PDC World Darts Championship 2025/26 LIVE: Dates, full schedule, players and prize money as Littler defends title

Dec 8, 2025 - 11:00

The 2025/26 PDC World Darts Championship takes centre-stage this week as Luke Littler defends his title.

The 18-year-old demolished Michael van Gerwen 7-3 at the Alexandra Palace to make history as the youngest winner ever in the last edition.

Littler overcame his final heartbreak from the year before to blow everyone away

In the end, there was no stopping The Nuke, who blasted his way to victory to claim £500,000 after defending champion Luke Humphries had been knocked out by Peter Wright.

And Littler will be back to defend his crown and look to become just the fourth player in history to win back-to-back World Championships.

He will begin his title defence against Lithuanian ace Darius Labanauskas on the opening day of the tournament.

There will be a record prize fund up for grabs this time, with the winner’s pot doubling to £1million.

This is the first time in history that a darts tournament will hand out seven figures to the victor as the popularity of the sport continues to grow.

PDC World Championship 2025/26: Dates and how to follow

This year’s PDC World Darts Championship will get underway on Thursday, December 11, and run to the final on Saturday, January 3.

The whole thing will take place at the iconic Alexandra Palace in north London.

Ally Pally is now synonymous with this competition, and it will take centre-stage for the duration of the tournament.

talkSPORT will have full live coverage of the darts this Christmas with our commentary team of Ian Danter, Mark Wilson, Paul Nicholson and Chris Mason.

To tune in to talkSPORT through the website, click HERE for the live stream.

Listen via the talkSPORT app here, or on DAB digital radio, through your smart speaker and on 1089 or 1053 AM.

Visit talkSPORT BET for all the latest odds and bet boosts.

Sky Sports will show every match as well with their coverage starting on Sky Sports Main Event from 7pm on Thursday.

Humphries will be hoping to mount a serious challenge this year

PDC World Championship 2025/26: Tournament format and draw

The draw for the World Darts Championship was made on November 24.

There will be a total of 128 players at the start, and there are seven rounds until the final.

The top 40 from the PDC Order of Merit have qualified with another 40 from the PDC Tour Order of Merit, and 48 more international qualifiers.

All matches are played as single in, double out – requiring players to score 501 points to win a leg, finishing on either a double or the bullseye.

For all rounds except the first, the deciding set has to be won by two clear legs unless the set score goes to 5–5, in which case a sudden-death leg will be played. There will be no throw for the bull in any sudden-death legs.

The matches get longer as the tournament progresses, with the first and second rounds being best of five and working up to the final which will be best of 13.

Van Gerwen was dismantled in the final by Littler

Section 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

Section 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

Section 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 Ilagan
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

Section 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 Gruellich
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

Beau Greaves at the World Matchplay. — Rising star Greaves will make her first World Championship appearance in two years

PDC World Championship 2025/26: Prize money

This edition of the showpiece darts event is set to see an unprecedented amount of prize money dished out.

The overall pot is doubling from £2.5million to £5m, and the winner will take home £1m of that.

It is the biggest prize pot in the tournament’s history and follows a massive increase from the PDC across all of its events.

Speaking about the increase, the PDC’s chief executive Matt Porter said: “The £1 million prize for the World Champion reflects darts’ standing as one of the most exciting and in-demand sports in the world and the historic total will rightly attract headlines as the biggest prize ever paid out in the sport.

“However, the increased prize funds announced today demonstrate our commitment to growing earning potential for players at all levels within the PDC system.

“Expanding the player fields for the World Darts Championship and Grand Slam of Darts will provide more opportunities than ever before for players around the world to feature in televised PDC events.

“The incredible growth of the PDC in recent years has seen darts elevated to levels never seen before both in terms of playing opportunities and global interest and this is a huge moment for all players with the ambition to make it to the very pinnacle of the sport.”