2026 PDC World Darts Championship
| 2025/26 Paddy Power World Darts Championship | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Tournament information | |||
| Dates | 11 December 2025 – 3 January 2026 | ||
| Venue | Alexandra Palace | ||
| Location | London, England | ||
| Organisation(s) | Professional Darts Corporation (PDC) | ||
| Format | Sets Final – first to 7 sets | ||
| Prize fund | £5,000,000 | ||
| Winner's share | £1,000,000 | ||
| |||
The 2026 PDC World Darts Championship (known for sponsorship reasons as the 2025/26 Paddy Power World Darts Championship)[1] is an upcoming professional darts tournament that will be held from 11 December 2025 to 3 January 2026 at Alexandra Palace in London, England. It will be the 33rd World Darts Championship to be organised by the Professional Darts Corporation and the 19th to be held at Alexandra Palace. The winner will receive £1,000,000 from a total prize fund of £5,000,000, as part of the PDC's biggest prize money increase in its history.
The tournament, sponsored by Paddy Power, will feature an expanded 128-player field, with the top 32 players on the PDC Order of Merit being seeded in the first round. Luke Littler is the defending champion, having defeated Michael van Gerwen 7–3 in the 2025 final to win his first world title.
Overview
The Professional Darts Corporation (PDC) was established under the World Darts Council name by the managers John Markovic, Tommy Cox and Dick Allix and the world's top 16 players in January 1992 as a separate body from the British Darts Organisation (BDO).[2] The PDC World Darts Championship was first held in 1994 and is one of two world championships in the game of darts: the other being the WDF World Darts Championship, which was first held in 2022 as the successor to the BDO World Darts Championship.[3][4] The 2025 tournament will be held from 11 December 2025 to 3 January 2026 in London, England.[5] It will be the 33rd edition of the event and the 19th to be held at Alexandra Palace, which has been the host venue since the 2008 World Championship.[6] Irish gambling company Paddy Power will continue their sponsorship of the event, having agreed a three-year contract with the PDC ahead of the 2024 edition.[7] The winner of the tournament will receive the Sid Waddell Trophy, named in honour of the darts commentator who died in 2012.[8]
A record-breaking total of 128 players, with 32 seeded, will compete at the event. The expanded field was announced by the PDC in March 2025, allowing for an additional 32 players to qualify for the tournament from the previous total of 96.[9] A new qualification structure was introduced, including a minimum of four women guaranteed in the lineup.[10] Luke Littler will enter the tournament as defending champion, having defeated three-time champion Michael van Gerwen 7–3 in the 2025 final to win his first world title; he also became the youngest world darts champion in history, aged 17 years and 347 days.[11][12]
Format
Under the new format, all players – including the 32 seeds – will enter the tournament in the first round, a change from previous years where seeds entered in the second round. The 32 seeds will be the top 32 players on the PDC Order of Merit heading into the tournament. The seeded players, plus players ranked 33–64 drawn at random, will be placed on the left hand side of the draw, and will be matched up against the remaining 64 qualifiers drawn at random.[10][13]
All matches will consist of games of 501, where players are required to reduce their score from 501 to zero in order to win a leg, finishing on a double or the bullseye. The matches are played in set format, with the amount of sets required to win a match increasing as the tournament progresses.[14] All sets will be played to the best of five legs in the first round, and also in non-deciding sets of subsequent rounds. In the deciding set of all but the first round, the first player to win at least three legs and be leading by two or more will win the set and the match. If the set reaches a 5–5 tie without a winner, it will be decided by a sudden death leg.[15]
| Round | Best of (sets) | First to (sets) |
|---|---|---|
| First & second | 5 | 3 |
| Third & fourth | 7 | 4 |
| Quarter-finals | 9 | 5 |
| Semi-finals | 11 | 6 |
| Final | 13 | 7 |
Ranking
