The British Darts Organization or the BDO for short is an organization that caters for amateur, youth, super league, country and professional darts for both Men and Women. It was founded on the 7th of January 197 by Olly Croft. The BDO is a founder member of the World Darts Federation which was formed in 1976.

The BDO sets the rules that govern the game of darts, including the size of the throwing oche, the height and dimensions of the board. It comprises of 66 member counties in Britain and organizes tournaments for upcoming young players all the way to the professional level.

After the world championship began televised darts became more and more common, with several major games appearing on BBC and ITV. During 1988 the game of darts had lost many of its sponsors and only the World Championship remained televised. This frustrated alot of players, as due to the lack of televised games it was hard to make a living playing darts at a professional level. It was around this time that a group of 16 players created the World Darts Council and later the Professional Darts Corporation.

The existence of two different World Championships since 1994 has and will always lead to debates among dart fanatics as to which tournament is more prestigious. There have been two head-to-head matches between the reigning champions of the two organizations. The matches, held in 1999 and 2004 were not officially recognized as championship matches. In both matches, Raymond Van Barneveld and Andy Fordham were both defeated by the reigning PDC champion Phil Taylor.

In more recent years more and more dart players have been migrating from the BDO to the PDC. Four time world champion Raymond van Barneveld was the highest profile switch. 2006 & 2007 Winmau World Masters Michael van Gerwen and Robert Thornton switches without defending their titles. So far very few players have migrated from the PDC to the BDO.