Luke Humphries blown away by ‘silly money’ he was earning after becoming World Darts Champion

LUKE HUMPHRIES admits he was blown away when he started earning “silly money” after becoming World Champion.

The darts World No.1 will return to the big stage later this week in the Dutch Darts Masters in Den Bosch.

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But Cool Hand, 29, has opened up on his earnings on the Jaackmate Happy Hour podcast.

He may have surrendered his world crown to Luke Littler but he has raked in £1.8million in prize money in two years and is comfortably top of the cash league in the sport.

On winning one of his first big cheques eight years ago, Humphries revealed: “Really nice! You look at it and think, ‘Jesus!’ You’ve got £50,000 that’s just been put in.

“Obviously you have to pay management and tax… but you sort of get 65 per cent of it in the end, maybe 70 per cent if you’re lucky. And it was amazing.

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“You think, ‘This is amazing, £50,000, I want to keep doing this!’”

Humphries has won the World Grand Prix, Grand Slam, Players Championship twice, World Cup and World Matchplay within the last 16 months.

While Littler has rightfully grabbed the headlines, Humphries is the most prolific major title winner in the sport by some margin.

He added: “You get sponsors coming in then. They’re paying you - in those days - £5,000 or £10,000 for each sponsor, and you kind of get £30,000 or £40,000 on your shirt before you've even thrown a dart!

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“And this was like seven years ago. That’s already your salary without winning anything. So that’s comfortability, whereas now it's ridiculous, silly money.

“When you see that half a million from the Worlds, you go, ‘Woah.’”

Humphries lost his chance to retain his world title after Peter Wright KO’d him at Ally Pally last month.

He returned to action in the Bahrain Masters a week ago but lost to eventual winner Stephen Bunting in the semi-finals.