How many legs in a set in darts and how many sets at the World Championships?
DARTS scoring can appear a bit intimidating to the uninitiated.
With the World Darts Championship expected to be the biggest and best ever, plenty of new fans will be wondering how players win matches and progress.
While scoring to win an individual leg will not change, each round at Alexandra Palace sees the players needing to win a different number of sets.
With the darts extravaganza set to start on Sunday, December 15 and run until Friday, January 3, here’s how darts scoring is worked out.
What is a leg in darts and how do players win one at the World Championships?
A leg is the way that darts is scored, with all players starting each leg on a score of 501 and have can only when they get down to 0.
However, players must ‘checkout’ on a double – get themselves down to an even score and then hit the relevant outer ring of the board.
For example, a player might work down to a score of 40 and then checkout on a double 20.
The maximum score during one trip to the oche is 180, which entails players scoring three ‘treble’ 20s – the inner ring on the board.
The quickest way to win a leg is to hit the famed ‘nine-darter’ – using just nine darts to get down to 0.
There have only been 99 televised nine-darters ever with only 14 of those coming at the World Championships.
Darts sponsor Paddy Power have confirmed they will pay players a £60,000 bonus for every nine-dart finish they hit during the tournament – plus another £60,000 to one person in the crowd.
Darts World Championship full draw
Second round draw (seeded vs first-round winner)
- Luke Humphries vs Thibault Tricole or Joe Comito
- Raymond van Barneveld vs Nick Kenny or Stowe Buntz
- James Wade vs Jermaine Wattimena or Stefan Bellmont
- Peter Wright vs Wesley Plaisier or Ryusei Azemoto
- Stephen Bunting vs Alan Soutar or Kai Gotthardt
- Dirk van Duijvenbode vs Madars Ramza or Christian Kist
- Damon Heta vs Connor Scutt or Ben Robb
- Mike De Decker vs Luke Woodhouse or Lourence Ilagan
- Luke Littler vs Ryan Meikle or Fallon Sherrock
- Ritchie Edhouse vs Ian White or Sandro Eric Sosing
- Danny Noppert vs Ryan Joyce or Darius Labanauskas
- Ryan Searle vs Mensur Suljovic or Matt Campbell
- Rob Cross vs Scott Williams or Niko Springer
- Gian van Veen vs Ricardo Pietreczko or Xiaochen Zong
- Nathan Aspinall vs Cameron Menzies or Leonard Gates
- Andrew Gilding vs Martin Lukeman or Nitin Kumar
- Michael Smith vs Kevin Doets or Noa-Lynn van Leuven
- Krzysztof Ratajski vs Richard Veenstra or Alexis Toylo
- Chris Dobey vs Stephen Burton or Alexander Merkx
- Josh Rock vs Karel Sedlacek or Rhys Griffin
- Jonny Clayton vs Mickey Mansell or Tomoya Goto
- Daryl Gurney vs Florian Hempel or Jeffrey de Zwaan
- Gerwyn Price vs Kim Huybrechts or Keane Barry
- Joe Cullen vs Wessel Nijman or Cameron Carolissen
- Michael van Gerwen vs James Hurrell or Jim Long
- Brendan Dolan vs Chris Landman or Lok Yin Lee
- Gary Anderson vs Jeffrey de Graaf or Rashad Sweeting
- Ross Smith vs Jim Williams or Paolo Nebrida
- Dave Chisnall vs Ricky Evans or Gordon Mathers
- Gabriel Clemens vs Niels Zonneveld or Robert Owen
- Dimitri Van den Bergh vs William O’Connor or Dylan Slevin
- Martin Schindler vs Callan Rydz or Romeo Grbavac
How many legs in a set at the World Darts Championship?
The format is quite simple on this one.
Players simply win three legs to earn a set at the tournament.
How many sets in a match at the World Darts Championship?
This is where things get a little bit more complicated as the matches increase in legs as the tournament progresses.
In rounds 1 and 2, players play the first to three sets, but by the final it will have increased to first to seven sets.
The full breakdown is below:
- Round 1 – First to 3 sets
- Round 2 – First to 3 sets
- Round 3 – First to 4 sets
- Round 4 – First to 4 sets
- Quarter-finals – First to 5 sets
- Semi-finals – First to 6 sets
- Final – First to 7 sets
Who is favourite to win the World Darts Championship?
Luke Littler is the current favourite to win the title with the bookies.
He is narrowly in front of defending world champion and current world No 1 Luke Humphries – who beat Littler in last year’s final as well as the final of the Players Championship just last month.
Gary Anderson and Michael van Gerwen round out the favourites, with the likes of in-form Wessel Nijman and Mike de Decker followed by former world champions Michael Smith, Gerwyn Price and Rob Cross as outside shots.
When is the World Darts Championship and how can I watch it?
- The tournament starts on Sunday, December 15 with the final on Friday, January 3.
- The tournament will run every night during that period bar Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and Boxing Day
- There will be afternnon sessions (12.30pm) and evening sessions (7pm) every day except for the semis and final, which just have evening sessions.
- Seeded players such as Littler and Humphries get a bye into round 2.
- All the action will take place on Sky Sports Main Event and Sky Sports Darts.
- Alternatively, SunSport will have a rolling blog covering all the action LIVE for every day of the tournament.
List of all-time Darts World Champions
BELOW is a list of Darts world champions by year.
The list does not include winners from the pre-Professional Darts Corporation (PDC) era or BDO world champions.
That means Raymond van Barneveld, for example, is only listed once – Barney also won four BDO titles – and none of Eric Bristow’s five BDO titles are included.
- 1994 – Dennis Priestley
- 1995 – Phil Taylor
- 1996 – Phil Taylor (2)
- 1997 – Phil Taylor (3)
- 1998 – Phil Taylor (4)
- 1999 – Phil Taylor (5)
- 2000 – Phil Taylor (6)
- 2001 – Phil Taylor (7)
- 2002 – Phil Taylor (8)
- 2003 – John Part
- 2004 – Phil Taylor (9)
- 2005 – Phil Taylor (10)
- 2006 – Phil Taylor (11)
- 2007 – Raymond van Barneveld
- 2008 – John Part (2)
- 2009 – Phil Taylor (12)
- 2010 – Phil Taylor (13)
- 2011 – Adrian Lewis
- 2012 – Adrian Lewis (2)
- 2013 – Phil Taylor (14)
- 2014 – Michael van Gerwen
- 2015 – Gary Anderson
- 2016 – Gary Anderson (2)
- 2017 – Michael van Gerwen (2)
- 2018 – Rob Cross
- 2019 – Michael van Gerwen (3)
- 2020 – Peter Wright
- 2021 – Gerwyn Price
- 2022 – Peter Wright (2)
- 2023 – Michael Smith
- 2024 – Luke Humphries
Most World Titles
- 14 – Phil Taylor
- 3 – Michael van Gerwen
- 2 – John Part, Adrian Lewis, Gary Anderson, Peter Wright
- 1 – Dennis Priestley, Raymond van Barneveld, Rob Cross, Gerwyn Price, Michael Smith, Luke Humphries