Dartboard Height and Distance: Official Oche Measurements
Dartboard height and distance for England and the UK: the bull at 5 ft 8 in, the oche at 7 ft 9¼ in, the diagonal check and the mistakes that throw a setup out.
By CricketTaken EditorialPublished Darts Rules & Scoring23 min read
- Floor to centre of bull
- 1.73 m (5 ft 8 in)
- Face of board to oche
- 2.37 m (7 ft 9¼ in)
- Bull to oche diagonal
- 2.93 m (9 ft 7⅜ in)
- Raised oche height (WDF)
- 38 mm
Five feet eight inches to the centre of the bull, seven feet nine and a quarter inches to the oche. Every regulation steel-tip board in England is hung to those two figures, from the stage at the PDC's major events to the board on the wall of a pub league venue in Stoke, and a player who practises on anything else is practising for a different game.
So the dartboard height and distance, in plain terms: the centre of the bullseye sits 1.73 m above the floor, and the oche, the line a player throws from, is 2.37 m from the face of the board, measured horizontally along the floor. Both the Darts Regulation Authority, which governs the professional game, and the World Darts Federation, whose rules are used in county and amateur darts, specify the same measurements. The diagonal from the bull to the oche is 2.93 m (9 ft 7⅜ in), and it is the single best check that a board is set up correctly.
The official dartboard height and distance in metric and imperial
The DRA and WDF rule books give the figures in metric only: 1.73 m and 2.37 m, plus 2.93 m for the diagonal in the WDF rules. English darts has always talked in feet and inches, and the imperial figures are the ones players quote, but they are conversions, and the metric values are the ones the rules enforce.
| Measurement | Imperial | Metric | Measured from and to |
|---|---|---|---|
| Height of the bull | 5 ft 8 in | 1.73 m | Floor to the centre of the bullseye |
| Throwing distance, steel-tip | 7 ft 9¼ in | 2.37 m | Face of the board to the rear edge of the oche, along the floor |
| Diagonal, steel-tip | 9 ft 7⅜ in | 2.93 m | Centre of the bull to the rear edge of the oche at floor level |
| Throwing distance, soft-tip | 8 ft | 2.44 m | Face of the board to the throwing line, along the floor |
The imperial and metric figures are not perfect conversions. Seven feet nine and a quarter inches is a fraction under 2.37 m, and 5 ft 8 in a fraction under 1.73 m. The differences are less than three millimetres. No referee is going to argue about them, and a setup accurate to either system is accurate enough.
Note what each measurement runs to. The height goes to the centre of the bull, not to the top of the board or to any number. The distance goes along the floor from a point directly below the face of the board, not from the wall. The diagonal runs from the bull, in the air, to the oche on the floor. Get the start and end points wrong and the figures, however carefully measured, are measuring something else.
- 173cmFloor to centre of bull
- 237cmBoard face to oche, steel-tip
- 293cmBull to oche diagonal
- 244cmBoard face to line, soft-tip
Height and steel-tip distance from the DRA and WDF rules and the diagonal from the WDF rules, given here in centimetres. The soft-tip line is the usual figure in the rules for electronic darts, not part of the steel-tip rule books.
Why the rules fix both, not one
A board that is too high can be compensated for by standing a little closer, and vice versa, at least in theory. The rules do not allow that kind of trade, and for a good reason. A dart thrown from a fixed distance to a fixed height follows a particular arc, and a player's whole technique, from the release point to the follow-through, is built round it. Change either figure and the arc changes. Fix both, and every board a player meets throws the same.
Measuring a dartboard properly: plumb line, not wall
The commonest error in setting up a board at home is measuring the throwing distance from the wall. It is easy to see why it happens: the wall is where the tape naturally starts. But the throwing distance runs from the face of the board, and the face sits some way in front of the wall.
The depth comes from two things. A bristle board is several centimetres thick, and the bracket that holds it, along with any cabinet or backboard behind it, adds more. Measure from the wall and the oche ends up too close by the full depth of the lot.
The plumb line method
The proper method uses a plumb line or a spirit level held against the face of the board. Drop the line from the face, at the centre of the bull, to the floor and mark the point it reaches. That mark is the start of the throwing distance. From it, measure 2.37 m straight out along the floor and mark the rear edge of the oche there.