The PDC's main world ranking system, the PDC Order of Merit (known for sponsorship reasons as the Werner Rankings Ladder),[16] is calculated on a two-year cycle. Prize money won by players in ranking tournaments are removed from their ranking after 104 weeks, meaning players who participated in the 2024 World Championship, who did not lose their PDC Tour Card during the two-year period, will be 'defending' their prize money from that event.[17] At the end of the tournament, the prize money won at the 2026 tournament will be added and the prize money won at the 2024 tournament will be removed.[18][19] After the tournament, the top 64 players in the PDC Order of Merit will receive a one-year extension on their Tour Card, joined by the players who earned two-year Tour Cards in 2025 who will enter their second year in 2026.[20] Players with two or more years on their Tour Card, who finish outside of the top 64, will lose their Tour Card and see their ranking reset to £0, along with all other players who earned prize money in ranking tournaments without holding a Tour Card.[18][19]
Prize money
On 31 March 2025, the PDC announced the biggest prize money increase in the organisation's history, starting from the 2026 season onward. Coinciding with the expansion of the field to 128 players, the World Championship's total prize money and winner's share doubled from £2,500,000 to £5,000,000 and from £500,000 to £1,000,000 respectively; this was the first time the tournament's prize money increased since the 2019 edition.[9][21] The winner will also receive the Sid Waddell Trophy. The prize money breakdown is shown below:[22]
| Position (no. of players) | Prize money (Total: £5,000,000) | |
|---|---|---|
| Winner | (1) | £1,000,000 |
| Runner-up | (1) | £400,000 |
| Semi-finalists | (2) | £200,000 |
| Quarter-finalists | (4) | £100,000 |
| Fourth round losers | (8) | £60,000 |
| Third round losers | (16) | £35,000 |
| Second round losers | (32) | £25,000 |
| First round losers | (64) | £15,000 |
Qualification
The 128-player field will comprise three sets of qualification routes. The top 40 players on the two-year PDC Order of Merit after the 2025 Players Championship Finals will qualify automatically, followed by the next 40 highest-ranked players on the one-year PDC Pro Tour Order of Merit.[23] The remaining 48 places will go to various international qualifiers,[13] including a minimum of four female players.[24]
List of confirmed international qualifiers
Six players have secured qualification for the event through international qualifiers, with Teemu Harju and Andreas Harrysson set to make their debuts in the tournament.[25][26]
Lisa Ashton (ENG) – Women's World Matchplay[27]
Leonard Gates (USA) – CDC Cross-Border Challenge[28][13]- Beau Greaves (ENG) – PDC Women's Series[29]
Teemu Harju (FIN) – PDC Nordic & Baltic Tour[25]
Andreas Harrysson (SWE) – PDC Nordic & Baltic Tour[30]
Alexis Toylo (PHI) – PDC Asian Tour[31]
Schedule
The event will consist of 36 sessions held across 20 days from 11 December 2025 until the date of the final on Saturday, 3 January 2026.[1][5]
| Match no. | Round | Player 1 | Score | Player 2 | Set 1 | Set 2 | Set 3 | Set 4 | Set 5 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 01 | 1 |  |
|
||||||
| 02 | |
|
|||||||
| 03 | |
|
|||||||
| 04 | |
|
| Match no. | Round | Player 1 | Score | Player 2 | Set 1 | Set 2 | Set 3 | Set 4 | Set 5 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 45 | 1 | |
|
||||||
| 46 | |
|
|||||||
| 47 | |
|
|||||||
| 48 | |
|
| Match no. | Round | Player 1 | Score | Player 2 | Set 1 | Set 2 | Set 3 | Set 4 | Set 5 | Set 6 | Set 7 | Set 8 | Set 9 | Set 10 | Set 11 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 125 | SF | |
|
||||||||||||
| 126 | |
|
| Match no. | Round | Player 1 | Score | Player 2 | Set 1 | Set 2 | Set 3 | Set 4 | Set 5 | Set 6 | Set 7 | Set 8 | Set 9 | Set 10 | Set 11 | Set 12 | Set 13 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 127 | F | |
|
References
- ^ a b Allen, Dave (17 July 2025). "2025/26 Paddy Power World Darts Championship ticket sale details confirmed". Professional Darts Corporation. Retrieved 17 July 2025.
- ^ "PDC History". Darts World. Archived from the original on 8 November 2019. Retrieved 17 July 2025.
- ^ Neville, Connor (13 December 2016). ""A Party Where All The Beautiful People Had Left"– The Story of How There Came To Be Two World Darts Championships". Balls.ie. Archived from the original on 23 November 2017. Retrieved 17 July 2025.
- ^ "Neil Duff: Northern Ireland man wins WDF World Championship title". BBC Sport. 10 April 2022. Retrieved 17 July 2025.
- ^ a b "World Darts Championship: Schedule announced with Saturday final as Luke Littler defends his title". Sky Sports. 17 July 2025. Retrieved 17 July 2025.
