All you need to know as World Darts Championship begins

The 2026 PDC World Darts Championship gets under way on Thursday at Alexandra Palace in London.

Recently crowned world number one Luke Littler is the defending champion, having beaten Michael van Gerwen in the 2025 final.

A record 128 players have entered this year's competition, an increase of 32 from last year's extravaganza, including five players from the Women's Series - also a record.

Littler is one of nine previous winners to be playing in this year's competition and will begin his defence on the opening night against Darius Labanauskas.

"I'm on top of the world and my performances prove it. I am playing the best darts in the world and that's why I'm number one," Littler told BBC Sport.

"I'm on a different level and I've got to keep it up for December and early January."

The 2026 World Darts Championship starts on Thursday, 11 December with an evening session consisting of four first-round matches.

After that, nearly every day will feature an afternoon and evening session with four matches in each.

There is a three-day Christmas break from 24 to 26 December. After that point, there will be two sessions of play each day, but the matches in each session decrease in later rounds where there are fewer but longer matches.

The last day of two sessions is Thursday, 1 January 2026. After that, both semi-finals will be played on Friday, 2 January in an evening session.

The final takes place on Saturday, 3 January in the evening.

The top 32 ranked players were seeded for the tournament. Unlike recent years, the top 32 will enter in the first round, instead of the second.

Seeded players denoted in brackets

First round

First quarter

Second quarter

Third quarter

Fourth quarter

A record-breaking £5m prize pool will be on offer at the tournament, with £1m going to the winner.

Any player hitting a nine-darter will be awarded an additional £60,000. One lucky fan in attendance will also receive £60,000 from the tournament sponsor, as will Prostate Cancer UK.

Littler, 18, goes into the tournament as favourite off the back of winning six major finals in 2025.

Luke Humphries, Littler's predecessor as both world champion and world number one, faced Littler in three finals this year and is the current world number two.

World number three Van Gerwen is also in the mix, looking to avenge last year's final defeat and add to his three world titles, with his last coming in 2019.

Young players looking for a big run at the World Championship include Josh Rock and Gian van Veen, whose respective form has seen them both enter the world's top 12.

Beau Greaves topped the Women's Series and faces Daryl Gurney first as she looks to become only the second female player to score a win in the tournament, after fellow qualifier Fallon Sherrock who won twice at the 2019 event.

Three places were on offer from the series, along with a spot for the Women's Matchplay winner, a title taken by Lisa Ashton.

With Greaves qualifying in her own right as runner-up on the development tour, that meant Women's Series runner-up Sherrock, Noa-Lynn van Leuven in fourth and Gemma Hayter, who finished fifth, join third-placed Ashton.

Van Leuven, who was the first transgender player in the tournament last year when she lost in the first round to Kevin Doets, plays two-time champion Peter Wright this time.

The format is set play, unlike other tournaments which are a race to a number of legs.

A set consists of the best of five legs or race to three.

Only in matches where players are level on sets and legs in the deciding set do players need to win by two clear legs.

Phil Taylor is the most successful player in World Darts Championship history, winning 14 PDC world titles between 1995 and 2013.

The last five years has produced five different world champions, with English trio Littler, Humphries and Michael Smith winning the last three.

Littler and Humphries will hope to join the exclusive club of players to have won multiple world titles, with only six managing to achieve that feat so far.

Two players hit nine-darters during the 2025 World Darts Championship.

Dutchman Christian Kist was the first player to hit one, doing so in a first-round defeat by Madars Razma.

Australia's Damon Heta hit one in the third round, but like Kist it came in a defeat as he went out to Luke Woodhouse.

Throughout the tournament, there will be daily round-ups on the BBC Sport website and app.

There will also be live text coverage of the biggest matches as the tournament progresses.

During Thursday's opening night, there will be a dedicated show on BBC Radio 5 Live starting at 19:30 GMT, featuring interviews with Littler, Humphries and Van Gerwen. Presenter James Gregg will provide updates on BBC Sounds throughout the competition.

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