PDC Referee Reveals Which Players Are The Hardest to Score
PDC referee Russ Bray has revealed the hardest players to score while on stage.
The 2026 World Darts Championship lasts between December 11 and January 3.
The total prize pot for the tournament is a record-breaking £5 million, with £1 million on offer for the winner.
It will be the last tournaments for both the Master of Ceremonies, John McDonald, and senior referee George Noble, who are retiring.
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Bray, who joined the PDC in 1996 and appeared at 28 World Championships, became idolised among darts fans for his personality on-stage and distinctive 180 calls.
He called time on his full-time PDC career at the end of the 2024 world final between Luke Humphries and Luke Littler, though continues to officiate around the world in exhibitions and on the Asian Tour and World Series events.
The 68-year-old, who worked as a police traffic officer before entering darts, has seen almost everything there is to see in the sport.
While a referee does have the support of scorers alongside them, they still have to be able to do numerous calculations in a matter of seconds, every time a player throws during the leg.
They also have to keep track of checkout scores, all while announcing those scores to the crowd and keeping them under control, if necessary.
Ahead of the tournament, Bray spoke exclusively to SPORTbible via the home of darts and football betting, and revealed which players are the hardest to referee.
While you might expect that, given the pace that darts is played, the faster players might cause referees more trouble, Bray says he actually finds it easier to officiate them - as there is less chance of his concentration being broken.
"Faster players are the better ones, because you tend to keep your concentration," he explains. "The faster they go, you haven't got time to think of anything else.
"When you've got slow players, they're harder for me, because I've got the concentration of a gnat.
"At the end of the day, when I'm standing there, I'm thinking about, 'I might have a Chinese tonight', as they're throwing the darts. Or a prawn curry, special fried rice... then, bang [the dart gets thrown]. And then you think, 'Oh, I'm well in the game'.
"That's really my mentality. So, the slower the player, the harder it is for me personally to maintain my concentration.
"The quicker, the better. You don't really make a mistake when they're fast, because you're concentrating that hard."
While he may no longer be centre stage at the World Championship, Bray was appointed as a PDC ambassador following his retirement, and was also inducted into its Hall of Fame.
"I've been doing a lot of stuff," he says of his new roles. "I do the Asian Tour, the World Series.
"We also just had the Australian Premier League, where I was only meant to do the first four weeks of that but ended up doing five. I had to stay out another week in Adelaide.
"It's just been loads of things like that. I've just been on the go constantly, loving it, doing exhibitions. In the last 10 days, I've been in Germany, Finland, Belgium, back to Germany, Dublin, then the Worlds start. I'm hosting the Worlds every day for the afternoon and evening session VIPs.
"Absolutely mega busy, and loving it."
Topics: Darts, World Darts Championship, Spotlight
Ryan Smart