| Founded | 1978 |
|---|---|
| First season | 1978 |
| Ceased | 2020 |
| Organising body | BDO category Major WDF category Major |
| Country | England |
| Venue(s) | Indigo at The O2, London (2020) Lakeside, Frimley Green (1986–2019) Jollees, Stoke-on-Trent (1979–1985) Heart of the Midlands, Nottingham (1978) |
| Last champion(s) |  Wayne Warren (men's) Mikuru Suzuki (women's) Keane Barry (youth) (2020) |
| TV partner(s) | Eurosport |
| Tournament format | Sets |
The BDO World Darts Championship was a professional darts tournament organised by the British Darts Organisation (BDO) and held annually from 1978 to 2020.
The championship was first held at the Heart of the Midlands Nightclub in the English city of Nottingham. The following year it moved to the Jollees Cabaret Club, Stoke, where it stayed until 1985. From 1986 to 2019, it was held at the Lakeside Country Club in Frimley Green, Surrey. In 2020, the tournament was held at Indigo, part of the O2 entertainment district in London.[1]
It was the only World Darts Championship until the 1993 split in darts, when 16 players, among them seven former champions, left the BDO and set up a rival darts circuit under the auspices of the World Darts Council (later the Professional Darts Corporation). The WDC/PDC staged its own annual World Championship from 1994 onwards.
From its inception, the tournament was sponsored by Embassy cigarettes, a branch of Imperial Tobacco, and was thus often colloquially known as the Embassy.[2][3] After the ban on tobacco advertising in the UK, the event was sponsored by its venue, the Lakeside Country Club, from 2004 onwards.[4] The final edition, in 2020, was unable to find a sponsor.[5]
After the collapse of the British Darts Organisation in September 2020,[6] the World Darts Federation announced plans to launch the WDF World Darts Championship,[7] which took place for the first time in 2022.
- ^ Turner, Laura. "2020 World Professional Darts Championships - Venue Confirmation". British Darts Organisation. Retrieved 2 August 2019.
- ^ "'THE EMBASSY' – THE TOURNAMENT THAT CHANGED DARTS FOREVER". patrickchaplin.com.
- ^ "Darts: Feeling good in game of change: Richard Edmondson reports from the World Championship on the upheaval facing darts". The Independent. 6 January 1993.
- ^ "Let's play darts". BBC. 29 December 2003.
- ^ "BDO World Championship prize fund decimated after puny ticket sales at new venue". The Metro. 30 December 2019.
- ^ "BDO era comes to an end as counties join UKDA". DartsNews.com. 8 September 2020. Retrieved 7 October 2020.
- ^ "Development of World Rankings Criteria For 2021 – WDF". World Darts Federation. 15 September 2020. Retrieved 6 October 2020.