501 Darts Rules: How a Leg Is Started, Scored and Won
The 501 darts rules used in England and across the UK, taken in order: three darts a visit, the straight start, the double finish and the bust.
By CricketTaken EditorialPublished Darts Rules & Scoring27 min read
- Starting score
- 501
- Darts per visit
- 3
- Highest finish in one visit
- 170
- Fewest darts to win a leg
- 9
"Game shot, and the leg." A referee at Alexandra Palace says it several hundred times each winter, and it always marks the same event: a player who began the leg on 501 has arrived at exactly zero, and the dart that took them there landed in a double. That is the game. Each player starts with 501 points, throws three darts a turn, and takes whatever those darts score off the running total. First to zero wins the leg, provided the final dart is a double or the bull.
One rule polices the finish. Score more than is left, leave exactly one, or reach zero with a dart that is not a double, and the turn is a bust: the total goes back to what it was before those three darts were thrown. In Britain the professional game is played to the Darts Regulation Authority Rule Book, which every PDC event from the World Championship down to a floor tournament in Wigan is run under, and the amateur game in England follows rules that agree with it on each point above. What follows takes a leg apart in the order it happens.
Who writes the rules of 501 darts in Britain
No single body owns darts the way the Football Association owns the English game. There are several rule books, and the reason a pub player and a world champion can share a board without arguing is that the books say the same thing about the leg itself.
The Darts Regulation Authority is the one that matters for the televised game. It sets and enforces the rules for the Professional Darts Corporation's tournaments and for the players who hold a PDC tour card, and its Rule Book covers the playing rules, the equipment, the officials and a disciplinary code. When a referee at the Winter Gardens in Blackpool rules on a dart that has fallen out, the DRA book is the text behind the ruling.
The World Darts Federation publishes its own Playing and Tournament Rules for the international open circuit, including the world championship staged at Lakeside. In England the county and Super League game was organised for decades by the British Darts Organisation and is now in the hands of the bodies that came after it. Below that sit thousands of local leagues, each with a typed sheet of rules pinned up behind the bar.
| Level of the game | Whose rules apply |
|---|---|
| PDC tournaments and tour card holders | Darts Regulation Authority Rule Book |
| WDF-ranked opens and the Lakeside world championship | WDF Playing and Tournament Rules |
| County and Super League darts in England | The national and county bodies' rules, built on the same playing rules |
| Local pub and club leagues | The league's own rule sheet, usually a page or two |
| A game at home or a knockabout in the pub | Whatever the players agree before the first dart |
Where the books differ, they differ at the edges: how a tournament is seeded, what a player may wear, how long an interval lasts. On the mechanics of a leg they are close to word for word. Three darts. Subtract. Finish on a double. Bust if you overshoot. A reader who learns the leg from the DRA book can walk into any league in England and play it correctly, with one caveat that the section on starting a leg deals with.
One visit to the oche, from the first dart to the third
The rule books give a turn two names. The WDF rules call it a throw and define it as a maximum of three darts. The DRA book, in the edition in force from March 2026, defines a visit in the same terms, and "visit" is the clearer word, because it describes what the player does: walks to the oche, throws, collects, walks away. The three darts are thrown one at a time, by hand, from behind the raised bar on the floor.
Two things can end a visit before the third dart. The first is winning the leg: the instant a dart lands in the double that takes the score to zero, the leg is over and any dart still in the hand stays there. The second is a bust, which stops the visit at the offending dart. The only other thing that closes a visit early is the player's own hand on a dart in the board, which comes up below. A player who is content with two darts cannot bank them and decline the third in any way that helps, since an unthrown dart simply scores nothing.
A dart that leaves the hand has been thrown. That is the principle beginners find harsh and experienced players stop noticing. A dart that hits the wire and comes back to the player's feet has been thrown. So has one that clips a flight and drops to the floor, one that lands in the surround, and one that sticks in the number ring outside the doubles. Each counts as one of the three and none may be thrown again.
