World Darts Championship 2027 Prize Money: Full £5 Million Breakdown
On this page
- World Darts Championship 2027 Prize Money: The Full Payout Table
- The Winner’s £1,000,000 Cheque
- Nine-Darter Bonus: £60,000 for Perfection
- How It Compares: From £2.5 Million to £5 Million
- What the Money Means for the PDC Order of Merit
- Littler’s Path to Another £1,000,000
- Frequently Asked Questions
- Conclusion
The world darts championship 2027 prize money is the richest in the history of the sport. When 128 players walk through the doors of Alexandra Palace on 11 December 2026, they will be competing for a staggering £5,000,000 prize fund — with £1,000,000 going to the player who lifts the Sid Waddell Trophy on 3 January 2027. Every player is paid, every round is worth more than the last, and even a first-round defeat is worth £15,000. Here is the complete breakdown of every pound on offer at the 2026/27 Paddy Power World Darts Championship.
World Darts Championship 2027 Prize Money: The Full Payout Table
The PDC has confirmed that the prize scale for the 2027 edition is identical, round by round, to the record-breaking 2026 edition. The £5,000,000 fund is split across the full 128-player field as follows:
| Round | Players | Prize money |
|---|---|---|
| Winner (World Champion) | 1 | £1,000,000 |
| Runner-up | 1 | £400,000 |
| Semi-finalists | 2 | £200,000 |
| Quarter-finalists | 4 | £100,000 |
| Fourth Round (Last 16) | 8 | £60,000 |
| Third Round (Last 32) | 16 | £35,000 |
| Second Round (Last 64) | 32 | £25,000 |
| First Round | 64 | £15,000 |
| Nine-dart finish bonus | — | £60,000 |
The arithmetic is exact: £1,000,000 for the champion, £400,000 for the runner-up, £400,000 for the two semi-finalists, £400,000 for the four quarter-finalists, £480,000 for the last 16, £560,000 for the last 32, £800,000 for the last 64 and £960,000 for the 64 first-round players — £5,000,000 in total. The winner alone takes home 20 per cent of the entire fund.
The Winner’s £1,000,000 Cheque
One million pounds for winning a darts tournament. It is a sentence that would have been unthinkable a decade ago, and it underlines how far the sport has come. The 2027 champion will bank £1,000,000 — the same figure Luke Littler collected for beating Gian van Veen 7–1 in the 2026 final with a 106.02 average, and double the £500,000 Littler earned for his first world title twelve months earlier.
To put that cheque in perspective: £1,000,000 is more than the 64 first-round losers will share between them (£960,000). It is also more than the entire prize fund of the 2025 World Championship was worth to its winner — the fund has doubled in two years. The runner-up, meanwhile, takes home £400,000 — itself a sum that would have been the winner’s cheque at most majors not long ago.
Whoever wins on 3 January will also collect the Sid Waddell Trophy and the world number one ranking that almost always follows. But the money is the headline: a seven-figure payday for three weeks of the highest-pressure darts on the planet.
For most players, £1,000,000 would dwarf their entire career earnings. Only a handful of darts players in history have earned seven figures from prize money alone across their whole careers — the world champion now banks that in a single tournament. It is the kind of money that changes lives, funds retirements and cements legacies, and it explains why the World Championship remains the one title every player circles on the calendar above all others.
Nine-Darter Bonus: £60,000 for Perfection
Beyond the round-by-round payouts sits one of the most exciting bonuses in sport: £60,000 for any player who hits a nine-dart finish at Alexandra Palace. Tournament sponsor Paddy Power pays the bonus for every perfect leg, and the initiative — branded “The BIGGER 180” — extends further: a fan in the crowd also receives £60,000, and £60,000 goes to Prostate Cancer UK. A single nine-darter is worth £180,000 in total.
The bonus has already produced magic. At the 2026 World Championship, Christian Kist hit a nine-darter in his first-round defeat to Madars Razma, and Damon Heta produced one against Luke Woodhouse in round three — both players banking £60,000 despite neither going on to lift the trophy. With 128 players and a record number of matches, the 2027 edition offers more chances than ever for perfection.
Sixteen nine-darters have been thrown in PDC World Championship history, with Raymond van Barneveld and Adrian Lewis the only players to manage two each. The perfect leg remains the rarest and most celebrated achievement in darts — and now it comes with a life-changing price tag.
How It Compares: From £2.5 Million to £5 Million
The world darts championship 2027 prize money did not arrive overnight. The trajectory tells the story of darts’ explosion into the sporting mainstream:
- 2025: £2,500,000 total fund — £500,000 to the winner (Littler), £200,000 to the runner-up, £100,000 to the semi-finalists
- 2026: £5,000,000 total fund — £1,000,000 to the winner, £400,000 to the runner-up, £200,000 to the semi-finalists
- 2027: £5,000,000 total fund — identical scale, round by round, to 2026
The doubling of the fund between 2025 and 2026 was the single biggest prize-money increase in the tournament’s history, driven by darts’ surging popularity and the Littler effect. The 2027 edition consolidates that leap: the PDC has held every figure steady rather than pushing higher, a sign that £5,000,000 is the new benchmark for the sport’s flagship event.
