PDC World Darts Championship
The biggest event in darts, and the only one most people outside the sport can name. 128 players, three weeks at Alexandra Palace, a final on the first Sunday of January.
The PDC World Darts Championship 2027 runs 11 December 2026 to 3 January 2027 at Alexandra Palace (Great Hall), London, live in the UK on Sky Sports. The prize fund is £5,000,000, with £1,000,000 to the winner.
World Darts Championship
Moves into the Great Hall for the first time, lifting capacity to roughly 5,200 a session. Christmas break runs 24 to 27 December and the final is on Sunday 3 January.
The 2027 page: dates, draw and favourites
The World Championship is the sport’s defining tournament. It is the longest, the richest, and the one that decides how a player’s whole year is remembered. It also happens over Christmas, in a hall full of people in fancy dress, which is a large part of why it broke out of the sports pages and into ordinary television.
The 2026/27 edition moves into Alexandra Palace’s Great Hall for the first time. That lifts capacity to roughly 5,200 a session from the 3,200 of the old West Hall, so noticeably more people get in, and the final moves to a Sunday night in the bigger room.
The format
- Played in sets, not straight legs. First to three legs wins a set, and you need a set lead to win the match.
- First and second rounds are best of five sets. Third and fourth rounds are best of seven. Quarter-finals are best of nine, semi-finals best of eleven, and the final is best of thirteen, so first to seven sets.
- Set play protects the better player. A bad ten minutes costs you one set rather than the match, which is why favourites recover here more often than they do in Blackpool.
How players qualify
- The top 40 on the two-year PDC Order of Merit.
- The next 40 highest on the one-year PDC ProTour Order of Merit.
- The remaining 48 places through international qualifiers, which is how the field reaches players from outside the main tour.
Prize money
The 2026 championship carried a total prize fund of £5 million, with £1 million to the winner and £400,000 to the runner-up. It is comfortably the biggest payday in the sport.
Fixtures and sessions
How the week is laid out. Sessions are published well ahead and rarely move.
- Afternoon sessions start at 12.30pm and evening sessions at 7pm, from the second day through to the quarter-finals.
- The opening night is an evening session only.
- A Christmas break runs from 24 to 27 December, with no play.
- The final is a single Sunday evening session on 3 January 2027.
The draw. The full draw is made in late November, once the qualifiers and the Order of Merit seedings are settled. Until then only the seeds are known.
Who is favourite to win the PDC World Darts Championship 2027?
The draw is not out yet. Going by the world rankings, the players to beat are Luke Littler (world number 1), Luke Humphries (world number 2) and Gian van Veen (world number 3). Win chances for every player go up here once the draw is made.
The run to the final, 2026
How the most recent edition finished. Scores are in sets.
Littler lost only four sets in the whole tournament.
Past winners
The last 12 champions, most recent first. Click a name for their ranking and everything else they have won.
Phil Taylor won 14 PDC world titles, the last of them in 2013. Nobody else is close, and on any sensible reading nobody ever will be.
How to watch
Shown live in the UK on Sky Sports. That means a Sky Sports subscription, or NOW. The schedule page lists which broadcaster has each event.
Is there a free live stream of the PDC World Darts Championship?
Not a free one, no. In the UK it is live on Sky Sports, so you need a Sky Sports subscription, or a NOW Sports membership (which you can buy by the day) to stream it without Sky. Sites offering a free stream of Sky's coverage are not legal and are a common source of scams and malware.
- On TV: Sky Sports.
- Streaming: the Sky Go app with Sky Sports, or a NOW Sports day or month membership.
- Outside the UK and Ireland: PDCTV streams it, on subscription.
Tickets
Tickets are allocated by public ballot rather than a general on-sale. You register during a window months ahead and successful entrants are drawn and given a slot to buy. There is nothing to refresh at ten in the morning. There is more on outlets, the ballot and what to avoid on the darts tickets page.
The other majors
Also here: the world rankings, the full schedule, and a free darts scorer for your own game.
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