Official darts rules: the essentials for competition play

October 27, 2026

Among friends, everyone has their own house rules. But as soon as you want to play at a club, enter a tournament, or just settle an argument down the pub, it pays to know the rules that steel-tip competitions share. Here are the essentials, without the rulebook jargon.

The board and the distance

The measurements are the same everywhere, from your local to the televised finals:

1.73 m from the floor to the centre of the bull;
2.37 m from the face of the board to the oche, the throwing line, measured along the floor;
which makes roughly 2.93 m on the diagonal, from the centre of the bull down to the oche on the floor. Handy for checking your setup with a single tape measure.

The board is a standard bristle (sisal) board with the 20 at the top. To put yours up properly, follow our guide to dartboard height and throwing distance.

The darts

Under WDF (World Darts Federation) rules, a dart must not exceed:

50 g in weight;
30.5 cm in overall length.

In practice nobody comes close to the limit: plenty of players pick darts of around twenty grams. Every player throws their own darts, by hand, one at a time.

Throwing from the oche

You throw from behind the oche: your feet mustn't cross it as you throw. You're allowed to lean forward, as long as your feet stay behind the line. Each turn, called a visit, is 3 darts.

Who goes first: the bull-off

To decide who opens the match, players do a bull-off: each throws one dart at the bull, and whoever lands closest to the centre throws first in the first leg. After that, the start alternates: a different player opens each leg, so nobody keeps the advantage of throwing first.

Among friends, other customs exist, such as letting the loser of the previous leg start the next one. Just agree on it before you play.

Darts that count (and darts that don't)

This is the rule that causes the most arguments:

A dart scores where its point is in the board, not where its flight is pointing.
A dart that bounces out off the board or a wire, or falls out before it's been removed, doesn't score. And you can't throw it again: it's lost for that visit.
A dart that misses the board scores nothing, but it still counts as thrown.

Score before you pull the darts out

A visit's score is read off the board, with the darts still in. It's called and written down before the darts come out. Once they're out, there's no going back: if you think a dart is in the treble, get it checked before you touch it.

In competition, a referee or a scorer usually calls the scores. At home, it's the player or their opponent.

The standard format: 501 double out

The reference format in competition is 501 double out:

each player starts from 501 and takes off the total of each visit;
you have to reach exactly zero, with your last dart in a double or the inner bull (50);
going below zero, dropping to 1 or finishing without a double is a bust: the visit is wiped and the score goes back to where it was.

Legs and sets

One game of 501 down to zero is a leg. A match is played over the best of a set number of legs: in best of 5, the first to 3 legs wins.

In the big tournaments, legs are grouped into sets, and the match is played over the best of a number of sets. How many legs and sets depends on each competition and each round: there's nothing universal about it.

Sportsmanship

A few customs are part of the game, even if they aren't always written down:

don't talk, move or walk into the eyeline of the player throwing;
stand well back from the oche during your opponent's turn;
shake hands at the start and the end of the match.

If you come across a term you don't know, our darts glossary has you covered.

With Throw

Throw follows the same principles. Your phone, standing beside the board, reads each dart where its point is in the board, and the visit is confirmed when you pull your darts out, just like scoring before you remove them. If a dart bounces out, you tag it with a tap. In x01, busts are applied automatically. And it's all free, from a web app you install without an app store.