The darts then stay where they are. Both rule books treat a player who touches a dart in the board during a visit as having completed it, which closes off any idea of steadying a loose dart before the next one goes. Only when the score has been called does the player step forward and pull them.
- Step upThe player stands behind the oche with three darts. The opponent stands back and keeps still.
- First dartIt scores the value of the bed its point rests in, or nothing if it misses or falls.
- Second and third dartsThrown in turn unless the leg has been won or the score has gone bust.
- The callThe referee or chalker announces the total for the visit with the darts still in the board.
- RetrievalThe player pulls the darts. The new total is written up and the opponent steps forward.
The sequence the rule books describe for a single throw of three darts. It carries no figures because it is the same at every level of the game.
What each dart can score on a standard board
The board is divided into twenty numbered segments, and each segment has four scoring areas. The two large ones score the number at face value. The narrow outer ring doubles it. The narrow inner ring, a little over halfway out from the centre, trebles it. In the middle sit two more beds: the outer bull, the green ring, worth 25, and the bull itself, the red centre, worth 50.
| Bed | What it scores | Range |
|---|---|---|
| Single | The number of the segment | 1 to 20 |
| Double, the outer ring | Twice the number | 2 to 40 |
| Treble, the inner ring | Three times the number | 3 to 60 |
| Outer bull | A single 25 | 25 |
| Bull | 50, counted as double 25 | 50 |
| Outside the double ring, or off the board | Nothing | 0 |
The arithmetic that falls out of that table explains most of how 501 is played. Treble 20 is worth 60, ten more than the bull, which is why professionals spend the scoring part of a leg throwing at a strip of sisal less than a centimetre deep and ignore the centre of the board until they need it to finish. Three treble 20s make 180, the most a visit can score. The next beds down are treble 19 at 57 and treble 18 at 54, and that is where a player goes when the first dart is lying across the treble 20 and blocking it.
- 60Treble 20
- 50Bull
- 25Outer bull
- 180Three treble 20s
Fixed by the layout of the board, so identical in every rule book.
A single dart can make forty-three different scores, and the gaps are worth knowing. No one dart scores 23. None scores 29 or 31 either. That matters far more at the end of a leg than the beginning, because a player counting down has to know which totals one dart can remove and which it cannot.
The vocabulary follows the numbers. A visit of 100 or more is a ton, 140 is a ton-forty, and 180 is a maximum. At the other end, 26 has been "bed and breakfast" in English pubs for generations: a 20, a 5 and a 1, the three segments at the top of the board, hit by a player aiming at the first and finding all three.
The numbers are not arranged in order round the board, and that is deliberate. High numbers sit beside low ones so that a dart pulled slightly off line is punished, which is why 20 has 5 on one side and 1 on the other. Our guide to the order of the numbers on a dartboard covers how the layout came about. For the rules of 501 the consequence is enough. A miss costs something.
Starting a leg of 501: the bull-up, the straight start and the double start
Before the first leg each player throws one dart at the bull, and whoever finishes nearer the centre throws first. A dart in the bull beats one in the outer bull, and two darts in the same bed send both players back to throw again, in reverse order. The finer points, such as who goes first at the bull and why a dart that lands in either centre bed is pulled out before the opponent throws, fill a page of their own, and our guide to who throws first in darts sets them out.
Throwing first is a real advantage, because the starter reaches every stage of the leg a visit ahead of the opponent. So the throw alternates: whoever began leg one throws second in leg two, and on through the match. Some local leagues send both players back to the bull before a deciding leg. The professional game does not: the DRA book says there is no throw for the bull before a final-leg tie-break, which goes to the player who threw first in the opening leg of the match.
The straight start
Standard 501 has what the rule books call a straight start. The first dart scores wherever it lands. A player who opens with treble 20 is on 441 after one dart, and there is no qualifying shot to hit before the counting begins. Nearly every PDC event is played this way, and so are county darts, Super League and the great majority of local leagues in England. "Straight in, double out" is the whole format in four words.
