The 2026 PDC World Darts Championship (known for sponsorship reasons as the 2025/26 Paddy Power World Darts Championship) was a professional darts tournament that took place from 11 December 2025 to 3 January 2026 at Alexandra Palace in London, England. The 33rd World Darts Championship organised by the Professional Darts Corporation (PDC), it was the 19th to be staged at Alexandra Palace, where it was held in the venue's West Hall for the final time; subsequent editions will take place in the Great Hall. The tournament's £5,000,000 prize fund was double that of the previous year, as were the prizes for the winner, runner-up, semi-finalists, and quarter-finalists. The winner received £1,000,000, the largest prize ever awarded in the history of professional darts.
The tournament featured a 128-player field, expanded from 96. The top 32 players on the PDC Order of Merit were seeded for the first round. A total of 28 players made their debut at the tournament, the most successful of whom was Justin Hood, who reached the quarter-finals. At age 71, Paul Lim became the oldest player to win a match at the tournament when he defeated Jeffrey de Graaf in the first round. Nitin Kumar, Stefan Bellmont, and David Munyua became the first Indian, Swiss, and Kenyan players respectively to win matches at a PDC World Championship.
Luke Littler was the defending champion, having defeated Michael van Gerwen 7–3 in the 2025 final. He reached his third consecutive final, where he faced Gian van Veen, who became the third Dutch player to reach a PDC World Championship final, following Raymond van Barneveld and Van Gerwen. Littler beat Van Veen 7–1 to win his second world title. He was the fourth player to retain the PDC world title, following Phil Taylor, Adrian Lewis, and Gary Anderson, and the first to do so since Anderson in the 2016 championship. Littler lost only four sets across the seven matches he played in the tournament. He also won the "Ballon d'Art" award for the most 180s at the tournament, with 73.
Overview Background
The Professional Darts Corporation (PDC) was established under the World Darts Council name by the managers John Markovic, Tommy Cox and Dick Allix, along with the world's top 16 players in January 1992 as a separate body that broke away from the British Darts Organisation (BDO). The inaugural edition of the PDC World Darts Championship was held from December 1993 to January 1994 at the Circus Tavern in Purfleet, Essex, England. It was won by Dennis Priestley, who defeated Phil Taylor in the final on 2 January 1994. Taylor would go on to win the tournament 14 times, adding to his BDO World Darts Championship wins in 1990 and 1992 for a record total of 16 world titles, including eight in a row from 1995 to 2002. The PDC World Championship is one of two world championships in the game of darts; the other being the WDF World Darts Championship, which was first held in 2022 as the successor to the BDO event.
The 2026 tournament was held from 11 December 2025 to 3 January 2026 in London, England. It was the 33rd edition of the event and the 19th to be held at Alexandra Palace, which first served as host venue at the 2008 World Championship. The event was hosted in Alexandra Palace's West Hall for the final time as it will move to the venue's larger Great Hall for subsequent editions, staying there until at least 2031. Irish gambling company Paddy Power continued its sponsorship of the event, having agreed a three-year contract with the PDC ahead of the 2024 edition; in December 2025, it was announced that Paddy Power renewed their sponsorship until 2031.
A record-breaking total of 128 players competed at the event, expanded from the previous total of 96; the expanded field was announced by the PDC in March 2025. A new qualification structure was also introduced. Luke Littler entered the tournament as defending champion, having defeated three-time champion Michael van Gerwen 7–3 in the 2025 final to win his first world title and become the youngest darts world champion in history at 17 years and 347 days old. Littler was the bookmakers' pre-tournament favourite to win the championship.
Format Under the new format, all players, including the 32 seeds, entered the tournament in the first round, a change from previous years where seeds entered in the second round. The matches were played in set format, with the amount of sets required to win a match increasing as the tournament progressed. All non-deciding sets were played to the best of five legs. In the deciding set, a tie-break rule was applied if the set score was 2–2, where the first player to lead by two legs won the set and the match; if the deciding set reached 5–5, the winner was decided by a sudden-death leg.
RoundBest of (sets)First to (sets)First & second 5 3Third & fourth 7 4Quarter-finals 9 5Semi-finals 11 6Final 13 7
Ranking The PDC's main world ranking system, the PDC Order of Merit (known for sponsorship reasons as the Werner Rankings Ladder), is calculated on a two-year cycle. Prize money won by players in ranking tournaments are removed from their ranking after 104 weeks, meaning players who participated in the 2024 World Championship, who did not lose their PDC Tour Card during the two-year period, 'defended' their prize money from that event. At the end of the tournament, the prize money won at the 2026 tournament was added and the prize money won at the 2024 tournament was removed. After the tournament, the top 64 players in the PDC Order of Merit received a one-year extension on their Tour Card, joined by the players who earned two-year Tour Cards in 2025 who entered their second year in 2026. Players with two or more years on their Tour Card, who finished outside of the top 64, lost their Tour Card and saw their ranking reset to £0, along with all other players who earned prize money in ranking tournaments without holding a Tour Card.
