What's the difference between soft tip and steel tip darts? Short version: in British pubs people throw steel darts at a sisal board and keep score by hand; in bars across Taiwan, Japan and the US, the norm is plastic tips, an electronic board and a machine that does the maths. Here's how the two split apart, how the specs compare, and why almost every darts bar you'll find in Taipei runs electronic machines.
Britain: steel tip grew up in the pub
Steel tip darts has its roots in English pubs. After the First World War, breweries started running darts leagues between their own pubs. In 1927 the News of the World sponsored one of the first big individual tournaments, and from 1947 it became a national event across England, with players representing one pub after another.
In 1978 the first World Darts Championship (the Embassy) was played, and TV turned pub darts into a national sport. Today the PDC and WDF still use the same setup: steel points, a compressed sisal bristle board, and scoring by hand. The darts you see on TV is steel tip.
The US and Japan: electronic darts started as a coin-op machine
Soft tip darts was designed from day one for coin-operated machines in bars. Arachnid in the US is generally credited as the pioneer: its founder saw how lively steel darts was in British pubs on a business trip and went home to build a coin-op electronic dartboard, with the first machines reportedly launched in 1975. Plastic tips are safer, and the board's thousands of small holes sit over sensors, so the machine keeps score and nobody has to do mental subtraction.
Japan took electronic darts to another level. DARTSLIVE, founded in 2003, put the machines online, storing stats, ratings and online matches on a player card, and darts became an after-work social game at the bar. Korea's Phoenix went down the same road and now sells machines in more than 30 countries.
Why Taiwan plays mostly electronic darts
Darts bars in Taiwan are almost all electronic, and the main brands are DARTSLIVE and Phoenix. There's no single official reason. This is what we've noticed from behind the counter:
- It arrived through Japanese and Korean systems: Taiwan mostly discovered darts through these online machines, not through British pubs
- Zero barrier for beginners: no need to count down 501 in your head, the machine scores and applies the rules
- Safer: a plastic tip dropped on the floor or thrown into the wall is nothing like a steel point, which suits a busy bar
- You can see your progress: ratings, leaderboards and online matches make practice feel like it's going somewhere
Some people in Taiwan do play steel tip, just a much smaller share. To meet the local players, read our guide to Taiwan's darts players.
Soft tip vs steel tip darts: specs compared
| Item | Steel tip | Soft tip |
|---|---|---|
| Tip | Steel point | Plastic tip |
| Board | Sisal board, scoring area about 13.2 in across | Electronic board, commonly 15.5 in, covered in small holes |
| Throw distance | 2.37 m | 2.44 m |
| Dart weight | WDF limit 50 g; most pros throw something in the 20s | Set by each league, a common cap is around 20 g |
| Scoring | By hand | Machine |
| Bounce-outs | A dart that falls out scores 0 | If the board registers it, it counts |
| 01 finish | Double out | Often open out, adjustable |
| Bull | Outer 25, inner 50 | Often the whole bull is 50 (fat bull) |
For the finer points of 01, like why double out exists and how fat bull changes your finish, see why darts starts at 501.
Which one do you play at AI DARTS
AI DARTS runs a full set of Phoenix soft tip electronic dartboards: plastic tips, automatic scoring, open 24 hours. You don't need your own darts on your first visit, there are house darts with the machines you can just pick up. If you get hooked and want your own, read our beginner darts gear guide first; soft tip darts and accessories are on aidarts.club (the shop is in Chinese). Plastic tips are the part you'll replace most, so the tips section is a good place to start. Want to keep your scores? Log in with LINE as an AI DARTS member.
Steel tip makes for great TV, but if you want to throw yourself, electronic darts is the easiest place to start.