The PDC World Rankings, known for sponsorship purposes as the Werner Rankings Ladder, is the world ranking system for professional darts players used by the Professional Darts Corporation (PDC), which ranks players according to the prize money won in PDC ranking tournaments. These world rankings are used to determine qualification and seeding for the televised ranking tournaments as well as the awarding of PDC Tour Cards at the end of the season. The format has been used since the 2007 PDC World Darts Championship, superseding the original PDC World Ranking system established in 1993, where points were awarded for performances in tournaments according to their relative prestige. Upon the introduction of the rankings, the first player to hold the number one rank was Alan Warriner. Since 1993, thirteen other players have held the top spot, including Luke Littler, the current world number one. Alongside the main ranking, the PDC also operate several secondary rankings which count prize money won on specific PDC Tours and may also offer qualification to specific televised events.
The Professional Darts Corporation adopted the current Order of Merit system in 2007. In this system, the total prize money won in PDC ranking events over the eligibility period is counted. For PDC Tour Card holders, this eligibility period is either the previous two years or since the player was awarded a tour card, whichever is shorter. The PDC World Darts Championship is considered last event of the season, after which the year-end Order of Merit is calculated and players in the top 64 offered a Tour Card for the following year. New Tour Card holders start on ã0, even if they held a Tour Card in the previous season but failed to make the top 64, resulting in them having to regain their Tour Card through the qualifying tournament, Q School. Players without Tour Cards who earn money in ranking tournaments (such as Luke Littler in the 2024 PDC World Darts Championship) are eligible to be ranked during the season, though if they fail to reach the top 64 at the end of the year, their ranking money is reset to ã0. If two players are tied and need separating for seeding or event qualification, the tie is broken by player with the highest total earnings across the previous four ranking tournaments. If this fails to break the tie, players' prize money is counted back from the most recent event until a tie can be broken, with the possibility of a play-off if this cannot break the tie.
The PDC holds ranked and unranked tournaments. Ranking tournaments are those which all PDC Tour Card holders are eligible to participate in or qualify for, while unranked tournaments are invitational and do not count toward the Order of Merit. Currently, the Premier League, World Series of Darts events and the World Cup of Darts are the only unranked PDC tournaments with Tour Card Holder participation outside of the secondary tours.
<div style="font-size: 88%;">
</div>
<div style="font-size: 88%;">
</div>
In addition to the main two-year ranking, the PDC also operates three rankings for subsets of the PDC Tour and four rankings for secondary tours. These rankings offer qualification to televised events and are the basis for seeding in tournaments. Additionally, some secondary tours offer Tour Cards. These are secondary Orders of Merit are the:
Prior to 2007, a ranking point system was used where ranking points were awarded according to the stage reached in a tournament and the relative prestige of the tournament. There was no limit on the number of tournaments which counted to the tally, which meant that the top-ranked players were not necessarily the best-performing in the major tournaments. For instance, Colin Lloyd was the world number one player in the PDC for most of 2005 and 2006, despite most of the major titles being shared between Phil Taylor, Raymond van Barneveld and John Part.
<div style="text-align:center; float:right; clear: right; margin-left: 1em"> PDC Ranking Leaders Timeline<br /></div> 14 players have held the position of World Number One since the World Darts Council started new rankings in 1993. Seven different players held the position in the old points system, and eight players have held the position since the PDC switched to the two-year earnings based Order of Merit system in 2007, with Phil Taylor being the only player to have been number one in both eras.
Notable players not to be ranked world number one in the PDC include: Two-time back-to-back PDC World Champions Adrian Lewis and Gary Anderson, 11-time major title winner James Wade and 2018 world champion Rob Cross.
Sources:
Following the World Darts Council split from the British Darts Organisation between 1992 and 1994, the WDC drew up its first ranking list in the run-up to its inaugural 1994 World Championship. Mike Gregory and Chris Johns later went back to the BDO set up, and Bobby George and many of the non-UK players never competed in the early days of the WDC.