Darts is the sport that never sleeps: the Modus Super Series from morning to late at night, the PDC circuit on the big stage, and 180s on tap (a 180 is three treble twenties, the most three darts can score).
A darts match is played in legs. Each leg is a race from 501 points down to exactly zero, each turn of three darts taken off the total, and it has to be finished on a double (the thin outer ring of the board), which is where most legs are won and lost.
A match is the best of an odd number of legs, often seven on the Modus floor, so one missed double can decide it.
You can back the match winner, leg handicaps, total legs and most 180s before a match and while it runs, with outrights on the weekly Modus event and on the World Championship.
The competitions
Darts runs to a calendar of its own, which is why it turns up on mornings when the rest of the sports list is still waiting for the weekend. Two rhythms run at once: the weekly grind on the floor, and the televised majors.
- Modus Super Series. Twelve players a week in three groups, round robin, every match a best of seven legs of 501, in a purpose-built room in Portsmouth. Matches are priced on the day rather than a week out.
- The Modus week. One group fills Monday to Wednesday from half nine in the morning. The other two take Thursday and Friday, one in the afternoon and one at ten at night. Six players reach Saturday's finals, and the weekly winners meet in a Champions Week at the end of a series.
- The World Series. Overseas events through the year, from the Gulf to Scandinavia, North America and Australasia, gathered up by the World Series Finals in September.
- The European Tour. Friday-to-Sunday weekends in mainland Europe from late winter into autumn, each event listed as its own competition.
- The autumn majors. The World Grand Prix, the European Championship, the Grand Slam and the Players Championship Finals, one after another from the end of September into late November.
- The World Championship. Alexandra Palace over Christmas and New Year. Its outright is the one darts price open months ahead, while the Modus outright is priced fresh every week.
- The Premier League. Thursday nights from February to May, ending on a final night in London. It is also the one darts competition where a match can finish tied.
- The rest of the calendar. The UK Open in March, the World Cup of Darts in June, and the World Matchplay in Blackpool in July.
Of the two rhythms, the weekly grind is the one you can learn.
The markets
Match winner
Two players, one winner, shown as W1 and W2. Darts matches are played to a finish, so the market is two-way, and an unfinished match settles on whoever progresses or is awarded it. The exception is a tied Premier League match, which voids a two-way bet.
Legs handicap
One player starts with legs added or taken away, plus or minus 2.5 say, and the leg score is read with that line on it. Give 2.5 and you need to win by three, and the half leg stops a tie. It is void if the scheduled leg count changes or the match goes unfinished.
Total legs
Over or under on how far the match runs. On a best of seven, over 5.5 needs a 4-2 or a 4-3, and a 4-0 or a 4-1 keeps it under. If the match stops early the bet stands only where the line has already been passed.
Most 180s
Which player throws more maximums, a maximum being three treble-twenties in one visit. It pays the heavy scorer even on a night the match goes the other way. Scoring is all it asks. Settlement is on the final count, so an unfinished match voids the market with no already-decided exception.
Outrights
An outright backs the tournament winner, priced weekly on the Modus event and months out on the World Championship. It runs non-runner no-bet, so a withdrawal returns the stake, and a Rule 4 deduction can apply to the bets left standing when a priced player pulls out of an event.
Open a darts event and the market list runs longer than this. Which markets are there depends on the match, and each one settles by a rule of its own in the Sports Betting Rules.
In-play
Legs are short and the price moves with them. A match winner can be a different price a visit later, and the handicap is re-cut to the scoreboard as the legs go by.
What moves a price most is the break of throw, a leg won against the darts. Not every leg is worth the same. In a short format the player throwing first in the decider holds an edge, and a break hands that edge over.
Any price on a fixture here carries a "correct at" stamp. If a match is abandoned before its scheduled legs are completed, the live match markets are void, apart from a bet already decided.
What to look at before you bet
- Three-dart average. It measures scoring power: a player averaging a hundred reaches a finish in fewer visits than one averaging ninety, which pulls the total-legs line down and pushes the handicap out.
- Checkout percentage. Scoring gets you to a double, and the double wins the leg. The ceiling is 170, so anything above it takes two visits. A heavy scorer who cannot finish loses legs that were there to win, and that gap is where the handicap lives.
- Format and throw order. A best of seven on the floor is short enough for one bad leg to settle it; a set-play major is a different animal. Throwing first is an advantage when there are only a few legs to play, and in a deciding leg it is the advantage that counts.
- The week ahead of the match. Modus groups play on consecutive days, so a last session carries tired arms and dead rubbers. Majors run afternoon and evening sessions, and a finals day can ask for more than one match.
- Floor form against stage form. A quiet hall and a full arena do not ask the same thing of a player. One has a walk-on, a nickname and a light show. The other has a scoreboard and a marker. Check which one the match is before you trust a number earned in the other.
The darts quick guide
- Check the format. Find out whether the match is legs or sets, and how many of them it is played over.
- Read the averages. Three-dart average shows scoring power, and checkout percentage shows what happens at the end of a leg.
- Find the throw. Find out who starts, and who would throw first in a decider.
- Match the market to the view. A winner you are confident about belongs on the handicap, a shape you are confident about belongs on the total.
- Watch a leg before you bet in-play. The price at three-all is not the price the match opened at.
The cards open the Modus Super Series, the World Series Finals and the full darts list in the sportsbook, and the darts section of the Sports Betting Rules settles the arguments a scoreboard starts.