The oche itself needs to be square to the board. A line that runs at an angle to the board's face puts one end closer than the other, and a player who moves along it, as many do between darts, is throwing from different distances. The easiest check is to measure the distance from the plumb mark to each end of the oche: the figures should be equal. A carpenter's square at the plumb mark, with a straight line drawn out from it, does the same job.
- Fix the boardMount it so the centre of the bull is 1.73 m from the floor, with the 20 at the top on its dark wedge.
- Check it is verticalHold a level or plumb line against the face. The board should not tilt forward or back.
- Drop the plumb markFrom the face at the bull, drop a line to the floor and mark the point directly below.
- Measure the distanceFrom the plumb mark, measure 2.37 m out along the floor and mark the rear edge of the oche.
- Square the lineMake the oche run parallel to the face, equal distance from the plumb mark at each end.
- Check the diagonalFrom the centre of the bull to the rear edge of the oche should measure 2.93 m.
The order a careful setup follows. Each step depends on the one before; measuring the distance before the board is hung true gives a figure that will have to be redone.
The order matters. A board hung slightly high or slightly tilted moves the plumb mark, so measuring the distance first and hanging the board after means doing the job twice.
Tools that make it easier
A steel tape that reads in both units is the basic tool, and a long one saves a join in the middle of the throwing distance. A second person to hold the far end helps more than any gadget. Laser measures are accurate and quick but need a flat target at the far end; held at the plumb mark and aimed at a block standing on the oche's rear edge, they give a clean reading. For the height, a tape hooked under the bull wire tends to slip, and measuring up from the floor to a pencil mark on the wall level with the centre of the bull, then fixing the board to that mark, is more reliable than measuring the board once it is up.
Mark the floor permanently once the line is right. A strip of tape, a screwed-down bar or a painted line will save measuring again every time the room is rearranged.
Checking a venue before a league match
League players in England often play away at boards they have never seen. Most venues keep their setups right, and a team captain who suspects a board is wrong has a better remedy than an argument: a tape and the diagonal. One measurement from the bull to the rear edge of the oche settles whether the setup is close to 2.93 m. If it is not, the league's own rules on complaints and on the home side's equipment apply, and the issue carries more weight raised before play starts than after a defeat.
The diagonal check: bull to oche at 9 ft 7⅜ in
Once the height and the distance are in place, one measurement confirms both. The diagonal from the centre of the bull to the rear edge of the oche at floor level is 9 ft 7⅜ in, or 2.93 m.
The figure is the hypotenuse of a right-angled triangle whose two shorter sides are the height and the throwing distance. Square the height, 1.73 m, and square the distance, 2.37 m. Add them, take the square root, and the result is a fraction over 2.93 m. That is why a single diagonal measurement checks both of the others: if the height or the distance is wrong, the diagonal will be wrong too.
What the diagonal reveals on an uneven floor
The diagonal is most useful in a room where the floor is not level. In a pub with an old floor, a garage with a sloping slab or a house with a step down, measuring the height from the floor directly below the board and then measuring the distance along the floor can both give the right figures and still leave the oche at the wrong height relative to the bull. The player then throws from a point lower or higher than the rules intend.
The diagonal catches this. If the height under the board and the distance along the floor are both correct but the diagonal is wrong, the floor at the oche is not at the same level as the floor at the board. In that case the remedy is to adjust the board so that its height is correct as measured from the level of the oche, where the player's feet are, rather than from the floor directly under the board. Both rule books say as much: the height is measured from a floor at the same level as the oche.
The diagonal also catches a common counting slip. A height of 5 ft 8 in measured to the top of the board rather than to the bull, or a distance measured to the front of a raised oche rather than to its rear edge, produces a diagonal that is visibly out. One tape, one measurement, and the mistake shows.
The oche: the raised bar, where feet may go, and leaning
The word oche covers both the line and the thing that marks it. At home it might be tape on a carpet or a line painted on a floor. In tournament play it is a raised bar fixed to the floor, set with its rear edge at the throwing distance. The WDF rules give it as 38 mm (1½ in) high and 610 mm (2 ft) long; the DRA rules for the professional game set minimums instead, at least 40 mm high, 20 mm deep and 500 mm wide. The raised bar gives a player something to feel with the front of the foot, which tape on a floor does not.
