The survival of darts as a pub game can be pretty accurately dated. Throughout the Victorian period legislation prohibited "games of chance" (i.e. gambling) in pubs. In 1908 a pub owner named Anakin in Leeds, Yorkshire, was taken to court for permitting darts to be played in his establishment. He offered to prove that darts was a game of skill.
A board was set up in the courtroom, and there Anakin threw 3 darts in the 20. He challenged any of the magistrates to duplicate his feat. When they could not (darts is, after all, not as easy as it looks!), the court was forced to accept that darts was indeed a game of skill, not chance, and the laws were eventually changed.
Darts in England: "Most dart boards today are made from highly compressed bunches of sisal - the same material used to make heavy ropes."
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