Ian White’s Lakeside career lasted one match. In January 2010 he lost 3–0 in the first round to Stephen Bunting, and within weeks he had left the BDO.
What followed was a long PDC career with thirteen ranking titles, built by a player who was already 39 when he made that move.
Stoke, Cheshire and Koi Carp
White was born on 17 August 1970 and is from Stoke-on-Trent. He played his county darts for Cheshire and in the Cheshire and Staffordshire Superleague. The nickname is “Diamond”; early tournament profiles gave it in full as “Diamond White”. Away from the board he lists fishing, gardening and keeping koi carp.
His first big final came early. In 1997 he reached the final of the revived News of the World Championship, beating Des Byrne, Gary Spedding, Peter Manley and Andy Jenkins, and lost it to Phil Taylor.
The 2009 Season and Lakeside
The results that got him to Frimley Green came in 2009, when he won the Antwerp Open, the Denmark Open and the England National Singles. He qualified for the 2010 championship and drew Bunting, who was 24 and on his way to the quarter-finals a year later. Bunting won without dropping a set.
Shortly afterwards White joined the PDC. Adrian Lewis, a fellow Stoke player and later world champion, offered to sponsor him and told him he could make the world’s top eight.
Building in the PDC
The first year earned him an automatic Tour Card, and he missed the 2011 PDC World Championship by £100 on the Order of Merit. His first PDC world championship came in 2012. That season he reached four finals and threw two nine-dart finishes, one in a Players Championship and one at the German Darts Masters.
The first title arrived in September 2013, at the eighth Players Championship, with a 6–3 final against Simon Whitlock and an average close to 101. In the 2014 world championship he won three matches and reached the quarter-finals, where he came back from 4–1 down against Whitlock to level at 4–4 before losing the deciding set.
At the 2015 World Matchplay he met Bunting again, now also in the PDC. Both averaged over 100 and seventeen maximums were thrown. White’s average was 103.51 and he won 10–6.
His best season for floor titles was 2016. In the final of the fifth Players Championship he beat Michael van Gerwen, then world number one, 6–0 with an average of 106.20, and he won two more Players Championship events that year. At the 2017 UK Open he was on 20 for the match in a quarter-final decider against Gerwyn Price, hit double 15 instead, bust his score and lost 10–9.
European Tour Titles
His first European Tour title came at the 2018 Dutch Darts Championship, in his 63rd European Tour event. In 2019 he reached four European Tour finals in a row in April and May and won two of them, the European Darts Grand Prix and the Dutch Darts Masters, both 8–7, against Peter Wright and Michael van Gerwen. He moved into the world’s top ten and reached his first major semi-final at the Players Championship Finals, where Van Gerwen beat him 11–8.
White has kept playing the PDC World Championship into his fifties. In 2025 he beat Ritchie Edhouse, the reigning European champion, before Luke Littler beat him in the third round, and in 2026 Rob Cross beat him in the second.
His BDO world championship record still reads one match, no sets won.
