World Darts Championship sponsor Paddy Power (PP) has been credited by British prime minister Rishi Sunak with helping to save lives after a five-fold increase in the number of men in the UK checking their risk of prostate cancer in recent days. PP made their debut as sponsor of the championship held at London’s Alexandra Palace over the festive period. Luke Humphries beat 16-year-old phenomenon Luke Littler 7-4 in the grand final.
PP launched the Big 180 campaign with the Professional Darts Corporation (PDC) and named Prostate Cancer UK as the tournament’s charity partner. The aim was to donate £1,000 for every 180 hit during the tournament, and to use the event attended by over 90,000 fans and watched by millions on Sky Sport to raise awareness of prostate cancer, a disease which affects one in eight men in the UK. PP handed over a cheque for £1 million.
Blood tests
Given early-stage prostate cancer often has no symptoms, they undertook a month-long campaign to encourage as many male darts fans and followers as possible to use Prostate Cancer UK’s 30-second online risk checker. As many as 125,317 men checked their risk of the disease, with over 89,269 (71 per cent) discovering they were at high risk. The men were strongly recommended to go and see their GP and get tested for PSA.
PP’s Rachael Kane said: “We knew we had hit the bullseye in sponsoring this year’s first ever Paddy Power World Darts Championship. Knowing that our Big 180 campaign has had this level of impact puts it all into context.” As well as his championship win, Humphries was presented with the new Ballon d’Art by Paddy Power. The trophy is awarded to the player who hit the most 180s and raised the most money for Prostate Cancer UK.
It takes only 30 seconds for men to answer three questions to check their prostate cancer risk.
Check now by clicking on prostatecanceruk.org/180-risk
World darts champion Luke Humphries was handed the Ballon d’Art by Paddy Power
