The holiday season is here, which means the World Darts Championship is back at the Alexandra Palace.
Almost three weeks of darts action will take place in London, with 128 players looking to make a run at the coveted Sid Waddell Trophy.
What to know about the 2026 PDC World Darts Championship
Let's take a look at some of the specifics of the tournament.
MORE: Every darts player who's qualified for the 2026 PDC World Championship
Bracket/draw
Here is the bracket for the first round.
Quarter #1
| (1) Luke Littler vs. Darius Labanauskas |
| Mario Vandenbogaerde vs. David Davies |
| (32) Joe Cullen vs. Bradley Brooks |
| Mensur Suljovic vs. David Cameron |
| (16) Damon Heta vs. Steve Lennon |
| Raymond van Barneveld vs. Stefan Bellmont |
| (17) Rob Cross vs. Cor Dekker |
| Ian White vs. Mervyn King |
| (8) Chris Dobey vs. Xiaochen Zong |
| Andrew Gilding vs. Cam Crabtree |
| (25) Luke Woodhouse vs. Boris Krcmar |
| Martin Lukeman vs. Max Hopp |
| (9) Gerwyn Price vs. Adam Gawlas |
| Lukas Wenig vs. Wesley Plaisier |
| (24) Ryan Joyce vs. Owen Bates |
| Krzysztof Ratajski vs. Alexis Toylo |
Quarter #2
| (4) Stephen Bunting vs. Sebastian Bialecki |
| Richard Veenstra vs. Nitin Kumar |
| (29) Dirk van Duijvenbode vs. Andy Baetens |
| James Hurrell vs. Stowe Buntz |
| (13) Martin Schindler vs. Stephen Burton |
| Keane Barry vs. Tim Pusey |
| (20) Ryan Searle vs. Chris Landman |
| Brendan Dolan vs. Tavis Dudeney |
| (5) Jonny Clayton vs. Adam Lipscombe |
| Dom Taylor vs. Oskar Lukasiak |
| (28) Michael Smith vs. Lisa Ashton |
| Niels Zonneveld vs. Haupai Puha |
| (12) Ross Smith vs. Andreas Harrysson |
| Thibault Tricole vs. Motomu Sakai |
| (21) Dave Chisnall vs. Fallon Sherrock |
| Ricardo Pietreczko vs. Jose de Sousa |
Quarter #3
| (2) Luke Humphries vs. Ted Evetts |
| Jeffrey de Graaf vs. Paul Lim |
| (31) Wessel Nijman vs. Karel Sedlacek |
| Gabriel Clemens vs. Alex Spellman |
| (15) Nathan Aspinall vs. Lourence Illagan |
| Mickey Mansell vs. Leonard Gates |
| (18) Mike De Decker vs. David Munyua |
| Kevin Doets vs. Matthew Dennant |
| (7) James Wade vs. Ryusei Azemoto |
| Ricky Evans vs. Man Lok Leung |
| (26) Cameron Menzies vs. Charlie Manby |
| Matt Campbell vs. Adam Sevada |
| (10) Gian van Veen vs. Cristo Reyes |
| Alan Soutar vs. Teemu Harju |
| (23) Dimitri Van den Bergh vs. Darren Beveridge |
| Madars Razma vs. Jamai van den Herik |
Quarter #4
| (3) Michael van Gerwen vs. Mitsuhiko Tatsunami |
| William O'Connor vs. Krzysztof Kciuk |
| (30) Peter Wright vs. Noa-Lynn van Leuven |
| Kim Huybrechts vs. Arno Merk |
| (14) Gary Anderson vs. Adam Hunt |
| Connor Scutt vs. Simon Whitlock |
| (19) Jermaine Wattimena vs. Dominik Grullich |
| Scott Williams vs. Paolo Nebrida |
| (6) Danny Noppert vs. Jurjen van der Velde |
| Nick Kenny vs. Justin Hood |
| (27) Ritchie Edhouse vs. Jonny Tata |
| Ryan Meikle vs. Jesus Salate |
| (11) Josh Rock vs. Gemma Hayter |
| Niko Springer vs. Joe Comito |
| (22) Daryl Gurney vs. Beau Greaves |
| Callan Rydz vs. Patrik Kovacs |
2026 PDC WC schedule
*Schedule will be updated when it's released
MORE: Predicting the PDC 2026 Premier League of Darts lineup
Prize Money
*Data via Wikipedia
| Position (no. Of players) | Prize money (Total: £5,000,000) | |
|---|---|---|
| Winner | (1) | £1,000,000 |
| Runner-up | (1) | £400,000 |
| Semi-finalists | (2) | £200,000 |
| Quarter-finalists | (4) | £100,000 |
| Fourth round losers | (8) | £60,000 |
| Third round losers | (16) | £35,000 |
| Second round losers | (32) | £25,000 |
| First round losers | (64) | £15,000 |
Format
This year's tournament will feature 128 players, 32 more than the 2025 field.
Seeded players will no longer receive a bye into the second round, with all 128 players in the draw for round #1.
The bracket is divided into four quarters, with eight seeded players per quarter in a traditional bracket format where if the seeds won, they'd start playing each other in the third round (ex: 1 v 32, 2 v 31, 3 v 30, etc).
The tournament begins on December 11 and will end on January 3 (there are some days off in between for holidays).
The World Championship is one of a handful of darts tournaments that feature a set format, with the number of sets a player has to win increasing as the tournament progresses:
- First and second round: best-of-5 sets
- Third and fourth round: best-of-7 sets
- Quarterfinals: best-of-9 sets
- Semifinals: best-of-11 sets
- Final: best-of-13 sets
Each set is played to best-of-5 legs. If a match went to a last-set decider, in every round after the first round, a player must win the final set by at least two legs, or win a sudden-death leg if the players were even through 10 legs in the final set.
Here are the following dates that each round will be played:
- First round: December 11 - 19
- Second round: December 20 - 23
- Third round: December 27 - 29
- Fourth round: December 29 - 30
- Quarterfinals: January 1
- Semifinals: January 2
- Final: January 3
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