The 2026 World Darts Championship will have the largest ever tournament prize money payout in darts history. The total prize money is £5 million with the winner set to receive £1 million.
Darts has been on an upward trajectory in popularity over the last decade and since the emergence of Luke Littler at the 2024 World Championship, darts is now the most popular it’s ever been.
Matchroom Sport – parent company of the PDC and founded by Barry Hearn – have stated that darts is now the most profitable sport they promote, ahead of both snooker and boxing.
In order to push the sport forward, it was announced earlier this year that the 2026 World Championship would be doubling the prize fund, with the winner set to win a staggering £1 million in prize money.
There’s no denying this is great for current and future darts players.
The opportunity to earn a substantial amount from a single tournament in darts is something veteran, all-time greats like Phil Taylor and Gary Anderson have said they never thought they’d see in the game.
For all the positives this brings, there is one issue with a single tournament having such a large prize fund compared to others and that is the impact on the darts ranking system.
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Current PDC Ranking System In Darts
The ranking system in darts is based on the two-year Order of Merit earnings.
A player’s prize money from ranking events over a 24-month period is tallied up and this gives them their position in the overall rankings.
After 24-months, players need to defend prize money they earned during that same event in order to maintain their ranking position or move up.
The ranking system in darts is used for a number of reasons.
For select major tournaments, it dictates either qualification or seeding going into the tournament.
This is also true for European Tour events where the top 16 players are now seeded and enter tournaments in the second round.
It also impacts invitational events like the Premier League where the top 4 ranked players earn a place in the tournament automatically.
There are several darts players who have achieved £1,000,000+ in OoM earnings over a two-year period while Luke Humphries and Luke Littler have recently pushed towards the £2 million mark (both reached £1.9m).
To earn over a million, it’s historically been the case that you need to win a world championship alongside a handful of major titles during that two-year period so it’s usually the elite players that ONLY that surpass that mark.
The £1 million in prize money for the 2026 World Championship could heavily skew those rankings though and Michael van Gerwen believes the PDC need to change the system…
Michael van Gerwen Says PDC Need to Have a Ranking System Based on Points
Michael van Gerwen is a former world number one and has held that position for several years from 2014 – 2020.
In terms of prize money, he’s the highest earning darts players of all-time and while he’s no longer world number one, he’s still been inside the top 3 in the rankings for this entire decade.
The three-time world champion won’t be favourite going into this tournament after a difficult year both on and off the oche, but after finishing runner-up just last year he can’t be written-off.
Prior to the 2026 World Championship draw earlier this week, MVG took part in media interviews and was asked if the increased prize money will take the “shine away from other tournaments”.
He responded:
“We all know the worlds is the most important one but it’s not in comparison anymore. If you ask me, that’s my honest opinion.
“They should have a point system. I say it every year but I’m not the organisation.
“Maybe that’s a question you should ask the PDC to see if they might change things.”
A point based system suggested by MVG would give tournaments a closer weighting system for wins without impacting prize money offered.
Tennis is a major sport that uses a point based system (ATP and WTA).
An example is at Wimbledon where the Men’s winner receives £3,000,000 in prize money and 2000 ranking points. The runner-up receives £1,520,000 in prize money and 1300 ranking points.
The difference in prize money is £1.5 million but in terms of ranking points it’s much closer at 700. It’s relative and would depend on the earnings for other major tournaments so the above is just an example.
There are benefits and drawbacks to either system and this will likely be a much larger talking point once the 2026 World Championship is finished and fans/players will see how it’s impacted the rankings…
You can see the full interview with Michael van Gerwen below:
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