I received £75 for my first darts win – now the cash is life-changing and I do know who to thank
Darts icon Vincent van der Voort won £75 from his first darts tournament but the landscape in the sport has changed dramatically since then.
Van der Voort joined the BDO in 2001 and reached the World Championship quarter-final in 2005. He later joined the PDC in 2007 and enjoyed a run to the UK Open final in his debut year. The Dutchman remained a force in the PDC until he announced his retirement in 2024.
The 50-year-old has seen darts change dramatically over the years after starting his career in the Netherlands without a Dutch trailblazer in the sport and being told he had no hope of making a living from the game.
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However, the attitude towards darts in the Netherlands shifted after Raymond van Barneveld and his four BDO world titles put the country firmly on the map in the sport.
Barney joined the PDC in 2006 and won the World Championship in 2007, becoming a five-time world champion and kickstarting a titanic rivalry with Phil Taylor while paving the way for generations of Dutch arrowsmiths.
Speaking exclusively to the Daily Star Sport, Van der Voort recalled the narrative change to darts in his home country.
“I tell players now that when I started playing, I was, of course, in Holland and I was a youth player and everybody said ‘do well in school because in darts there’s no money involved, nothing. You can’t get your career out of it,’ and Raymond changed that,” he said.
“But in the beginning there was nothing. It was then because of Raymond’s win, there was a lot of TV involved, there were a lot of sponsors involved and all of a sudden you could make money out of darts.
“It grew and then Raymond went to the PDC and then we followed and Michael (Van Gerwen) came along and did something special. Then the sport grew to a new level and now with [Luke] Littler it’s a new level again.”
Van der Voort also lauded Littler’s meteoric rise for changing the lives of darts stars with increased prize money thanks to his incredible fanfare.
“There’s so much money involved and you have to give credit to Barry Hearn as well and then the PDC for what they’ve achieved for darts, that’s amazing.
“You see how much players are now professional, 20 years ago I won the first round of a tournament where you get £75. Now you’ve got £1250. That’s career changing.
“If you do that all the time, you can be a professional, you can see now if you want to be in the top 32 in the world and you’re making around £200,000.”
In the recent Premier League final, Littler pocketed the £350,000 winners’ jackpot after beating Luke Humphries in the final, who took home £170,000.
The Premier League is one of many tournaments that have exploded in prize money. Just two years ago the champion received £250,000 and in 2016 the jackpot was £200,000. Rewind to 2014 and £150,000 was the winners’ prize money.
