King won all three of his group games at the Grand Slam of Darts, but was defeated by Kevin Painter 5–10 in the last 16. After all 33 ProTour events of 2012 had been played, King was 20th on the Order of Merit, comfortably inside the top 32 who qualified for the Players Championship Finals. He reached the quarter-finals, where he lost 7–10 to Justin Pipe.