Trebles are slightly smaller on new Winmau dartboards: 'In darts that can make the difference'

A new era begins for the PDC on Thursday night at the start of the 2022 Premier League Darts. For the first time they will use the dartboards from supplier Winmau.

At the end of January, a 25-year partnership with Unicorn Darts suddenly came to an end. After the Masters a new deal was announced. The Welsh manufacturer Winmau provides the dartboards at the PDC tournaments until 2027.

According to insiders, Winmau's dartboards are of a much higher quality than those of Unicorn. This should reduce the number of bouncers considerably.

"The downside is that the trebles are slightly smaller on the Winmau boards. In theory, this could lead to lower averages. ''And the iron wire bends a little less. It is about millimetres. But the better you throw, the less it affects you. So for me it makes no difference, haha'', Wright told Dutch newspaper Algemeen Dagblad.

Simon Hall, marketing director of Winmau, acknowledges that the trebles on the Winmau boards are slightly smaller. ''But then we are talking about very small numbers, often less than a millimeter. But in darts that can make a difference.''

Hall doesn't think the averages are going backwards. ''In the BDO they used our boards for a long time. Some players from that organisation complained to us about the smaller trebles. That would mean that the averages at matches of the BDO are lower than those of the PDC. The latter is true, but our research has shown that it is not because of the boards. The differences between the boards are really too small for that.''