The rear edge of the oche is the line that counts. A player's feet must stay behind it: no part of either foot may be on or over the oche when a dart is thrown. The rules are designed to stop a player from creeping forward and shortening the distance.
Leaning and standing to one side
Players may lean forward over the oche as far as balance allows. Some of the most successful players in the professional game throw with the body leaning well over the line, and that is entirely legal provided the feet stay behind it. The upper body can be anywhere.
A player may also stand to one side of the oche, as long as both feet are behind the line of the oche extended sideways. Some players stand at the far end of the oche, or beyond it, to change their angle on the board, and many shift along the line when they switch from treble 20 to treble 19. The extended line matters for exactly this case: a player standing beyond the end of the raised bar must still be no closer to the board than its rear edge.
The two rule books handle a foot fault differently. Under the DRA rules a dart thrown with the front foot anywhere other than on the floor behind the oche simply does not count. Under the WDF rules the player is first warned by the referee, and any dart thrown in breach after that does not score. In league darts without a referee, the opposing captain or marker raises the issue.
| Situation | Allowed under the steel-tip rules |
|---|---|
| Leaning the body over the oche | Yes, as far as balance allows |
| Toe touching the rear edge of the oche | Yes, if it is not over the edge |
| Foot on top of a raised oche | No |
| Standing beyond the end of the oche, behind its line | Yes |
| Moving along the oche between darts | Yes, staying behind the line |
The mistakes people make setting up a dartboard
Most setups that are wrong are wrong in one of a handful of ways. Each is easy to make, and each changes the throw a player is practising.
Measuring from the wall is the first and the most common, as described above. It puts the oche too close by the depth of the board and its bracket, sometimes several centimetres, and a player who practises from that distance finds the board further away in a match.
Measuring the height to the wrong point is the second. The 5 ft 8 in runs to the centre of the bull. Measuring to the top of the board puts the bull about 22 cm too low, half the 451 mm board; measuring to the number 20 or to the double 20 is a smaller error of the same kind. Both are mistakes that people make because the top of a board is easier to measure to than its middle.
| Mistake | What it does to the setup |
|---|---|
| Distance measured from the wall | Oche too close by the depth of the board and bracket |
| Height measured to the top of the board | Bull far below regulation height |
| Height measured to the 20 or double 20 | Bull below regulation height, by less than the top-of-board error |
| Raised oche measured to its front edge | Throwing distance too long by the oche's depth |
| Throwing mat not fixed down | Line creeps towards the board over a session |
| Board tilted forward or back | Real distance to the board's face changes with height |
The creeping mat and the wrong edge
Throwing mats with the oche printed on them are popular at home and in some pubs. They save floor marking and protect the carpet from dropped darts. Their weakness is that they move. A mat that is not fixed down creeps a little each time someone steps on it, and over an evening it can shift the line noticeably. Fix it, or check it.
The raised oche brings its own error. Its rear edge is the line. Measuring to its front edge, the one nearer the board, adds the depth of the bar to the throwing distance. A raised oche bought for home use should be placed with its rear edge at 2.37 m from the plumb mark.
Our page on home darts setup covers the surround, the lighting and the practical arrangement of a room around these figures.
Hanging the board true
The 20 goes at the top, on a dark wedge. Every rule book says so, and the reason is more than tradition: the colours and number ring are arranged around that position, and a board hung with another number at the top has its colours wrong as well. The number order itself, and why 20 sits where it does, is explained in our guide to how the numbers are arranged around the board.
The board must also be vertical. A board that tilts forward at the top or leans back changes the real distance between the oche and the face. If the top of the board leans out towards the player, the top of the board is closer than the bottom, and treble 20 is effectively thrown at from a shorter distance than the bull. Lean it back and the reverse.
How a lean changes the real distance
The effect is not large for a small tilt, but darts is a game of millimetres. A board whose top sits a centimetre further out than its bottom has its treble 20 slightly closer to the oche than its bull, so darts aimed at the top land a fraction higher than the player expects. It also changes the angle at which a dart meets the board, which affects how well darts stay in.
