The PDC Tour have been told to keep a watchful eye on Luke Littler and offer him regular advice, including how to manage his finances. The 17-year-old has earned nearly £250,000 alone this calendar year after reaching the World Darts Championship and asserting himself as one of the world’s top players in other competitions since.
On his debut, the unranked Littler defeated three former world champions – Christian Kist, Raymond van Barneveld and Rob Cross – before losing to Luke Humphries in the Alexandra Palace showpiece. He became the youngest player ever to reach the final of the Worlds and won £200,000 from that event alone.
And he’s proven since that he’s no flash in the pan whatsoever, winning the Bahrain Darts Masters on his World Series of Darts debut. ‘The Nuke’ hit his first televised nine-darter and defeated Gerwyn Price and Michael van Gerwen en route to victory.
He has also since made the final of the Dutch Masters, won the Players Championship 1 – hitting another nine-dart finish on the way – and scored multiple victories over world No. 1 Humphries in the Premier League. The Warrington teenager reached the final in week two in Berlin but lost to Van Gerwen.
All that has helped him rack up a quarter of a million in prize money already in 2024, although he has paid a huge amount of tax on that. HMRC’s press office posted on X, in response to claims he would lose £83,000 of his £200k World Championship prize: “Big congrats to Luke on his fantastic run to the final. We can confirm the existence of income tax.”
Investment platform Sao estimated that £76,000 would go to the taxman with £7,330 paid in national insurance. He has since won another £50,000 from competitions too. And Dennis Priestley, the first ever PDC world champion in 1991, is keen for Littler to receive plenty of professional help. It comes after the youngster suggested he could retire by the age of 27.
Priestley told OLBG: “If Luke Littler really wants to retire from darts in 10-15 years, then looking after his money is exactly what he needs to be doing. It all depends on the people around him and how they’ll invest his huge winnings.
“I hope the PDC are helping Luke and giving him the right advice too. Gary, the owner of Target Darts, will earn Luke a lot of money. He was exceptional for Phil Taylor. Whether Luke will earn as much as Phil, I’m not sure.
“Taylor must’ve won something like £12million. If Littler wants to earn that figure then he has to be at the top of his game for 15 years to match that. Someone told me to look on my profile and see how much I was worth and it was saying I was worth $5million, but I don’t know where they get that figure from.”
Priestley’s comments come after Littler told The Times: “I’ve been playing a long time in the juniors, in the old British Darts Federation. I might just do ten or fifteen years and retire, if I’ve had enough.
“All these players have been on top for many years — this is my first. In years to come I’ll be used to the circuit, used to going to this place, that place. People say you learn from your losses, so this is what I’m going to be doing now.
“Playing against these guys every week. People are going to think I’m the guy to beat but, to me, that was only what it was like on the junior darts circuit. Whenever I did lose, it was a big shock. Probably all of them have been saying to themselves, ‘I’m not getting beat by a kid here.’
“But they have been. These players have been on top for many years. Going into this season, there’s a lot of them defending prize money, so they’ve got to get so far in a tournament just to keep their world ranking up. Whereas if they go out first round, they’ll drop down, and that’s how I shoot up.”