The double start
Some games require a double to begin as well as to end. Under a double start nothing counts until a dart lands in a double or the bull. Darts thrown before it score zero, and the double that opens the account is itself the first score. Any double will do, so most players aim at double 20 or double 16 and take what they get.
This is the older pub form, tied particularly to 301, and it survives in a number of local leagues, more in some parts of the country than others. It is also the format of one televised major. The World Grand Prix has been played with a double start since it was first staged, and it makes for an odd spectacle, because a professional can stand at the oche for two or three visits without scoring a point. The World Grand Prix format page explains how that event is put together.
A league that plays double in will say so on its rule sheet. If the sheet is silent, the start is straight.
How the score is called and written down
Televised darts has a referee who stands beside the board with a microphone, and separate scorers working an electronic scoreboard. League darts has a chalker, one person with a marker pen or a tablet who does both jobs. The duties are the same.
After the third dart the referee calls the total for the visit. Not the individual darts, and not the remaining score: the sum of the three. "One hundred and forty." The scorer subtracts it and writes up what is left. The player then pulls the darts. That order is fixed by the rules, and the reason is evidential. Until the darts come out, anybody can look at the board and see what was thrown. Afterwards there is only the caller's word, and the books do not favour a protest made once the darts have been retrieved.
| Call | When it is made |
|---|---|
| The visit total, such as "one hundred" | After the third dart, with the darts still in the board |
| "One hundred and eighty" | Three treble 20s, the maximum |
| "No score" | Three darts that scored nothing, and commonly a bust as well |
| "You require", then a number | When the player is within reach of a finish |
| "Game shot" | The winning double has landed and the leg is over |
What a player may ask
A player is entitled to know two things at any point in a visit: what the darts already thrown have scored, and what is left. The referee or chalker will answer either. What they will not do is suggest a route. "You require fifty-six" is information. "Sixteen, then double top" is advice. The DRA book says in terms that a player shall not be advised on how to finish and bars prompting by any other player or official, and the WDF rule grants the same two entitlements and nothing beyond them. The finish is the player's to work out, which is why counting is treated as part of the skill of the game and why our piece on darts maths exists.
In league darts the same rule binds the chalker, who is usually a member of one of the two teams. The convention is that the chalker faces the board, keeps still during a throw, and speaks only when asked. Teammates shouting a finish from the bar are a different matter, and one most leagues tolerate more than their rule sheets suggest.
Putting a mistake right
Subtraction done at speed in a noisy room goes wrong. The rule books expect it and set a deadline. Both say that an error in arithmetic stands as written on the scoreboard unless it is corrected before the next throw of the player whose score is wrong. Under the WDF rules that is the end of the matter, in whoever's favour the mistake falls. The DRA book leaves its referees a wider power: an error in the score can be corrected by the referee at any time until game shot is called in that leg, and a wrong score that has produced a leg win stands unless it is put right before the next leg starts. Players are expected to check the board after every visit for precisely this reason.
There is one more protection. If the referee calls "game shot" and it turns out the darts did not make the finish, the call is void and the leg goes on. A wrong call cannot win a leg.
Finishing a leg: the double, the bull and the 170 ceiling
Every leg of 501 ends on a double. The last dart must land in the outer ring of a segment worth exactly half of what remains, or, with 50 left, in the bull. Forty left means double 20. Thirty-two means double 16. Two, the smallest total a leg can be won from, means double 1. Why the game insists on this is the subject of our page on the double-out rule. The short version is that it turns the end of a leg into a test of accuracy on a target a few millimetres deep.
The bull is the one finishing bed that is not on the outer ring. Both rule books state that it scores 50 and that, where 50 is needed to finish, it counts as double 25. The outer bull does not share the privilege. It is a single, and a player on 25 who hits it has reached zero the wrong way.
The leg ends the moment the winning dart lands. The player does not need to throw the rest, and a dart thrown afterwards out of momentum has no effect, because the rules treat the leg as concluded by the double. The winning dart does have to stay in the board until the referee has called it and the player has retrieved it. A double that drops out before then has won nothing.
