What Is The Bullseye In Darts? The 50, The 25 And The Big Fish

The bullseye in darts is the red circle at the dead centre of the board, and it is worth 50. Not 100, not a bonus, not an instant win — 50. It is the most famous target in the sport and comfortably the most misunderstood, because everything outside darts has taught people that hitting the bull is the best thing you can possibly do with a dart.

On an oche it is not even close. Here is what the bullseye actually scores, how the two rings at the centre differ, when a professional genuinely wants it, and why the treble 20 beats it every time.

What is the bullseye in darts worth?

Fifty points. The centre of a dartboard is made up of two rings, and only the inner one is the bullseye proper:

• Inner bull (the bullseye) — the small red circle at the exact centre. Scores 50.
• Outer bull (the 25 ring) — the green ring surrounding it. Scores 25.

You will hear both called “the bull” in commentary, and players will talk about being “in the bull” when they mean either. When a referee shouts a score, though, the difference is 25 points, which is why the inner bull is sometimes called the double bull — more on that below, because it matters enormously at the business end of a leg.

Is the bullseye the highest score in darts?

No. The highest-scoring single target on the board is the treble 20, worth 60, which is why professionals spend their whole careers hammering at a bed the size of a postage stamp rather than aiming at the middle.

Run the maths and the myth collapses. Three bullseyes is 150. Three treble 20s is a 180, the maximum three-dart score. A player who spent a match aiming at the bull would be giving away 30 points a visit against anyone scoring properly, which over a leg of 501 is close to a full visit of ground.

The bull is not even the second-best scoring target. Treble 19 is worth 57 and treble 18 is worth 54, both ahead of the 50. It sits behind three different trebles before you get to it.

So when do players actually aim at the bullseye?

Three situations, and all of them are about finishing or about fairness rather than scoring.

1. As a double to win a leg

The inner bull counts as a double 25, which makes it a legal finish. A leg of 501 has to be completed on a double, so a player left on 50 can win it with one dart straight down the middle. The outer 25 does not finish anything — it is a single, so hitting it on 50 leaves you on 25 and needing a different route. Our guide to the rules of 501, doubles and bogey numbers sets out exactly how the checkout works.

2. As the last dart of the big fish

The bull is what makes the game’s showpiece checkout possible. The 170 finish — the big fish — is treble 20, treble 20, bullseye: 60 plus 60 plus 50. It is the highest possible three-dart checkout, and it exists only because the bull doubles as a 25. Take the bull away and the maximum finish drops to 164.

That is also why 170 is the ceiling rather than 180. You can score 180 in a visit but you cannot check out 180, because the last dart has to land in a double and the biggest double available is the 50.

3. To decide who throws first

Before a match, players “bull up”: each throws a single dart at the centre and whoever finishes nearest the bull takes the throw in the first leg. Land the inner bull and it is settled instantly. It is a small ritual with real consequences, because in a short format the player throwing first has the advantage in every odd-numbered leg, and the same procedure is used to decide the throw in some deciding sets. If you want the rest of the shorthand, our glossary of oche slang covers the language commentators use around it.

How big is the bullseye, and where is it?

Small. On a regulation board the inner bull is roughly 12.7mm across and the outer bull about 31.8mm — so the bullseye itself is a target narrower than the width of your thumb, thrown at from 2.37m away.

Its height is the reference point for the whole set-up: the centre of the bull sits 1.73m (5ft 8in) from the floor, and the 2.37m (7ft 9.25in) throwing distance is measured from the face of the board to the front of the oche. Every other measurement on a dartboard hangs off the bull, which is worth remembering if you are hanging one at home — get the bull height wrong and the whole board is wrong. Repeating a throw accurately over that distance is its own discipline, and our guide to stance, grip and release covers the mechanics.

The bullseye in other darts games

In professional darts, governed by the PDC, the bull is a 50 and a finish, and that is that. In pub and household games it does far more work: in Around the Clock it is usually the final target, in Killer and Halve It it often carries its own rule, and in Cricket the bull is one of the scoring marks players have to close. None of those variants change the professional scoring — they just explain why so many casual players arrive believing the middle of the board is the jackpot.

The bottom line

The bullseye in darts is worth 50, the ring around it is worth 25, and the inner bull counts as a double so it can win a leg. It is a finishing target and a tie-breaker, not a scoring one — the treble 20 does the heavy lifting. That is the single most useful thing a new darts watcher can learn: when Luke Littler, the reigning PDC world champion and world No.1, steps to the oche, he is aiming at a thin red sliver at the top of the board, and the famous circle in the middle is for later.

Once you know that, the scoreboard starts making sense. From there, the nine-dart finish is the next piece of the puzzle — the perfect leg that shows exactly how the trebles, and occasionally the bull, fit together.

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