For three Januaries in a row, Scott Waites went out of the BDO World Championship at the same stage. Brian Woods beat him in the 2008 quarter-finals, Darryl Fitton in 2009 and Martin Phillips in 2010. In 2009 he had led Fitton 4–2.
When he finally got past the quarter-finals, in 2013, he won the title.
Bradford-Born, Huddersfield-Based
Waites was born in Bradford on 17 February 1977 and lives in Huddersfield. He plays as “Scotty 2 Hotty”, walks on to “Chelsea Dagger” by The Fratellis and supports Liverpool. For most of his BDO career he was not a full-time player. He worked as a carpenter for Pennine Housing 2000, which also sponsored him.
His first major result came in February 2007, when he won the Dutch Open from an entry of 2,867. In 2008 he won the BDO Gold Cup, beating Gary Anderson in the final, and lost a 7–6 World Masters final to Martin Adams. He ended the year as WDF world number one.
The Grand Slam, 2010
His first major title came on the PDC’s stage. At the 2009 Grand Slam of Darts he reached the final and lost 16–2 to Phil Taylor. A year later he went back, won all three group matches, beat Raymond van Barneveld, Co Stompé and Steve Beaton, and met James Wade in the final. Waites was 8–0 down. He won 16–12.
He was the first BDO player to win the Grand Slam, and the first player from either side other than Taylor.
2011: Three More Majors
The following season brought the titles that had not come at Lakeside. At the 2011 World Masters in Hull he beat Adams, the defending champion, in the semi-final and Dean Winstanley 7–2 in the final. He added the BDO British Open, the WDF World Cup singles and the Zuiderduin Masters, where Fitton missed darts to win the final and Waites took it 5–4.
The world championship was still the problem. In 2011 Stephen Bunting beat him in the second round, and in 2012 Ted Hankey did the same, 4–3.
Champion in 2013 and 2016
In 2013 he went into the tournament as third seed and bookmakers’ favourite. He beat Willy van de Wiel, Geert De Vos and Paul Jennings to reach his first semi-final, then Richie George 6–1. The final against Tony O’Shea, a two-time runner-up, finished 7–1.
The defence lasted one match. As champion in 2014 he lost 3–0 in the first round to Alan Norris, the eventual runner-up, and said afterwards that injuries and a power cut shortly before the match had not helped. In 2015 Ross Montgomery beat him 4–0 in the second round.
He came back as ninth seed in 2016 and won a second title, beating Canada’s Jeff Smith 7–1 in the final. His name is in both rows of the BDO world champions list.
The Switch
Waites tried PDC Q School in 2019 and missed out. At the 2020 Q School he won a two-year Tour Card with a 5–0 play-off win over Keane Barry, and gave up his job.
His PDC World Championship debut came in 2021. He beat Matt Campbell 3–2 and lost to Nathan Aspinall by the same score in the second round, after having four darts for the match. He finished outside the top 64 at the end of 2023, lost the card and did not regain it at Q School. On the Challenge Tour he won event 20 in 2025.
