World Darts Championship 2026/27: Dates, Venue and Prize Money

The World Darts Championship 2026/27 runs from 11 December to 3 January at Alexandra Palace in London, so it spans two calendar years, which is why the 2026/27 label is used. A field of 128 players will compete for a £5,000,000 prize fund. The tournament moves into the Great Hall for the first time, and Luke Littler goes after a third straight title.

Dates, Venue and Schedule at Alexandra Palace

The tournament takes place in a new hall at the venue, and the final falls on a Sunday for the first time. Below are the dates, the schedule by round and the details of the field.

The Great Hall Debut

Alexandra Palace has hosted the PDC World Darts Championship since 2007, and this season play moves into the Great Hall, where the Sid Waddell Trophy will be decided. Action begins on Friday 11 December and the final takes place on Sunday 3 January. The Great Hall holds more than 5,200 spectators, against the 3,200 the West Hall took, and the PDC has agreed to keep the event at Alexandra Palace until 2031. Whether a crowd of 5,000 still sounds like the Ally Pally of the Taylor and Van Gerwen years will only be clear on the opening Friday. The usual Christmas break runs from 24 to 27 December.

World Darts Championship Schedule by Round

The event has 36 sessions in total. Afternoon sessions start at 12.30pm and evening sessions at 7pm, with a few late starts for the business end. The opening Friday and Monday 14 December have evening sessions only.

The order of matches within each session follows the bracket, so the match-by-match programme appears together with it.

The Field of 128 and the Route In

For the second consecutive year the field has 128 players, so even the seeds have to play an extra round. Places are split three ways: the top 40 of the PDC world rankings, then the top 40 from the Pro Tour rankings who are not already in, and 48 international places. Those cover regional qualifiers from Asia, Europe, North America, the Nordic and Baltic countries, Australia and New Zealand, two new places for African players, the World Youth Champion, the leading players on the Development and Challenge Tours, and four women. The top 32 are seeded.

The field is still filling up: on 2 November the PDC published a new group of qualifiers, including Smith. On the Pro Tour, the PDC form guide of 3 November has Luke Humphries on top, and the next day he won Players Championship 33 in Leicester.

Format and Prize Money

The match format is unchanged, while the prize fund stays at a record level. Together they define how long each round lasts and what a single result is worth.

Format: Sets and the Two-Clear-Legs Rule

Matches are played in sets, and the distance grows with every round:

• First and second round: best of 5 sets (first to 3)
• Third and fourth round: best of 7 sets (first to 4)
• Quarter-finals: best of 9 sets (first to 5)
• Semi-finals: best of 11 sets (first to 6)
• Final: best of 13 sets (first to 7)

Every set is best of five legs, so a player wins a set by taking three legs. The deciding set of a match must be won by two clear legs, and if it reaches 5-5 in legs, a single sudden-death leg is played with no bull throw.

World Darts Championship Prize Money

The prize fund totals £5,000,000, with £1,000,000 for the champion. For comparison, the pot stood at £2,500,000 from 2019 to 2025, so it has doubled. The runner-up takes £400,000, the semi-finalists £200,000 and the quarter-finalists £100,000. Prizes then step down to £60,000 for the last 16, £35,000 for the last 32, £25,000 for the last 64 and £15,000 for the last 128, so a first-round loser at Alexandra Palace still leaves with £15,000.

Luke Littler and the Main Contenders for the Title

The defending champion sets the main storyline, but his rivals arrive in good form. Below is what is at stake for Littler and who could stand in his way.

Littler and the Chase for Three in a Row

Luke Littler beat Gian van Veen 7-1 in January to win the title for the second year running, and arrives having won 19 of his 20 matches at Alexandra Palace. Three in a row has not been done since Phil Taylor won in 2004, 2005 and 2006. At 19, Littler already holds the World Masters, UK Open, World Cup, World Matchplay and Premier League titles from 2026. Whether he can be stopped in a bigger, louder room at the World Darts Championship 2026 is the question of the next two months, and the answer arrives on the evening of 3 January.

Who Could Stop Him

Luke Humphries partnered Littler to World Cup glory for England this summer and currently leads the PDC form guide. Gian van Veen, who lost the final in January, was playing his first world final. Michael van Gerwen has won the Bahrain Darts Masters and the Nordic Darts Masters in 2026. Gerwyn Price, Josh Rock and Stephen Bunting are also named among the contenders.