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Yahoo
a day ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Tungsten Tourism: The World Series of Darts and Its Glorious Global Circus
Once upon a time, darts was something you played in the back room of a pub while waiting for your turn at the jukebox. These days? It's a globe-trotting juggernaut with more passport stamps than a washed-up rock band. Enter the World Series of Darts – the PDC's glitzy global tour that takes elite players, local hopefuls, and tungsten far and wide to promote the sport on other continents. Advertisement Launched in 2013, the series was originally a polite attempt to spread the gospel of 180s beyond Britain's beer-stained borders. It began with the Dubai Duty Free Darts Masters – because nothing says darts like 40-degree heat and luxury shopping. Soon after came Sydney, Singapore, and anywhere else that had a stage, an oche, and enough electricity to power a fog machine. SIGN UP FOR A DARTS WORLD MEMBERSHIP TODAY! Each event follows the PDC's tried-and-tested format: eight big names from the main tour - primarily, the Premier League big dogs that year - are dropped into a draw against an octet who are either solid PDC performers in their own right who just happen to originate from that neck of the woods, regional champions or those who came through a gruelling qualifying campaign. Since 2015, the series has concluded with the World Series Finals, now held in Amsterdam. Why Amsterdam? Well, it's fairly nearby, easily accessible – and for some reason, darts fans seem to find the city has certain other appeals between oche sessions. However, I won't speculate beyond that. Advertisement The prize money, much like Luke Littler's bank account, has ballooned. As of 2025, each international event dishes out £30,000 to the winner. Points are awarded too, and if you win enough matches, you book yourself that trip to Amsterdam – where The Nuke bagged a cool £80,000 for claiming the World Series biggie last year. Over the years, we have seen almost everything: nine-darters, high quality outdoor thrillers, lost baggage and more shocks than an EastEnders Christmas special. Michael van Gerwen remains the most successful traveller with 21 titles – presumably thanks to elite skill, airport efficiency, and basically, because he is bloody good at darts. In 2025 alone, players have jetted off to Bahrain, the Netherlands, Denmark, America, and currently in Poland. Up next? A trip halfway around the globe to Australia and New Zealand. If darts ever reaches Antarctica, you can bet the final will still be a best-of-15-legs, and the crowd will include confused penguins. Advertisement The World Series of Darts has become more than a tour. It's a travelling circus of drama, precision, pantomime, and impeccable airline loyalty programmes. Once confined to smoky corners of British pubs, darts now thrives under arena lights from Warsaw to Wollongong. Gotta love this game, haven't ya! For the full stories and more in depth coverage of everything darts, together with the latest issues of their legendary publications, head on over Darts World subscriptions options include Print, Digital and All Access packages, as well as exclusive products and competitions
The Sun
a day ago
- Sport
- The Sun
Luke Littler appears to try new tactic with World Darts champion, 18, ‘hating' former favourite double
DARTS fans reckon Luke Littler has seemingly abandoned his trademark shot selection. The 18-year-old became famed for routinely nailing Double 10 with ease during his miraculous rise to world title contention. 2 2 But judging from his most recent outings, including at the Poland Open, the 18-year-old has seemingly changed tact and opted not to go for Double 10 as much. The change hasn't gone unnoticed by fans, one of whom wrote on X: " Luke Littler hates Tops and D10 for some reason now. "Going for 6-D8 on 22 is strange of him, but going for the 25 on 57 to leave D16 (On 82, first dart already in the 25) instead of just playing 17 Tops is incredible. "Btw, on the 57 he's hit the BULL to leave 7." Another said: "Littler playing class as always, acted a bit wierd today tho, can only assume he was having a bad day on tops and d10. And another said: "He might try to switch the doubles because tops didn't go so well the last few months." One darts fan theorised: "I wonder if he's trying to get better at D16 ready for the Grand Prix. "Last year he kept going for tops and didn't do great, whereas many others get in on D16." JOIN SUN VEGAS: GET £50 BONUS Luke Littler prize money breakdown Here is all the prize money Luke Littler has won so far after being crowned 2025 PDC World Darts Championship winner: World Championship 2025 - £500,000 World Championship 2024 - £200,000 Grand Slam of Darts 2024 - £150,000 European Tour - £91,000 Player Championships events - £71,500 Players Championship final runner-up - £60,000 UK Open 2023 + 2024 - £17,500 World Matchplay - £10,000 World Grand Prix - £7,500 European Championship - £7,500 (Unranked) Premier League Darts - £315,000 TOTAL: £1.43 million Littler began his defence of the Poland Darts Masters title on Friday with a 6-4 win over the Czech Republic's Karel Sedlack. He'll be back in action this evening in an all-English clash against Nathan Aspinall. Littler recently revealed he's still tormented by the pain of letting the Darts Premier League title slip through his grasp. He said: "I'll probably say the Premier League final against Luke [Humphries]. 'Yeah, because I was 5-2 up and I knew we would go off for a break after 10 legs, so we've still got 3 legs to play. 'So, I said to myself, if you go 7-3 up or 6-4 up, then I'm happy, but I went into the break at 5-5. 'I was fuming and then he just went on and won it. 'He definitely did up his game, because I'm pretty sure after the break, I think he went 7-5 up. 'So he came on stage, won the next two legs. I was just thinking what was going on.'
