Dart Boards
A board needs 5 feet 8 inches of wall and 7 feet 9 and a quarter inches of floor in front of it. That is the entire space requirement, and it is why darts fits almost anywhere.
What decides this purchase: Board type (sisal or electronic) and the 7 ft 9.25 in throw distance it still needs
The winner of each roundup in this section, with a direct link to Amazon.
Best Dart Cabinets
Integrated lighting solves the problem most people do not anticipate: a ceiling light behind the thrower casts their own shadow onto the board. A lit cabinet lights the board from its own perimeter instead.
Best Dart Boards
The league standard. Dense sisal with very thin wire, so darts that would bounce off a cheaper board stick instead. If you are going to play a lot, this is the board you end up at eventually - buying it first saves a step.
Best Electronic Boards
The full-featured electronic board: automatic scoring, a long game list and an LED display that several people can read from the oche. The game list is genuinely used in a house with mixed ability.
Darts has the smallest footprint of any game on this site and the most precise setup. The numbers are fixed by the World Darts Federation and they are not approximate: the center of the bullseye sits 5 feet 8 inches above the floor, and the throw line - the oche - is 7 feet 9 and a quarter inches from the face of the board, measured horizontally. The diagonal from the bull to the back of the oche is 9 feet 7 and three-eighths inches, which is the measurement you use to check the other two.
That means a usable darts setup needs about 8 feet of straight floor, 5 feet 8 inches of unobstructed wall, and roughly 2 to 3 feet of standing room behind the line. Call it 11 feet of run. A hallway does it. A garage wall does it. The corner of a basement that is useless for everything else does it.
Measure the height from the finished floor, not the subfloor, and measure to the center of the bull, not the top of the board. Both mistakes are extremely common and both are permanent once the bracket is screwed in.
A bristle board is compressed sisal fiber. Steel-tip darts push the fibers apart and they close again, which is why a good board self-heals and lasts years. It scores nothing for you, it makes a satisfying noise, and it is what every professional plays on. It also means steel points and real holes in whatever is behind the board.
An electronic board is plastic with thousands of small holes and a sensor behind each segment, played with soft-tip darts. It scores automatically, which matters more than people expect - most casual players give up on cricket because keeping score is tedious. It is quieter, it is safer around children, and soft tips do not punch holes in drywall. It also registers the odd bounce-out as a miss, and the segment feel is nothing like sisal.
There is no overlap between them. Steel-tip darts destroy an electronic board; soft tips will not stick in sisal. Choose the board and the darts follow.
Everyone misses. With a bristle board the question is only whether the misses land in a foam surround, a backboard, a cabinet door, or the drywall. A surround is a foam ring that fits around the board and catches near misses. A backboard is a larger panel that catches wide ones. A cabinet does both and closes over the board when you are done, which is the usual choice for a room that is not solely a games room.
Lighting matters more than it sounds. A single ceiling light behind the thrower puts your own shadow directly on the board. Either light the board from the front and above, or buy a cabinet with integrated lighting, which solves it in one purchase.
Measure first
Mark 5 feet 8 inches up the wall and 7 feet 9.25 inches out along the floor. If you can stand comfortably behind that mark and swing your arm, the room works. Everything else is board choice.
Picks
Dart cabinets compared on door coverage, lighting and scoring surfaces - the purchase that solves three problems at once.
Picks
Six dart boards across sisal and electronic, with the throw distance each actually uses and who each suits.
Picks
Electronic dart boards compared on scoring accuracy, noise and game list - and what auto-scoring costs you.
Picks
Surrounds catch near misses, backboards catch wide ones - which you need depends on how you actually miss.
Compare
What sisal is, how self-healing works, and how plastic segments differ - the material story behind the board choice.
Compare
Throw distance, board type, wall damage and scoring compared - and why the choice is one-way.
Guide
The regulation height, throw distance and check diagonal, with step-by-step setup and the two mistakes everyone makes.
Guide
How much room a dart board really needs, how to fit one in a hallway or garage, and what to do with a short floor run.
Guide
What actually stops darts damaging a wall and floor, what does not work, and how to choose based on how you miss.