History

The dartboard may have its origins in the cross section of a tree. An old name for a dartboard is a 'butt', and from this, folk etymology infers that the bottoms of wine barrels were the original dartboards; this word in fact comes, via archery, from the French word butte, meaning target. Various designs of dartboard have been used, and regional variations remain in parts of Staffordshire, Manchester (log-end board) and Yorkshire. In particular, the Yorkshire and Perrigo Manchester boards differ from the standard board in that they have a single, inner bull and no treble ring. The london 5.s board is another variation. This has only 12 equal segments numbered 20,5,15,10,20,5,15,10,20,5,15,10 with the doubles and trebles being a quarter of an inch wide.

There is speculation that the game originated among soldiers throwing short arrows at the bottom of the cask or at the bottom of trunks of trees. As the wood dried, cracks would develop, creating "sections". Soon, regional standards emerged and many woodworkers supplemented bar tabs by fabricating dart boards for the local pubs.

The numbering plan generally in use today has a 20 on top; however, a great many other configurations have been used throughout the years and in different geographical locations. By most accounts, the numbering layout was devised by Brian Gamlin in 1896 to penalise inaccuracy. Although this applies to most of the board, the left-hand side (near the 14 section) is preferred by beginners, for its concentration of larger numbers. Mathematically, removing the rotational symmetry by placing the "20" at the top, there are 19!, or 121,645,100,408,832,000 possible dartboards. Many different layouts would penalise a player more than the current setup; however, the current setup actually does the job rather efficiently. There have been several mathematical papers published that consider the "optimal" dartboard.