Two professional dart players will serve lengthy bans for engaging in match-fixing last year to help clear one of their gambling debts. [Shutterstock.com]

Significant penalties

Two professional darts players will serve lengthy bans from the sport for match-fixing.

Leighton Bennett , one of the banned players, is a teenage prodigy, having beaten the legendary Phil Taylor when he was just 14 years old. He received an eight-year ban on Monday, with Billy Warriner facing a decade-long exclusion.

both players will pay £8,100 ($10,270) to cover the investigation’s costs

After the hearing last month, both players will pay £8,100 ($10,270) to cover the investigation’s costs. The Darts Regulation Authority (DRA) issued the exclusions following in-depth probes, with the players having until December 14 to appeal the decisions.

No hiding

The International Betting Integrity Association (IBIA) alerted the UK Gambling Commission’s Sports Intelligence Unit and the DRA about suspicious betting on four matches involving Bennett in September 2023. Video footage shows Bennett completely missing the darts board during one of the fixtures:

The investigations discovered the match-fixing, finding the 18-year-old guilty on ten counts, including giving insider information to other people about the matches and not cooperating with the probe.

Coming clean

Billy Warriner gave insider information regarding Bennett’s matches and organized betting on these fixtures. The DRA also charged him with acting as an unregistered darts agent. Another aspect of his case was separate charges of abusing a darts official and threatening one of his opponents.

Bennett was the youngest BDO World Youth Darts Championship winner when capturing the title in 2019 at 13 years old.

Explaining to TalkSport the reasoning for the match-fixing, Warriner admitted he was trying to clear his gambling debts, so he contacted Bennett about taking part.

He told friends to place wagers on his behalf and thought they were in the clear until authorities seized Bennett’s phone in January. He says Bennett didn’t need much convincing to fix the matches as he was already knocked out of the competition.