A million kilos. Ten hundred thousand kilos. 100,000 ten pound notes. 100 million one pence items. A sum of cash traditionally valued as life-changing.
That’s what the winner of the PDC World Darts Championship will stroll away with come January 3.
Rising up, the concept of £1 million was unfathomable. It marked lottery winners, the highest 0.00001 per cent, a sum of cash that may change your existence eternally.
Again in 1994, inaugural PDC worlds winner Dennis Priestley walked away with £16,000. In immediately’s phrases, that equates to round £32,125.
That £32,125 is now round what you get for dropping in Spherical Three. Make it to Spherical 4? That doubles and takes up almost what was the complete prize pot 32 years in the past.
Flip it around- if Priestley had gained £1 million again in 1994, the winner in 2026 can be strolling away with round £2,155,502.75.
It’s the most marked image but of how darts has grown exponentially.
So, what does somebody spend £1 million on? Again in 1994, Dennis Priestley’s £16,000 would have gotten him round a 3rd of a strategy to shopping for a home outright with the common value of a property £51,362.
The present common home value within the UK is roughly £272,000 so if the winner needs to purchase property – property they’ll get!
Whereas inflation is at play, £1 million can nonetheless get you some lavish luxurious, it nonetheless adjustments your life, it nonetheless is an emblem that darts is just not what it was once.
And to assume, that is solely the start. The speedy rise is in it is infancy. Many marking the change coming across the introduction of the one and solely Luke Littler in 2023. That accelerated an already quickly shifting machine to the place we’re immediately: The worlds prize pot being £5 million.
So, of the 128 gamers vying to develop into the primary “million pound” winner, there’s many the place that sum can be a ground-breaking second of their life.
Think about the fairytales some are envisioning: From qualifier to million pound man. From girls’s circuits to the highest. From plumber to millionaire.
For somebody, the dream will develop into a actuality.
It additionally makes a hefty shift within the rankings, with whoever wins the worlds getting a sizeable sum that can both transfer them means up or put them additional forward within the PDC Order of Advantage.
So, even when, like Littler, they are saying cash doesn’t encourage them – increasing his lead as world No 1 would as he appears to be like to not solely be on the prime of the darting world however keep there for so long as he probably can.
It emboldens desires, it reinvigorates, it makes the World Darts Championship much more tangibly necessary, if that had been even potential.
In fact, we all know who the favourites are, we all know who’s probably to take house the massive cheque, however with such a momentous quantity on the road, there would be the different 100 or so gamers who shall be doing all of their energy as well out one of the best and carve out a path to the celebrated Sid Waddell Trophy and that life-altering pot of cash.
On December 11, the Nationwide Lottery of darts begins. 128 gamers have purchased their tickets. Some have gone with their trusted numbers whereas for others, it’s a fortunate dip. It’s not lengthy till we discover out who has the successful numbers.
Who will win the Paddy Energy World Darts Championship? Watch each match completely dwell from December 11 to January 3 on Sky Sports activities’ devoted darts channel (Sky channel 407 from December 10). Stream darts and extra prime sport with NOW.


