How Much do the World's Top Dart's Champions Earn Per Leg?

Darts pro Matt Edgar sheds light on the captivating world of professional Darts, offering a closer look at darts' top earners who grace the game. In this insightful piece, he maps out player's earnings per leg, revealing not only their successes but also their efficiency in the arena. Prepare for an in-depth understanding of the rewards involved in Darts per leg for the top players.

Top Five Per Leg Darts Earnings Summary 

Michael Smith tops our table with a ridiculously coincidental £501 per leg for the 2023 season - You couldn't make it up!

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How Much Money The Top 16 Dart Players Make Per Leg

With the Darts World Championships now underway, the focus will be on the 96 men and women who are aiming to earn global supremacy at the turn of the new year. Not only will they be aiming to be the king or queen of the oche, but they will also be looking to earn plenty of riches.

Riches that come in the form of prize money and with the winner set to land a rather cool £500,000 for their efforts, that half a million pounds will certainly be seen as the perfect late Christmas present. 

2023 World Champion Michael Smith
Sven Mandel, CC BY-SA 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

However, for those two entrants that make the final, a lot of work will have to be done beforehand and the more competitive darts that is played across the festive season, the more legs they will have to try and win.

A scenario that certainly provides food for thought and if the likes of Michael Smith and Michael van Gerwen are topping the PDC Order of Merit at present, how much would their earnings be worth per leg played?

Up to the Oche and the Numbers

Once again, teamed with all manner of earnings numbers and statistics, we can now attempt to answer that question and see which players are earning the most but perhaps more importantly, which players are the most efficient when it comes to those same earnings.

For this article, we will first look at the top 16 players in the PDC Order of Merit captured on the day before the 2024 PDC World Darts Championship gets underway (Earnings on a rolling two-year cycle) to see the calibre of player we will be analysing. 

PDC order of merit is correct as of 15/12/2023 and used for this article

To get the analysis underway, we will take a look at Peter Wright or ‘Snakebite’ as he perhaps better known. Wright managed to £60,000 via the Darts Premier League, £25,000 from the 2023 edition of the World Championships and an additional £287,000 across the year.

This means Wright has earned a total of £372,000 in 2023 and when factoring the 1,267 legs that he has contested, it equates to £294 per leg. You would expect the Premier League players to earn more per leg, but the top five players when looking at earnings per leg are not exclusive members of this club.

Earned just shy of £300 per leg in 2023
By Darts Actueel on YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aTDeL8ldgEc at about 0:50, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=124697934

Take Luke Humphries for example, even with no Premier League Darts appearance to call upon, he has still been keeping incredibly busy in 2023. No fewer than 1,895 legs of competitive darts and £689,570 for all that effort – an equivalent of £364 per leg.

£70 per leg more than that of Wright but more than 600 more legs to get the better of him, is there a way to earn more by doing less? It seems as if Nathan Aspinall may have the answer to this particular conundrum.

Aspinall earned £85k via the Darts Premier League, like Peter Wright he also earned £25,000 in the World Championship but unlike Snakebite he would also win the World Matchplay Championship and this would play a big part in the additional £315,500 he collected.

£425,500 in total, 1,245 legs played and this equates to earnings of £342 per leg. £22 per leg less than Humphries but this comes from playing 650 legs less and you could argue that Aspinall has a better work life balance because of it. 

(Note, the sums are wrong on the video, and are corrected figures for Humphries and Aspinall)

Next we look at the Dutch master that is otherwise known as Michael van Gerwen. The former World Champion finished runner-up to Michael Smith in 2023, earning £200,000 to go alongside his £305,000 prize for winning the Premier League.

£466 per leg in 2023 for van Gerwen
Sven Mandel, CC BY-SA 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

Add an additional £288,500 worth of earnings had also swelled the prize pot considerably giving him an overall 2023 earnings figure of £793,500. But how many legs did Van Gerwen contest during that same year? 

The answer is 1,704 and therefore, his earnings per leg were worth £466. More than £100 more than that of Luke Humphries and more importantly, with 191 less legs played. It seems as van Gerwen’s 2023 has been a rather profitable one.

There has also been profitable years for Gerwyn Price and Jonny Clayton as they have made £267 per leg and £229 per leg respectively – these two were the last to breach the £200 mark, a mark that the likes of Dave Chisnall (£194) and James Wade (£175) fell short on. 

However, the winner of this title is none other than the 2023 World Champion Michael Smith. Not only did Smith earn £125,000 in the Premier League, but also the main prize of £500,000 at Alexandra Palace 12 months ago.

In all, the defending World Champion won £811,000 in 2023 and he also played a total of 1,618 legs. When you do the same equation as the four players above him, it means Smith is walking away with £501 per leg.

A rather apt amount when it comes to the topic of earnings within the sport of darts and as the St-Helens-born specialist looks to defend his world crown in 2024, 95 other players will be looking to steal it from him.