Paddy Power has donated £1m to Prostate Cancer UK as part of its sponsorship of the PDC World Darts Championship after a record-breaking 914 180s were hit during the tournament.
‘The Big 180’ campaign saw the operator donate £1,000 to Prostate Cancer UK for every maximum score at the world championships, which concluded on Wednesday night when Luke Humphries defeated Luke Littler in the final by seven sets to four.
In total, 914 180s landed during the event, which took place at the Alexandra Palace in London between December 15 and January 3. However, Paddy Power has rounded up the donation figure from £914,000 to £1m.
Humphries himself hit 23 180s in the final on his way towards winning the Sid Waddell trophy, landing 73 maximums throughout the tournament, which also earned him the Ballon d’Art prize for the most maximums during the championships.
Littler landed 63 maximums during the tournament, followed by Chris Dobey and Scott Williams with 43 each.
Rachael Kane, spokesperson for Paddy Power, told CasinoBeats: “We have just confirmed we will be rounding our donation to Prostate Cancer UK up to £1m following last night’s record-breaking final. ‘The Luke’s’ helped smash the previous record of 901 180s and between the the players hit 914 maximums.
“We pledged to donate £1,000 to Prostate Cancer UK for every 180 struck during the tournament, so rounding it up felt like the right thing to do following an absolutely epic start to our Paddy Power World Darts Championship sponsorship.”
As part of the partnership, Paddy Power and Prostate Cancer UK also provided a risk checker link for members of the public to answer three quick questions to assess their prostate cancer risk.
Paddy Power has stated that the initiative has caused a five-fold increase in the number of men checking their risk via Prostate Cancer UK’s online risk checker tool. 92,634 men have checked their risk since the beginning of the campaign, and 70 per cent of them discovered they were at high risk of being diagnosed, meaning it’s potentially saving many lives.
Laura Kerby, CEO of Prostate Cancer UK, said via the charity’s LinkedIn page: “A massive thanks to Paddy Power for driving forward this campaign, for the Professional Darts Corporation and of course those players for peppering the treble 20 bed.
“It’s been essential viewing from start to finish, and has almost certainly saved men’s lives too.”