Rules for Darts & the Dartboard

Darts is a throwing game where darts are thrown at a circular target called a dartboard. Darts is a traditional pub game and the United Kingdom was the first country to officially declare it a sport. Darts is governed by the World Darts Federation and the Professional Darts Corporation. The game originated when soldiers would throw arrows at the bottom of trunks of trees. As the wood dried, cracks would appear, making sections.

  1. Dartboard

    • During the 1900s, dartboards were made of solid pieces of wood which had to soaked overnight to close the holes made from the darts. Modern dartboards are made from sisal fibers, which are stiff and also used for making rope. A regulation dartboard measures 17 3/4 inches in diameter and is divided into 20 equal sections which are separated with a metal wire. Each section is numbered from one through to 20, and these numbers are also made of metal. The dartboard must be hung so that the bullseye is 5 feet 8 inches from the ground. The oche is the line behind which the players stand to throw the darts, and this must be 17 feet 9 3/4 inches from the dartboard.

    Darts

    • Darts are usually made from either brass or tungsten. The most popular ones used by professional players are tungsten nickel. Tungsten is popular because it is heavier, and therefore less of the material is needed. This means the darts are smaller and it is easier to get three darts close together to get maximum scores. The dart flights were originally made from feathers but are usually made from a plastic polymer or nylon now.

    Playing darts

    • Darts is usually played with two players who take it in turns to throw a set of three darts at the dartboard scoring as many points as possible. Players start with a score of 501 and each time their set of three darts is thrown, the score is taken off the previous total. Players must finish the game scoring a double, which is the thin outer ring on the dartboard, or the bullseye, which is the center of the board. If a player scores too many points, then the score does not count and the score is reset to what it was before those darts were thrown. The highest score possible in three darts is 180. It is possible to score 501 in nine darts, and there are only two main ways of doing this. The first is scoring 180 with the first six darts and then scoring treble twenty, treble nineteen and double twelve. The other way is scoring 167 three times by hitting treble twenty, treble nineteen and then bullseye. This is also know as a pure nine dart finish.