Why 170 is the limit
Three darts can score 180 but cannot finish 180, because the last one has to be a double and the biggest double on the board is the bull. Two treble 20s and a bull make 170. That is the highest total from which a leg can be won in one visit, and the crowd at any televised event knows it well enough to stir when a player is left on it.
Below 170 there are seven totals that still cannot be finished in three darts: 169, 168, 166, 165, 163, 162 and 159. Each fails for the same reason, which is that no pairing of two scoring darts with a closing double adds up to it. A player on 169 is, for practical purposes, one visit further from winning than a player on 170.
| Darts in hand | Highest total that can be finished | One way of doing it |
|---|---|---|
| One | 50 | Bull |
| Two | 110 | Treble 20, bull |
| Three | 170 | Treble 20, treble 20, bull |
| Three, ending on an outer-ring double | 160 | Treble 20, treble 20, double 20 |
Players do not take the first route that adds up. From 100 or so downwards they choose a path that leaves a favoured double and gives a second chance if the first dart strays, and those preferences are set out number by number in the checkout chart from 170 down to 2.
The bust rule in outline
Three things turn a visit into a bust. The darts score more than the total left. They leave exactly one. Or they take the score to zero with a final dart that is not a double. In each case the visit is cancelled as a whole: the score returns to what it was before the first dart of that turn, any dart not yet thrown stays unthrown, and the opponent steps up.
The second of those surprises people. One cannot be finished, since the smallest double is worth two, so a player left on one would be stranded for good. The rule books deal with it by treating a score of one as a bust in itself.
A short example. A player on 36 needs double 18. The first dart drifts inside into the single 18, leaving 18. The second, aimed at double 9, lands in the single 9, leaving 9. The third is thrown at the single 1 to set up double 4 and slides into the single 18 next door. Eighteen is more than nine. Bust, and the score goes back to 36, not to 9 and not to 18. Both earlier darts are wiped along with the third.
A bust can equally come on the first dart. A player on 10, aiming at double 5, who lands in the single 12 or the single 20 either side of it has overshot at once, and the two darts still in the hand are never thrown.
That reset is the entire penalty. The player loses no further points, misses no turn, and is not sent back to some earlier total. They have used a visit and gained nothing from it, which against a good opponent is punishment enough.
Two consequences are worth carrying forward. A bust is silent on the scoreboard, the total after it being identical to the total before, as if the player had missed the board three times. And the possibility of a bust shapes how players finish, because some totals are far more dangerous than others. On 32 a stray dart nearly always leaves another double. On 6, a dart in the single on either side of double 3 ends the visit.
The full treatment, including why the whole visit goes and not only the last dart, the totals where busts cluster, and the pub versions the books do not recognise, is in our guide to the bust rule.
What makes a dart count
The test in the rule books is physical and has three parts. The point of the dart must be in, or touching, the face of the board. It must be inside the outer wire of the double ring. And it must still be there when the score has been called and the player retrieves it.
Each part does work. "In or touching the face" covers the dart that hangs at a steep angle with its point barely holding: if the point is against the sisal, it scores. The same words exclude the dart that lodges in the flight or the stem of one already in the board. That dart, the so-called Robin Hood, is touching another dart and not the board, and it scores nothing however good it looked.
"Inside the outer double wire" rules out the black number ring and the surround. A dart there is worth zero, though it is still one of the three.
"Until called and retrieved" is the part that causes arguments. A dart that sits in treble 20 for two seconds and then falls as the next one lands beside it has not scored. Nor has one that drops as the player walks forward. It was in the board; it was not there when it mattered. No second throw is given for either, and none for the dart that hits a wire and comes straight back. The DRA book says in terms that a dart bouncing off or falling out is not thrown again, and our guide to the bounce-out rule goes through the awkward cases.
The wire decides the bed
A dart scores for the bed its point is in, judged by which side of the wire it has entered. Where the barrel lies is irrelevant. A dart can lean right across the treble 20 with its point in the single 5, and it scores five. On modern boards with thin, blade-like wires the point nearly always goes cleanly to one side. Older round-wire boards were kinder to nobody: more darts bounced, and more sat so close that the referee had to look from directly in front.