The fix is a spirit level held vertically against the face, or a plumb line hanging from the top of the board that should just touch the face at the bottom. Most brackets allow a little adjustment. A cabinet that is not fixed square to the wall is the usual cause of a tilt, and correcting it at the cabinet rather than at the board is easier.
The board should not wobble or turn. A board that rotates on its bracket when hit moves the 20 off the top; a board that rocks changes how darts land. A secure fixing at the centre, plus a stop or bracket that holds the board from turning, keeps it true through a match.
Soft-tip boards and the 8 ft line
Electronic boards are a separate game in more than one sense. Their scoring is automatic, their darts are lighter with plastic points, and their throwing distance is longer: 8 ft, or 2.44 m, from the face of the board to the line. The height of the bull is the same 5 ft 8 in.
The longer distance belongs to the rules written for soft-tip darts rather than to the steel-tip rule books, and soft-tip competitions generally use it, though a league running electronic boards sets its own line and its rules are the ones to check. The reasons usually given relate to the different darts and the board's construction, and the two games developed their standards separately.
Why the two cannot be swapped
A steel-tip league match must be played at 7 ft 9¼ in. A soft-tip league match uses the soft-tip line. Playing a steel-tip match at 8 ft is not a variation; under the DRA and WDF rules it is a wrong setup. The difference is nearly 7 cm, which is enough to change a player's arc.
For players who use both, the bull height is the constant. The only change is the line, so a room set up for both often has two marks on the floor, one at 2.37 m and one at 2.44 m. The diagonal for the soft-tip line, worked out the same way as the steel-tip one, comes to a little under 3 m. Our comparison of steel-tip and soft-tip darts covers the rest of the differences, from point type to scoring.
The playing area around the board
The rule books do not only fix the board and the line. They also say something about the space around them, though for tournament play rather than for a spare room.
The DRA rules give actual figures. Where an exclusion zone is marked, it runs at least 300 mm either side of the oche and at least 900 mm behind it, and the waiting player may not enter it until the thrower has released the last dart. Where the oche sits on a raised stage, the platform must be at least 1,200 mm wide at the oche and at least 1,200 mm deep behind it. Without an exclusion zone, the opponent stands at least 60 cm behind the player at the oche, the same distance the WDF rules use.
Lighting is the other requirement. Each floor board in a tournament needs its own light fitting, and a stage board at least two; the DRA rules specify 11 to 13 watt LED fittings or equivalent, the older WDF text 1,600 lumens, and both require screens that keep the light out of the player's eyes. Extra floodlights on a stage are allowed only if they do not throw shadows on the board. Ring lights fitted round the board are popular at home for the same reason. A single light directly overhead casts the shadow of each dart onto the bed below it, which makes the next dart harder to place.
What that means at home
For a room at home, the tournament requirements translate into a few practical needs. A clear strip from the board to behind the oche, wide enough for a player to move along the line. Light on the board from more than one direction if possible. A floor that can take a dropped dart. And a surround behind the board to protect the wall from misses, which every player will throw. These are covered in more detail on the setup page linked above. The point here is that the height and distance rules assume a clear space to throw in; a board hung in a doorway or above a sofa may meet the numbers and still be awkward to play on.
Wheelchair darts: the lower board
Seated players throw from a lower position, and a board at 5 ft 8 in is set for a standing thrower's eye line. Wheelchair darts therefore uses a lower board. Neither rule book fixes the figure: the DRA rules allow a player to throw from a non-standing position where a disability requires it, and the WDF rules authorise its member bodies to amend the board height and the oche for events for disabled players. The height is set by the organiser of each competition, and anyone entering one should check the figure it uses.
The throwing distance is still measured to the oche, and the organiser's rules then say which part of the chair takes the place of the feet behind the line.
One board, two heights
Clubs and venues that run mixed sessions need a board that serves both standing and seated players. Adjustable frames solve this. They allow the board to be moved between the two heights quickly, or carry two boards on one stand, so a club can run a match with wheelchair and standing players without two separate setups.
The principle is the same as for a standing board. The bull sits at a fixed height relative to the thrower's eye line, and the distance is fixed so every player throws the same arc. A board at the wrong height for a seated player makes the game much harder, which is why wheelchair darts has developed its own measurement rather than borrowing the standing one.