- ^ "Darts checks out of Essex". BBC. 3 April 2007. Retrieved 18 July 2025.
- ^ "World Darts Championship agrees Paddy Power title sponsorship". SportsPro. 11 July 2023. Retrieved 17 July 2025.
- ^ Ronay, Barney (2 January 2013). "Phil Taylor beats Michael van Gerwen to seal 16th world title". The Guardian. Retrieved 18 July 2025.
- ^ a b "World Darts Championship winner's prize doubled to one million pounds". Reuters. 31 March 2025. Retrieved 17 July 2025.
- ^ a b Drury, Sam (17 June 2025). "At least four women in bigger World Darts Championship". BBC Sport. Retrieved 17 July 2025.
- ^ Cairns, Dan (3 January 2025). "Luke Littler, 17, becomes youngest world darts champion after beating Michael van Gerwen". Sky News. Retrieved 17 July 2025.
- ^ Ingle, Sean (4 January 2025). "Luke Littler: Darts domination beckons for 17-year-old after first world title". The Irish Times. Retrieved 17 July 2025.
- ^ a b c Gorton, Josh (17 June 2025). "Qualifying structure confirmed for Paddy Power World Darts Championship". Professional Darts Corporation. Retrieved 17 July 2025.
- ^ Jenkins, Keith (3 January 2025). "PDC World Darts Championship: Format, rules, schedule, more". ESPN. Retrieved 18 July 2025.
- ^ Chiu, Nigel (13 December 2024). "World Darts Championship: Schedule, format, previous winners and nine darters at Alexandra Palace". Sky Sports. Retrieved 18 July 2025.
- ^ "PDC Join Forces with Werner and Launch their Rankings Ladder". Darts World. 3 July 2025. Retrieved 17 July 2025.
- ^ Paul Nicholson (11 April 2021). "Is the PDC Order of Merit a 'fair' world ranking system for darts or is it time for change?". Sporting Life. Retrieved 17 July 2025.
- ^ a b "PDC Rankings Rules". Professional Darts Corporation. Retrieved 17 July 2025.
- ^ a b O'Hara, Michael (4 February 2025). "2025 PDC darts rankings, explained: Order of Merit, prize money and tournaments included". The Sporting News. Retrieved 17 July 2025.
- ^ "PDC Tour Card Holders". Professional Darts Corporation. Retrieved 17 July 2025.
- ^ "The million-pound dart: PDC doubles prize money for world championship". The Guardian. PA Media. 31 March 2025. Retrieved 17 July 2025.
- ^ Phillips, Josh (31 March 2025). "Biggest prize money increase in PDC history confirmed". Professional Darts Corporation. Retrieved 17 July 2025.
- ^ "World Championship Race 2025/2026". dartsrankings.com. Retrieved 18 July 2025.
- ^ "PDC mandate minimum of 4 women for World Darts Championship". ESPN. 18 June 2025. Retrieved 27 July 2025.
- ^ a b Mads Plagborg Magnussen (3 August 2025). "Teemu Harju secures himself a spot at Ally Pally on the last day of the season". PDC Nordic & Baltic. Retrieved 18 August 2025.
- ^ Gorton, Josh (7 July 2025). "Harrysson confirms World Darts Championship qualification". Professional Darts Corporation. Retrieved 19 July 2025.
- ^ Drury, Sam (27 July 2025). "Ashton beats Sherrock to win Women's World Matchplay". BBC Sport. Retrieved 27 July 2025.
- ^ Allen, Dave (14 April 2025). "Gates denies Smith to win 2025 CDC Cross-Border Darts Challenge". Professional Darts Corporation. Retrieved 18 July 2025.
- ^ Idsardi, Jetze Jan [@JJIdsardi] (18 August 2025). "⭐🏴 Beau Greaves has qualified for her 2nd PDC World Darts Championship..." (Tweet). Retrieved 18 August 2025 – via Twitter.
- ^ Mads Plagborg Magnussen (6 July 2025). "Harrysson secured World Championship spot with third title of the season". PDC Nordic & Baltic. Retrieved 18 July 2025.
- ^ Idsardi, Jetze Jan (3 August 2025). "Asian Tour: Alexis Toylo naar WK, Lourence Ilagan schittert in eigen land" [Asian Tour: Alexis Toylo to World Championship, Lourence Ilagan shines in home country]. dartsactueel.nl (in Dutch). Retrieved 3 August 2025.