For years darts used to be one of the few pub games that posed a real threat to the safety of not only the people playing the game but also to anyone within range of the board being thrown at. The actual premise of darts seems like it was created by a mad man to be played by equally as mad people. Let’s give a bunch of drunks tiny sharp spears to throw at a cork board while other drunks stand around and watch. Let’s make sure to put a solid wooden border around the cork board, and a metal grid to separate the different fields on the cork board, so that the darts can deflect off of the wood or metal while a drunk is throwing the tiny sharp spear very hard and potentially hit some unsuspecting drunk. While we are at it let’s paint the fields on the cork board different colors so that the drunks can get queasy while they look at it and cause them to throw the tiny sharp spears off in a whole variety of directions. It seems like insanity but it does work and while people do get hurt every year in dart accidents the number of accidents that do happen is remarkably low considering the potential.

That is not to say that everyone that plays darts is a drunk because that, of course, is not true and fair. It just seems odd that this game that uses tiny lethal weapons seemed fit to prosper and grow in pubs and bars. But there are many responsible dart players out there and there is even several professional dart leagues around the world. For the casual people who try darts you can try darts in a darts league at your local pub or bar or you can try darts in your own home which is something that has changed over the years. It used to be that to try darts at home was inviting disaster as not matter how much extra protection you put behind the board inevitably a whole slew of darts would wind up sticking into your walls, your furniture, and anything else in range. Over the last few years there has been a shift to safer dart games and even in pubs it is now becoming much easier to try darts on a regular basis without the potential to do serious damage.

In the last few years a whole industry has grown up around the development of an all plastic dart set up. People have traded in their metal darts and cork boards for much safer plastic tip darts and a plastic board that has thousands of little holes in it that are just big enough to accommodate the new plastic tip darts. This opened up darts to a whole new world of people and soon the plastic dart games were appearing in bars, restaurants, night clubs, and video arcades all over the world. Everyone has seen a plastic darts game and the computer scoring makes it so much easier to play darts now that just about anyone can play that wants to. The plastic tip darts are also generally lighter than the metal tip darts so they travel with less momentum so when they hit something they do not hit to damage, they just hit to score in darts. However it has been found out that even though the new plastic dart set up is much safer and can now allow anyone to set up a safe dart board in their home, those little plastic missles can still get imbedded in drywall if they are thrown just hard enough. So while the potential for holes in the walls still exists the possibility of damage to furniture, or harm to people and pets, has been all but eliminated with the plastic darts set up.

As darts got more popular because of the safer new plastic dart set up, it became apparent to people that maybe darts could be made safe enough for even a child to play. Sure enough, through the miracle of Velcro, there are now darts games out there safe enough for children to play. One version of Velcro darts takes a dart shaped projectile and puts Velcro on the tip. You throw that at a Velcro accepting cloth dart board and there you have safe darts for everyone. Still want safer? There is also a version of Velcro darts that uses ping pong balls instead of projectiles. It is wonderful how a desire to make darts safer has now created versions of darts that anyone, at any age, can safely play.