Juniors: what youth darts uses
Junior darts in England has grown into an organised pathway. The Junior Darts Corporation runs academies and competitions, and county youth darts sits alongside it. For competitive junior play, the aim is to prepare players for adult darts, and older juniors throw at the standard height and from the standard distance. A teenager good enough to play adult opposition throws at the same board as everyone else.
For younger children the picture is less fixed. Some youth formats and coaching sessions use a lower board or a shorter line for the youngest age groups, set by the organiser rather than a single national rule. The details of the youth pathway, from academies to the age-group competitions, are on our page about the junior darts academy system.
Informal adjustments at home
At home, families often lower the board for a young child or let them throw from closer in, and there is nothing wrong with that for practice and enjoyment. The point to remember is that a child who will go on to play in a junior league needs to throw at the standard measurements eventually, and moving the board up in stages as the child grows is better than leaving it low.
Safety matters more than precision with small children. A surround to catch misses, a clear area behind the line so no one walks in front of the board, and supervision with steel-tip darts are worth more than an exact height.
Why the bull is at 5 ft 8 in and the oche at 7 ft 9¼ in
The 5 ft 8 in height is usually explained as eye level for a man about 6 ft tall. Whether that was the reason or a story attached to it later is hard to say, but the height has been stable for a long time, and there is little record of serious argument over it.
The throwing distance has a different history. It was not always 7 ft 9¼ in, and for much of the twentieth century it varied. Different leagues and regions in Britain set their own lines, some shorter than today's and some longer; the brewery-crate story told about the word oche speaks of a 9 ft line. A player moving between leagues might find the line in a different place. Darts was a local game, and its rules were local.
The compromise figure
The modern distance came with the governing bodies. When the British Darts Organisation and then the World Darts Federation were formed in the 1970s, a single international distance was needed. The figure of 2.37 m, 7 ft 9¼ in, is generally described as a compromise between the distances played in the United Kingdom and in the rest of the world, and it has stood since. The odd quarter inch suggests a figure arrived at by negotiation rather than one chosen for neatness.
The fixed figures matter more now than they did in a pub game of the 1930s. A professional's technique is built round thousands of hours at one distance and one height, and a change of a few centimetres would show up in averages across a whole tour. Fixing the numbers is what lets a three-dart average from one event be compared fairly with an average from another, and what lets a player practise at home on exactly the setup they will meet on stage.
It is now fixed in every major rule book. The Darts Regulation Authority, which governs the professional game run by the PDC, uses the same figure as the WDF. For more on the WDF and its role in the amateur game, see our page on the World Darts Federation.
The word oche: pronunciation, 'hockey' and the brewery story
The word is pronounced to rhyme with hockey, without the h: "ockey". The spelling oche is relatively recent; for much of darts' history the line was called the hockey, and both spellings were in use in the twentieth century.
The story usually told to explain the word concerns a West Country brewery called S. Hockey and Sons, said to have supplied beer crates of a standard length to pubs, which were laid end to end to mark out a 9 ft throwing distance. The line became "the hockey" after the crates, and later the spelling changed.
What historians make of it
It is a good story, and it appears in many darts books and on many pub walls. The trouble is that no one has found evidence for it. The Brewery History Society stated in the 1990s that it could find no record of such a brewery, and the story has never been tied to a real firm.
The real origin of the word is uncertain. The News of the World used hockey for the throwing line in the rules of its darts competitions in the 1920s and may have been the first to print it. Older words have been proposed as sources, among them an Old English word meaning to spit and the lexicographer Eric Partridge's suggestion of a hoggins line, and none has been proved. The spelling oche appears to have come into wider use in the second half of the twentieth century, with the game's growth on television, and it has since become the standard spelling. The brewery story is best treated as folklore: a neat explanation that people liked, attached to a word whose real source is lost.
What is not in doubt is the measurement. The oche sits 2.37 m from the face of the board, and it has done so in every sanctioned steel-tip match since the rule books fixed it. Players in English leagues looking to play to those measurements will find the details of joining a team on our page about joining a darts league, and more on the sports covered across the site on our England guides hub.