The growth is even more striking at the bottom of the scale. A first-round loser in 2027 banks £15,000 — guaranteed money for every one of the 128 qualifiers, including the international players who travel from across the globe for a single match. That floor has transformed qualification itself into a valuable prize: simply reaching Alexandra Palace is now worth a five-figure sum.
The surge mirrors darts’ wider boom. Television audiences have soared, the 2027 edition has a record 180,000 tickets on sale in the expanded Great Hall, and the sport’s new generation of stars has dragged prize money upward at every level — from the Pro Tour floor events to the televised majors. The World Championship fund is the flagship of that rise, and at £5,000,000 it now sits among the richest prizes in all of individual sport.
What the Money Means for the PDC Order of Merit
Prize money at the World Championship is not just about the cheques — it shapes the world rankings. The PDC Order of Merit is calculated from prize money won across all ranking events over a rolling two-year period, which makes the World Championship the single most influential tournament on the rankings. A deep run at Ally Pally can transform a player’s seeding for the next two years.
Luke Littler sits atop the Order of Merit on £3,113,500, a lead built on back-to-back world titles worth £1,500,000 combined. Behind him, the chasing pack is tightly bunched: Luke Humphries on £1,062,500, Gian van Veen on £1,035,750 and Gerwyn Price on £782,000. A £1,000,000 winner’s cheque would extend Littler’s lead to an almost unassailable margin — while a shock champion from outside the elite could vault into the world’s top five in a single fortnight.
For the seeded players, the maths is brutal and simple: the 32 seeds enter in the first round and must win to climb, while every qualifier who knocks out a seed banks ranking money that counts for two full years. Follow the seedings battle on the World Darts Championship 2026-27 schedule page.
Littler’s Path to Another £1,000,000
Luke Littler arrives at Alexandra Palace as the defending champion, the world number one and the man chasing history. Victory on 3 January would make him only the second player ever to win three consecutive world championships — a feat achieved solely by Phil Taylor, who once won eight in a row.
The numbers behind Littler’s dominance are extraordinary. His 2026 final victory over Gian van Veen — 7–1, averaging 106.02 — was one of the most one-sided finals ever played. His £1,000,000 winner’s cheque that night took his two-year Order of Merit earnings past £3,000,000. And he did it all before his twentieth birthday.
Standing in his way is the deepest field the championship has ever seen: 32 seeds, 40 Pro Tour qualifiers and 48 international qualifiers from every corner of the darts world. The draw takes place on 30 November 2026, and from the moment the bracket is set, every contender will know exactly which mountain they must climb. Read the full roll of honour in our guide to every PDC World Darts Championship winner since 1994.
The format itself is a test of endurance: best of five sets in the early rounds, rising to best of seven, best of nine in the quarter-finals, best of eleven in the semi-finals and a gruelling best of thirteen in the final. To earn the £1,000,000, the champion must win six matches across more than three weeks — a marathon that has broken many favourites before. Littler has conquered it twice; a third straight crown would put him alongside Taylor in the most exclusive club in darts.
The 2027 edition also moves into Alexandra Palace’s historic Great Hall for the first time, with a record 180,000 tickets on sale across the tournament — the biggest audience the event has ever played in front of. Keep track of every session on the darts schedule hub at World Darts Guide.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much prize money is on offer at the World Darts Championship 2027?
The total prize fund is £5,000,000 — the richest in darts history. The winner receives £1,000,000, the runner-up £400,000, and every one of the 128 players is guaranteed at least £15,000.
How much does the winner of the World Darts Championship get?
The 2027 world champion will bank £1,000,000 — 20 per cent of the total fund and double the £500,000 winner’s cheque paid in 2025. Luke Littler collected the same £1,000,000 for winning the 2026 title.
Do first-round losers get prize money?
Yes. All 64 first-round losers receive £15,000 each — £960,000 in total, nearly a fifth of the entire fund. Every qualifier is guaranteed a five-figure payday simply for reaching Alexandra Palace.
What is the nine-darter bonus at the World Championship?
Any player who hits a nine-dart finish receives a £60,000 bonus from sponsor Paddy Power. A fan in the crowd also gets £60,000 and Prostate Cancer UK receives £60,000 — £180,000 in total for one perfect leg.
Has the prize money increased from previous years?
Yes. The fund doubled from £2,500,000 in 2025 to £5,000,000 in 2026, and the 2027 scale is identical to 2026 — no figure moves up or down. The winner’s cheque doubled from £500,000 to £1,000,000 in the same period.
Does World Championship prize money count towards the rankings?
Yes. The PDC Order of Merit is based on prize money won in ranking events over a rolling two-year period, making the World Championship — with its £5,000,000 fund — the single most important tournament for the world rankings.
Conclusion
The world darts championship 2027 prize money is a statement of intent: £5,000,000 on the table, £1,000,000 for the champion, £15,000 guaranteed for every player who qualifies, and £60,000 for nine-dart perfection. It is the richest prize fund darts has ever seen, double what was on offer just two years ago, and it has turned the road to Alexandra Palace into the most lucrative journey in the sport.
When the first dart is thrown on 11 December, 128 players will know exactly what is at stake — and on 3 January, one of them will walk out of the Great Hall a million pounds richer.
