Why does darts start at 501?

The short answer is the 1. Starting on an odd number means you cannot simply hit big even scores all the way down and land on a double by accident. At some point in the leg you have to throw an odd number deliberately, and that turns the endgame into a decision rather than an arithmetic accident.

The longer answer is that nobody wrote the origin down, which has not stopped the story being told with great confidence in every bar in the world.

Written and maintained by Timothy Moose, who builds Dart Meister. Updated August 25, 2026. How we write these pages.

What the odd number actually does

Doubles are all even. Triples of odd numbers are odd, singles of odd numbers are odd, and the bullseye is even. Start on 500 and a player could throw nothing but 20s and triples and arrive at a clean double without ever thinking about it.

Starting on 501 forces one odd score somewhere in the leg. In practice good players get it out of the way early or build it into the setup shot. That is precisely the skill the format is testing: not how big you can score, but whether you can leave yourself a number you can finish from.

It also rules out the laziest possible perfect game. The nine dart finish exists, but it requires specific routes rather than nine identical darts, which is a large part of why it is celebrated.

Where the format came from

Darts grew up in British pubs, and pub games were scored on a chalkboard by whoever was nearest. The formats that survived were the ones that took the right amount of time: long enough to be a contest, short enough that the next pair could have the board.

501 became the standard for singles matches as organized darts took shape through the twentieth century, and it is now what every televised professional match is played over. 301 stayed in use for shorter games and for doubles, where two players are chipping away at the same total.

You will hear specific origin stories: that it was set by a particular pub league, or chosen to make the game last a fixed number of minutes. None of them is well documented. What is documented is the effect, which is that the format works.

Why 301 still exists

301 is the short game. It gets played when four people are waiting for the board, and it is frequently played double in as well as double out, which makes it a test of accuracy rather than of scoring power. A player who cannot hit a double can be stuck on 301 for a very long time.

The rules are otherwise identical. Everything on the 501 page applies to 301, and the same checkout chart covers both, because the finishes depend on what is left rather than on where you started.

Other starting scores

Dart Meister allows any starting score from 101 to 5001, which is a polite way of saying you can make a game last exactly as long as your evening needs it to.

Common questions