2016 PDC World Darts Championship

The 2016 William Hill World Darts Championship was the 23rd World Championship organised by the Professional Darts Corporation since it separated from the British Darts Organisation. The event was held at the Alexandra Palace, London, between 17 December 2015 and 3 January 2016.

Gary Anderson was the defending champion, having won his first world title in the 2015 final by beating 16-times champion Phil Taylor 7–6. He retained his title by beating Adrian Lewis 7–5. He also threw a nine-dart finish in his semi-final against Jelle Klaasen to add a bonus £15,000 to his winnings, and hit two maximum checkouts of 170 in the progress.

There were 654 maximums thrown during the event, beating the record of 625 from the previous year. 34 of these were produced in the final, which was the record for a professional match for 7 years when the 2023 World Darts Championship final produced 37.

Three-time world champion John Part was a notable absentee in this tournament, having failed to qualify for the first time since joining the PDC in 1997.

Format
The tournament featured 72 players. The top 32 players on the PDC Order of Merit on 30 November 2015 (after the Players Championship Finals) were seeded for the tournament. They were joined by the 16 highest non-qualified players from the Pro Tour Order of Merit, based on the events played on the 2015 PDC Pro Tour.

These 48 players were joined by two PDPA qualifiers (as determined at a PDPA Qualifying event held in Coventry on 30 November 2015), and 22 international players: the four highest names on the European Order of Merit not already qualified, and 18 further international qualifiers determined by the PDC and PDPA. Some of the international players, such as the four from the European Order of Merit, and the top American and Australian players entered straight into the first round, while others, having won qualifying events in their countries, were entered into the preliminary round.

Thanawat Gaweenuntawong became the first player from Thailand to play at a World Darts Championship.

Prize money
The 2016 World Championship featured a prize fund of at least £1,500,000 – an increase of £250,000 from the 2015 tournament.

The prize money was allocated as follows:

Qualifiers
Order of Merit
 * 1)  Michael van Gerwen
 * 2)  Gary Anderson 
 * 3) 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Phil Taylor
 * 4)  Peter Wright
 * 5) 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Adrian Lewis
 * 6)  Robert Thornton
 * 7) 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 James Wade
 * 8) 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Michael Smith
 * 9) 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Ian White
 * 10) 🇦🇺 Simon Whitlock
 * 11) 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Terry Jenkins
 * 12) 🇧🇪 Kim Huybrechts
 * 13) 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Dave Chisnall
 * 14) 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Mervyn King
 * 15)  Vincent van der Voort
 * 16)  Raymond van Barneveld
 * 17) 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Stephen Bunting
 * 18)  Brendan Dolan
 * 19)  Jelle Klaasen
 * 20) 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Justin Pipe
 * 21) 🇦🇹 Mensur Suljović
 * 22) 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 Mark Webster
 * 23) 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Jamie Caven
 * 24)  Benito van de Pas
 * 25) 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Steve Beaton
 * 26) 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Wes Newton
 * 27) 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Andy Hamilton
 * 28) 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Andrew Gilding
 * 29) 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Dean Winstanley
 * 30) 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Kevin Painter
 * 31) 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 Jamie Lewis
 * 32)  John Henderson

Pro Tour
 * 1) 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Alan Norris
 * 2) 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 Gerwyn Price
 * 3) 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Joe Murnan
 * 4)  Daryl Gurney
 * 5) 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Keegan Brown
 * 6) 🇩🇪 Max Hopp
 * 7) 🇦🇹 Rowby-John Rodriguez
 * 8)  Christian Kist
 * 9) 🇪🇸 Cristo Reyes
 * 10) 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 David Pallett
 * 11) 🇧🇪 Ronny Huybrechts
 * 12)  Dirk van Duijvenbode
 * 13)  Jeffrey de Zwaan
 * 14) 🇦🇺 Kyle Anderson
 * 15) 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Joe Cullen
 * 16) 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Darren Webster

European Pro Tour
 * 1) 🇧🇪 Dimitri Van den Bergh
 * 2)  Jan Dekker
 * 3) 🇩🇪 Jyhan Artut
 * 4)  Jermaine Wattimena

PDPA Qualifier First round qualifier
 * 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Ricky Evans

Preliminary round qualifier
 * 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Andy Boulton

International qualifiers

First round qualifiers Preliminary round qualifiers
 * 🇳🇿 Koha Kokiri
 * 🇦🇺 Laurence Ryder
 * 🇺🇸 Darin Young
 * 🇩🇪 René Eidams
 * 🇹🇭 Thanawat Gaweenuntawong
 * Sven Groen
 * Per Laursen
 * Paul Lim
 * 🇮🇪 Mick McGowan
 * 🇬🇷 John Michael
 * 🇯🇵 Keita Ono
 * 🇷🇺 Aleksandr Oreshkin
 * 🇦🇹 Michael Rasztovits
 * Warrick Scheffer
 * 🇨🇳 Sun Qiang
 * 🇳🇿 Rob Szabo
 * Alex Tagarao
 * 🇫🇮 Kim Viljanen

Preliminary round
The format in the preliminary round was extended from a best-of-seven legs to a best-of-three sets format. One match was played in the first eight sessions with the winners playing their first-round matches at the end of the session.

Representation from different countries
This table shows the number of players by country in the World Championship, the total number including the preliminary round.

Broadcasting
The tournament was available in the following countries on these channels:

† Sky Sports F1 was renamed as Sky Sports Darts for the duration of the tournament.