Q. How and where did the sport of Darts start?

A. There are some assumptions about the roots of the sport, but darts began around 14th century in Medieval England. Some say that archery teachers shortened arrows and had their students throw them at the bottom of an empty wine barrel. Some say that bored soldiers started throwing arrows at the covers of wine barrels, perhaps as a competition to see who could come closest to the cork bung games. When winter came and the soldiers spent more time inside in pubs, they couldn't throw the full-length arrows there, so they shortened the arrows that were used.

Darts became so popular, it was taken up by the nobility. In 1530, Anne Boleyn presented Henry VIII with a set of ornamented darts. The game maintained a strong military appeal, and the worldwide spread of darts is credited to the British army who brought the game with them to every corner of the Empire as it grew.

Q. Why 3 darts?

A. It’s really uncertain. But, the strongest assumption today is that the British soldiers had 3 “Fighting Darts” set backside of the shield for close fighting in 6th century. Later, when they played darts, someone remembered that standard and set the rule.

Q Why are the numbers on a dartboard in the order they are?

A. When the wine barrels were getting in short supply during the war, some creative soldier brought a cross-section of a moderate sized tree instead. The "board" provided rings, and when it dried out, the cracks provided further segmentation. This cracked and dried board began to evolve into what we think of as the current dart board.

Brian Gamlin is supposed to have been the first person to set the numbering sequence of the modern standard dartboard. Gamlin was a carpenter from Bury in the County of Lancashire, England and came up with the infuriating sequence in 1896, at the age of 44. The numbering of a standard dartboard is designed to cut down the incidence of ‘lucky shots’ and reduce the element of chance. Small numbers are placed next to the side of large numbers, for example, if you miss 20, the penalty for lack of accuracy or concentration is to hit either 1 or 5. There are 121,645,100,408,832,000 different possible arrangements of the 20 segments on a standard dartboard, and I’m sure you agree that Gamlin’s arrangement of the numbers is almost perfect!!

Q Why are the numbers on a dartboard in the order they are?

A. When the wine barrels were getting in short supply during the war, some creative soldier brought a cross-section of a moderate sized tree instead. The "board" provided rings, and when it dried out, the cracks provided further segmentation. This cracked and dried board began to evolve into what we think of as the current dart board.

Brian Gamlin is supposed to have been the first person to set the numbering sequence of the modern standard dartboard. Gamlin was a carpenter from Bury in the County of Lancashire, England and came up with the infuriating sequence in 1896, at the age of 44. The numbering of a standard dartboard is designed to cut down the incidence of ‘lucky shots’ and reduce the element of chance. Small numbers are placed next to the side of large numbers, for example, if you miss 20, the penalty for lack of accuracy or concentration is to hit either 1 or 5. There are 121,645,100,408,832,000 different possible arrangements of the 20 segments on a standard dartboard, and I’m sure you agree that Gamlin’s arrangement of the numbers is almost perfect!!

Q. What’s the average speed of a dart fitting the board?

A. About 64kph.