When it is close, the referee decides, and decides before the darts are touched. In the professional game that decision is final. In a league match the usual convention is that the chalker's reading stands, and the sensible habit is for the thrower to leave the darts alone and ask.
How many darts a leg of 501 takes
Nine is the minimum. Eight cannot do it: seven darts at 60 each and a bull to finish come to 470. With nine, the usual route is two maximums, leaving 141, and then treble 20, treble 19, double 12. The nine-dart finish is rare enough at the top level to stop a tournament when it happens, and most club players will never see one thrown in person.
Real legs are longer, and the number of darts is how players describe them.
| Leg | What it represents | Average for that leg |
|---|---|---|
| Nine darts | A perfect leg | 167.00 |
| Twelve darts | Exceptional, even on television | 125.25 |
| Fifteen darts | The working pace of a top professional | 100.20 |
| Eighteen darts | Strong county or Super League play | 83.50 |
| Twenty-one darts | A capable league player on a decent night | 71.57 |
The third column is the link to the number shown on a television graphic. A three-dart average is the points scored divided by the darts thrown, multiplied by three. In a winning leg the points are always 501, so the sum is simple: a fifteen-dart leg is 501 divided by 15, times 3, which is 100.2. An average of 100 over a match therefore means the player is getting down in about fifteen darts a leg, missed doubles included.
Two wrinkles. The loser of a leg has an average too, worked out on the points they did score: a player left on 40 when the opponent checks out has scored 461, and their darts are averaged on that. And darts are counted exactly, so a leg won with the first dart of a visit is a thirteenth or a sixteenth dart and the two left in the hand are not charged to the player. How the figure builds over a match, and what counts as a good one at each level, is covered in our explanation of the three-dart average.
Where the darts go
In a fifteen-dart leg the division is roughly twelve darts of scoring and three at the finish. The scoring phase is about volume: get from 501 to a number under 170 quickly, and arrive on a total with a clean route out. The finishing phase is about doubles. A player who scores heavily and then misses six darts at double 16 turns a twelve-darter into an eighteen-darter, and the average records it without sympathy. Trebles for show, doubles for dough. The saying has lasted because it is arithmetically true.
From one leg to a match
A leg decides nothing on its own. Matches are counted in legs, and sometimes in sets of legs, and the rule that ties them together is the alternating throw: the player who threw first in one leg throws second in the next.
Most darts is leg play, a plain race. "First to six" and "best of eleven" are the same match described two ways. Every leg has the same value, the bull-up settles who starts leg one, and if the score reaches five-all the deciding leg falls to whoever had the first throw. Local league singles in England are commonly a best of three or five. Professional floor events are longer, and the World Matchplay runs to races in the high teens at its later stages.
The language of a match comes from the throw. Winning a leg in which a player threw first is holding throw. Winning one the opponent started is a break. In a best of eleven the player who starts has the throw in six legs to the opponent's five, so holding every time is enough to win 6-5 without ever breaking. The other player must break at least once.
Set play adds a layer. Legs are grouped into sets, usually the best of five legs, and the match is counted in sets alone. It is the format of the PDC World Championship, and it changes the feel of a match, because a player who loses a set three-nil starts the next one level. It also brings complications of its own over who throws first in each set and what happens when the final set is tied.
All of that is the business of our page on legs and sets, which covers formats, the throw and tie-breaks. Within any format the leg itself does not change: 501, straight start, double finish.
Conduct at the oche
The oche is the raised bar the players throw from. The rule books fix it at 2.37 metres from the face of the board, measured along the floor, with the centre of the bull 1.73 metres above the ground. In the measurements still painted on many pub floors that is seven feet nine and a quarter inches, and five feet eight. The reasoning behind those figures, and how to set them out at home, are in our guide to dartboard height and throwing distance.
