"If I barely earn anything again in the next two years I will have to make a choice" - Jules van Dongen makes immediate return to the Pro Tour

At the past Q-School, five players immediately regained their PDC Tour Card. One of them was the Dutch-American Jules van Dongen.

Van Dongen lost his Tour Card after the World Darts Championship, but then immediately recaptured it. The 33-year-old darter does realize that things need to change however. "I've really only lost in the PDC for the last two years," he opens up to the podcast 'Double Top'. "If you add up all the travel and hotel costs you easily come to £2,000 a weekend. Purely based on my results in the PDC I have earned nothing and even made a loss. Fortunately, I still earned a bit at local tournaments in the USA, which is why I was able to more or less 'break-even'."

As of this year, players receive at least 1,000 pounds for a win in the first round of a Players Championship. "That's already a serious improvement," says Van Dongen. "But I have already talked to several Belgian and Dutch players and if you are outside the top-50 you still have to keep working to make ends meet."

"So if I barely earn anything again in the next two years I will have to make a choice. For players in the top-16 it's easy to say you can make a good living from darts, but that's by no means true for all Tour Card holders."

Another option for Van Dongen is to look for sponsors. "But that is far from obvious," he says. "Especially for mid-motors like myself, the sponsors are not eager."