Soft-tip Darts started in America in 1975. A small machine shop owner named Rudy Allison was travelling through Ireland when he stayed in a town called Wicklow. He spent some time playing steel tip darts with the locals but notice the flow of play was interrupted by the marking of the score on a chalkboard. He thought why someone hadn’t thought of a way of scoring the game electronically as per pinball machines.  This thought consumed Rudy and, on his way, back to America, he had developed a rough idea of how a new style dartboard could calculate the scores automatically.

Over a period of a year, Rudy experimented, refined his idea and gained financial backing to develop his idea into a business. He produced a dartboard made from a plastic/latex that had thousands of holes in. The steel tip of the dart was replaced with a plastic tip, so when the dart entered the board the tip would trigger a circuit which recorded the score. This invention meant there was no need for manual marking of the game.

The boards these days come in a variety of quality, finishes and with pre-installed games such as American Cricket and the standard ’01 games to name just two. The darts used for this board are the same as a standard dart we use on a steel tip (bristle /sisal) board with one major exception, the tip!

Soft-tip darts is so called because of the material the dart point is made from plastic. Most boards also have a weight restriction limit of 18grms, this is purely to protect the board from breaking, however, there are more robust boards that will take a higher weight dart up to 24grms.

League Soft-tip darts usually have a dart weight restriction of 18 grams but your local league will advise. Throwing heavier darts than allowed will get you disqualified.