A player's feet must be behind the oche when the dart is released, and nobody may tread on the raised bar while throwing. Leaning is allowed, and tall players lean a long way; what matters is where the feet are. A player may also stand to one side, beyond the end of the bar, provided the feet stay behind the line the oche would make if it carried on. The two rule books part company on the penalty. Under the DRA book a dart delivered in breach does not count towards the score, and that is that. The WDF rules have the referee warn the player first, in front of the captain or a team official, and rule out any dart thrown in breach after the warning.
The opponent's obligations are less well known and more often broken. During a throw the other player stands behind and stays still, and the rule books put a distance on it: at least 60 centimetres to the rear of the thrower. On a professional stage with a marked exclusion zone round the oche, the DRA book keeps the waiting player out of the zone until the last dart has gone. No walking across the eye line, no rattling darts, no remarks. On a television stage this is policed closely. In a pub with the board beside the door to the gents it is a matter of goodwill.
Then the darts. They stay in the board until the score has been called and recorded. A player who pulls them early has removed the evidence, and a score that cannot be verified is not one the referee is obliged to accept.
What a referee can do
In the professional game the referee's authority at the board is close to absolute. Rulings on what a dart scored, whether it was in the board, whether a foot was over, are made on the spot and stand.
Behaviour is dealt with on a ladder. The DRA book lists the conduct that brings a sanction during play, among it persistent gamesmanship, aggressive or abusive behaviour, physical contact and obscenity, and it sets out in order what the referee or tournament director does about it. A formal warning comes first. A second warning carries notice that a leg will be docked if the behaviour goes on. If it does, the player loses the leg in progress or the one just finished and is told the match is next. After that the match is forfeited. Serious physical contact with an opponent skips the ladder and means immediate disqualification.
That is worth knowing, because it is widely assumed that a darts referee can do no more during a match than have a quiet word and report the player afterwards. The later reckoning exists as well: the DRA runs a disciplinary process whose sanctions, decided after a hearing, include reprimands, fines and suspensions. But a leg can be taken away at the oche, and the rule book says how.
301, 701 and 1001: the same rules at different lengths
Change the starting number and nothing else changes. The darts score the same, the visit is three darts, the finish is a double, the bust rule applies. What moves is the length of the game and, with it, who the game suits.
| Game | Usual use | Fewest darts to finish |
|---|---|---|
| 301 | Quick singles and older pub leagues, often with a double start | 6 |
| 501 | Singles at every level, and the standard for televised darts | 9 |
| 701 | Pairs | 12 |
| 801 | Team legs in some local leagues | 14 |
| 1001 | Team games of four or more a side | 17 |
301 is a sprint. Two good visits and a player is on a finish, so the doubles decide it almost at once, and with a double start they decide it at both ends. That is why 301 was for so long the pub game. It was quick, it kept the board turning over on a busy night, and it favoured the steady thrower who could find a double over the heavy scorer who could not.
The longer games are for sharing. In pairs each side has one score and the four players throw in a fixed rotation, one from each side alternately, so a partner inherits whatever was left. 701 gives each of the four enough visits to matter. Team games on 801 or 1001 do the same for sides of four, five or more, and often open a league night before the singles. The bust rule applies to the side's total, so one player's overshoot costs the whole team that visit.
How 501 became the standard
501 sits at the length where both halves of the game count. It is long enough for scoring power to show, since a player averaging twenty points a visit more than the opponent will normally reach a finish a full turn ahead, and short enough that a missed double can hand the leg straight back. The News of the World Championship, the great national knockout of the pub era, was played over 501, and when television took up the game in the 1970s it kept that number. The first Embassy World Championship in 1978 was 501. So is every leg of every PDC major now.
The odd one on the end has a purpose. From 500 a player could stay on the 20 segment for the whole leg, because seven treble 20s and two double 20s come to exactly 500. From 501 that is impossible. Every score on the 20 segment is a multiple of twenty, so at some point the player must move to another number. Whether that was the original intention or a happy accident is not something the rule books record. The effect is plain enough.
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