Prize money On 31 March 2025, the PDC announced the biggest prize money increase in the organisation's history, starting from the 2026 season onward. Coinciding with the expansion of the field to 128 players, the World Championship's total prize money increased to £5,000,000, with the winner's share doubling from £500,000 to £1,000,000; this was the first time the tournament's prize money increased since the 2019 edition. The winner also received the Sid Waddell Trophy, named in honour of the darts commentator who died in 2012. The prize money for the runner-up also doubled from £200,000 to £400,000; the prize money for semi-finalists doubled from £100,000 to £200,000; and prize money for the quarter-finalists doubled from £50,000 to £100,000. Like the previous year, tournament sponsor Paddy Power pledged that for every nine-dart finish hit during the tournament, they would award £60,000 to the player, a random fan, and Prostate Cancer UK.
The prize money breakdown is shown below:
Position (no. of players)Prize money(Total: £5,000,000)Winner (1) £1,000,000Runner-up (1) £400,000Semi-finalists (2) £200,000Quarter-finalists (4) £100,000Fourth round losers (8) £60,000Third round losers (16) £35,000Second round losers (32) £25,000First round losers (64) £15,000Nine-dart finish £60,000
Broadcasts The tournament was broadcast by Sky Sports in the United Kingdom and Ireland; the World Championship acted as the first event of the PDC and Sky Sports's new five-year broadcast deal. Other broadcasters included Viaplay in the Netherlands and the Nordic countries; DAZN in Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Italy; Sport1 in Germany; VTM in Belgium; Fox Sports in Australia; Sky Sport in New Zealand; L'Équipe in France; Pragosport in Hungary; Nova Sport in Czechia and Slovakia; Peacock and FanDuel TV Extra in the United States; BeIN Sports in the Middle East and North Africa; Maincast in Ukraine; SPTV and ZonaSport in Croatia; StarHub TV in Singapore; TVP Sport in Poland; Rigour in China; Arena Sport in Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, North Macedonia, Montenegro and Kosovo; TV3 in the Baltic states; Saran in Turkey; and Premier Sports Network in Mongolia.
The tournament was also available on the PDC's streaming service, PDCTV, for subscribers outside of the United Kingdom, Ireland, Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Talksport provided live commentary for the event, which featured former professional players Paul Nicholson and Chris Mason.
Qualification The 128-player field comprised three sets of qualification routes. The top 40 players on the two-year PDC Order of Merit after the 2025 Players Championship Finals qualified automatically, followed by the next 40 highest-ranked players on the one-year PDC Pro Tour Order of Merit. The remaining 48 places went to various international qualifiers. A record total of 28 players made their PDC World Championship debut.
Background Order of Merit qualifiers
There were 40 players who qualified for the tournament by virtue of being ranked in the top 40 of the PDC Order of Merit. Defending champion Luke Littler was the number one seed for the tournament, having achieved world number one status on his way to winning the 2025 Grand Slam. He entered the World Championship off the back of claiming his sixth major title of 2025 at the Players Championship Finals; his other titles included the last World Championship, the World Matchplay and his second Grand Slam. Luke Humphries, the 2024 world champion and previous world number one, was the second seed. He won two major titles, the World Masters and the Premier League, during the season. The third seed was three-time world champion Michael van Gerwen, who ended a two-year major title drought by winning the World Series Finals in September. Four-time World Championship semi-finalist James Wade was seeded seventh in his 22nd appearance at the tournament. Tenth seed Gian van Veen achieved his first major title at the European Championship and retained his World Youth Championship during the year.
Former PDC world champions Gerwyn Price, Gary Anderson, Rob Cross, Michael Smith and Peter Wright were all amongst the seeded players. Josh Rock and Daryl Gurney, who won the World Cup for Northern Ireland, were the 11th and 22nd seeds. Nathan Aspinall, the most prolific player on the 2025 European Tour with three titles, was the 15th seed after finishing as runner-up to Littler at the Players Championship Finals. Jermaine Wattimena, the 19th seed, claimed his first two PDC ranking titles in 2025 Players Championship events. The 2022 Masters champion Joe Cullen secured the 32nd and final seeded position. Outside of the top 32 seeds, eight more players qualified through the PDC Order of Merit and were unseeded in the tournament draw, including five-time world champion Raymond van Barneveld, who made his 33rd World Championship appearance across both the PDC and BDO tournaments.
Pro Tour qualifiers There were 40 players who qualified for the tournament as the 40 highest-ranked players on the PDC Pro Tour Order of Merit who had not yet qualified. The list was topped by Niko Springer, who won his first PDC ranking title at the Hungarian Darts Trophy. Other first-time title winners to qualify through the Pro Tour were Bradley Brooks, Jeffrey de Graaf and Sebastian Białecki. Max Hopp, the 2015 World Youth champion, made his first appearance at the World Championship since the 2021 event. Former semi-finalist Gabriel Clemens was joined by former quarter-finalists Callan Rydz, Ian White, Kim Huybrechts and Darius Labanauskas. Development Tour winner Cam Crabtree and Grand Slam quarter-finalist Lukas Wenig were among the players to qualify for their maiden World Championship.
International qualifiers