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Topics: Luke Littler, Money, Sport
Jess Battison
Topics: Luke Littler, Money, Sport
The absolute lad of the darts world had another big pay day this week.
On Thursday (23 May), Luke Littler was crowned champ at the 2024 Premier League darts final after beating Luke Humphries.
After sending the crowd at London’s O2 Arena into absolute carnage when he hit another nine darter, the 17-year-old was given a hefty trophy and bagged an absolute whopper in winnings.
However, he won’t actually receive the full amount as he’s set to lose an eye-watering chunk of money.
In beating Humphries 11-7 at the finals, Littler bagged the massive £275,000 earnings. And that’s on top of his £40,000 from his four other nightly winds in Aberdeen, Belfast, Liverpool and Manchester.
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Before the big win, the Warrington teen shared what he’d do if he managed to win the main prize money.
“I'm playing in New York next week, which looked great last year,” he told the Evening Standard.
“I saw the guys taking the helicopter ride and I'll definitely get my chance to see some sites. And then it's off to Orlando.
“We're going to Disney and plan to do all the rides. My whole family loves all the rollercoasters. It's one of those once-in-a-lifetime trips.”
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However, thanks to the tax man, Littler won’t quite have all of the winnings to spend on Mickey Mouse and his mates.
According to AtIndex, the lad will have to cough up £136,263.60 of it to HMRC. That works out at £127,953 in income tax and another £8,310.60 in National Insurance.
So, after making it to the final over the 17 weeks of the Premier League, the Nuke will roughly be taking home £178,736.40.
It’s similar to back in January when Littler truly became a household name in the PDC World Darts Championship.
Littler came second that time to Humphries in the final and bagged a whopping £200,000 as a runner-up.
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However, according to investment platform Saxo, their estimates suggested that Littler would have to pay £76,203 in tax, as well as £7,330 in National Insurance, which means his winnings would be sliced by almost half.
Although children can usually avoid tax threshold, the then 16-year-old World Darts Championship runner-up didn’t have that luxury.
Andrew Mangion, Head of Tax Product at Saxo, explained: "Everybody needs to pay tax, no matter their age, and under 18s have the same personal allowance as adults. Normally children don’t work or if they do, their pay is generally under the tax-free allowance.
"In this case, it's rare for a teenager to come into so much money in one lump sum and we would advise him to take professional financial advice on how to best act on this."