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Darts from the Bar to the World Class Sport

 

Darts from the Bar to the World Class Sport.

Darts is one of the biggest growing Sports in the World

Darts has been a social pub and bar game for over one hundred years. It has been played by the gentry and the common working man, usually by the working man at his local public house.

Mainly a match contained a small wager, and this nearly had the game banned from the Bars, Taverns, and Pubs across England at one point for being a game of luck! It was soon proved in court that the game was indeed a game of pure skill and allowed to remain a firm fixture in taprooms of most of England's bars at the time.

Like other games played in bars and pubs across the UK, darts has always attracted some form of betting. Whether a match warranted the loser buying the next round of drinks or paying a few shillings, it has always been a popular game to play and watch by all. Like other popular games today, darts was and still is a popular betting game, and you bet on darts at Lottoland Sports, along with other top sports, including football, golf, boxing, snooker, rugby, cricket, plus many more.

The popularity of darts grew with the National Darts League and later the introduction of the British Dart Organisations (BDO). The BDO held the first World Darts Championships in 1978, won by Welshman Leighton Rees. However, long before the BDO was formed, the News of the World Individual Championships that spanned the war years to the late 1990s was the darts event to win.

 

Professional Darts

However, it wasn't until a small breakaway group of semi-professional players formed the World Darts Council, later becoming the Professional Darts Corporation (PDC), the darts scene changed.

In March 2005, Sports England recognised 'Darts' as a sport. Other countries followed suit, so now the humble bar game is, in fact, a recognised sport! But, the PDC took the sport to a new level. With bigger arenas and large stadiums were filled with cheering fans, and the TV producers loved it!

Dart players who used to earn just several thousand pounds per year were suddenly playing for big bucks! The best of them all were becoming millionaires, and the increase of players grew.

 

Phil Taylor. The greatest of the all

 

Phil Taylor is probably one of the most recognisable dart players of the modern era. Taylor dominated the darts scene from the late 1980s to 2010, winning sixteen World Championships and World Matchplay titles plus hundreds more during his long professional career. It is said Taylor single-handily raised the skill level of the sport, and hundred-plus dart averages became the norm.

Players today have to qualify to play the lucrative PDC darts circuit via 'Qualifying School' or, as some call it, 'Q-School'. However, should a player qualify and win a two-year PDC Tour Card, they have just given themselves the operativity to improve their lives.

 

Prize Fund

The PDC prize fund has steadily increased. Players now play for over £16m in prize money alone, which doesn't include the sponsorship deals that can be obtained from dart manufacturers or businesses that wish to support them.

Darts is one of the sports with simple rules and can be easy to play, but as any professional player will say, it is hard to master. The thickness of a dartboard wire can be the difference between winning or losing, as all top players will tell you.

With prize funds as high as £500,000 for winning the PDC World Darts Championships, it is easy to see why so many young new players are hitting the scene. The sport brings drama in bucket loads, and the opportunity to bet on winners, leg difference, highest checkout and most 180s scored in a match is also to see why the sport is popular with betting firms and punters alike. If you know your darts, then there are some great opportunities for dart fans.

The sport has also seen its way into the junior classroom as a means of helping with basic arithmetic. Pupils learn how to add, subtract and multiply while enjoying a fun sport. However, Darts today is all about fun and the big screen. With millions of players and thousands attending live events, it is a growing sport.

 

 

 

 

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