History

Various different designs of dart board have been used in the past, and regional variations still exist in some parts of Staffordshire, Lancashire and Yorkshire. In particular, the Yorkshire board is identical to the standard board save that it has no treble ring and has a single, inner bull.

The dartboard itself may have its origins in the cross section of a tree, although some historical records suggest that the first standard dartboards were the bottoms of wine casks, hence the game's original name of "butts". There is speculation that the game originated by soldiers throwing short arrows at the bottom of the cast or at the bottom of trunks of trees. As the wood dried, cracks would develop, creating "sections". Soon regional standards emerged and many woodworkers supplemented bar tabs by making dart boards for the local pubs.

The numbering plan known by many today has a 20 on top; however a great many other configurations have been used throughout the years and geographical locations. By most accounts, the numbering layout was devised by Brian Gamlin in 1896 to penalise inaccuracy. Although this applies to most of the board, the left hand side (near the 14 section) is preferred by beginners, due to the concentration of higher value numbers. Mathematically, there are 19! (or 19 x 18 x 17 (and so on) x 1 = 121,645,100,408,832,000) different possible combinations of arrangement of the dart board's 20 sections. Using all possible permutations, one can find many different combinations that would penalise a player more than the current setup. However, the current setup actually does a rather efficient job.