden. What he has not managed in 2026 is a ranking television major. Littler has taken all five.

What happens next

Nothing in the autumn has been played yet, so any result circulating for these events is fiction. The run-in is:

• World Series of Darts Finals — 17 to 20 September (non-ranking)
• World Grand Prix — 28 September to 4 October, the next ranking major
• European Championship — 22 to 25 October
• Grand Slam of Darts — 14 to 22 November
• Players Championship Finals — 27 to 29 November
• PDC World Championship — 10 December to 3 January 2027

The Grand Prix is the one to circle. Its double-start format — every leg has to be opened on a double — blunts exactly the scoring speed that makes Littler untouchable, and rewards the controlled, deliberate darts Humphries plays. It is also a tournament Humphries has already won. If there is a stage where he interrupts the clean sweep, it is that one, at the end of September.

And if he does not, the seedings point them back towards each other at Alexandra Palace in December, on the stage where the whole thing started.

Draws, dates and prize breakdowns are confirmed on the PDC’s official site before each event, and our guide to watching darts in 2026 has the channels and streaming routes for the whole run-in.

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