Raymond van Barneveld
Luke Littler
Stat by stat
Bars are scaled to the leader in this list.
The verdict
Raymond van Barneveld leads 3 of 4 categories. Our all-time ranking places Raymond van Barneveld at #4 and Luke Littler at #12.
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The case for Raymond van Barneveld
The man who turned darts into a mainstream sport in a country that had barely played it. A former postman from The Hague, Van Barneveld won four BDO world titles in 1998, 1999, 2003 and 2005, crossed to the PDC in 2006, and won the 2007 world final against Phil Taylor 7-6 in a sudden-death leg at the Circus Tavern — a match still routinely voted the greatest ever played, in which he came from 3-0 down in sets. Five world titles from six finals puts him level with Bristow and behind only Taylor among men. He added the 2012 Grand Slam of Darts and the 2014 Premier League among more than ten televised majors. His real legacy is national: Dutch television audiences for his matches ran into the millions, participation exploded, and the pipeline he opened produced Michael van Gerwen, Jelle Klaasen, Danny Noppert and a generation for whom being a professional darts player was a plausible ambition.
The case for Luke Littler
The youngest world champion in the sport's history and the biggest audience driver it has ever had. Littler reached the 2024 World Championship final at 16, losing 7-4 to Luke Humphries after arriving as a qualifier ranked outside the top 150, and won the title a year later on 3 January 2025, beating Michael van Gerwen 7-3 at 17 years and 347 days old. In between he won the 2024 Premier League at his first attempt, beating Humphries in the final, and the 2024 Grand Slam of Darts, among a major haul already larger than most professionals manage in a career. He throws quickly, appears immune to the occasion, and has averaged above 100 in televised finals since he was a schoolboy. His 2024 run drew the largest television audiences in the sport's history and a surge in board sales and junior participation across Britain, the Netherlands and Germany.