BDO World Championship 2019

The World Darts Championship was the brainchild of Mike Watterson, a sports promoter who had created the UK Snooker Championship and moved the World Snooker Championship to the Crucible Theatre in 1977. Watterson came up with the idea whilst sitting in a barber's chair waiting for a haircut. John Lowe, a friend of Watterson, convinced him that such an event would be easy to stage and suggested contacting Olly Croft, head of the British Darts Organisation, to run it.

The inaugural event was staged at the Heart of the Midlands club in Nottingham. Embassy cigarettes, which also sponsored the World Snooker Championship, put up the £10,500 prize fund and it would be broadcast on BBC2. Ten top players (Eric Bristow, John Lowe, Leighton Rees, Rab Smith, Alan Evans, Stefan Lord, Tim Brown, Bobby Semple, Nicky Virachkul and Barry Atkinson) were invited, with the remaining places going to qualifiers. The first tournament used the legs format for its matches, but from 1979 onwards Watterson introduced the sets and legs format, which has been used in darts ever since. It was won by Rees, who beat Lowe in the final.

In 1983, Keith Deller, a 23-year-old qualifier from Ipswich, beat the world's top three players back-to-back: John Lowe (world no. 3) in the quarter-final; reigning champion and World No. 2 Jocky Wilson in the semi-final, before an epic deciding set win against World no. 1 Eric Bristow in the final, to produce one of the greatest upsets in the sport's history.

In 1990 Singaporean (then-representing the USA) player Paul Lim hit the tournament's only 9-dart finish in the second round against Irishman Jack McKenna to win a bonus of £52,000 which was more than the eventual champion Phil Taylor received.

The finals of 1992, 1998 and 1999 all went into a deciding set play off, having reached 5 sets all and 2 legs all. In 1992, Phil Taylor defeated Mike Gregory in a sudden death leg, having reached 5 legs apiece. In 1998 Raymond van Barneveld beat Richie Burnett 4–2 in legs in the deciding set. Van Barneveld then repeated the same final set scoreline the following year against Ronnie Baxter.

In the final in 2007 Martin Adams was 6 sets up and, after the comfort break, Phill Nixon responded by winning the next 6 consecutive sets. Adams held on to take victory in the 13th and deciding set, to win the title that had eluded him for 14 years.

In 2019, Glen Durrant became the second player to win three consecutive BDO Men's World Championships after Eric Bristow between 1984 and 1986, while Mikuru Suzuki became the first Asian world darts champion in any form.

In 2020 the tournament was staged at the Indigo at The O2 in London. It was the first BDO World Darts Championship not held at the Lakeside Country Club since 1985. Wayne Warren became the oldest player ever to win a world title. It was also the last World Darts Championship organised by the BDO before the collapse of the company. The World Darts Federation announced plans to launch the WDF World Championship.