Lawn dart rules and safety

If that shape feels familiar it is because it is the same scoring skeleton as horseshoes and cornhole: one side scores per round, play to 21. The difference is that those two are published by the NHPA and the ACL and this one is not. We have left the table labeled a convention rather than a rule, because that is what it is.

In 1988 the Commission voted to ban lawn darts with pointed tips capable of causing skull punctures. Three children had died. An estimated 670 injuries a year were being treated in emergency rooms, three quarters of them to people under 15. The ban took effect on December 19, 1988.

The notice deliberately excluded products that do not have pointed tips and are not intended to stick in the ground. That sentence is the reason a lawn dart set is on sale at all today, and it is the single specification to check on any set you are considering — see the sets we would buy.

1. Nobody walks to the target until every dart has landed. This is the rule that prevents essentially every injury in every throwing game here.
2. Throw underarm, in an arc. A flat, hard throw is a different and worse game even with a soft tip.
3. Put the circles across the yard, not along the fence. An overthrow should land on grass, not in the neighbors' garden or a path.
4. Set an age floor yourself. None of these makers publishes one. Our general guidance is in yard game safety and age floors.

With no governing body there is no official court, which means the distance is a decision the group makes rather than a rule it follows. The useful reference points come from the governed games next door.

• Horseshoes fixes its stakes 40 ft apart and publishes shorter foul lines at 27 ft and 37 ft for players who cannot make the full pitch.
• Cornhole plays at 27 ft between boards.
• A soft-tip dart carries far less than either a 2 lb 10 oz shoe or a 16 oz bag, which is why most households settle between 20 and 30 ft.

Set the two target circles facing each other with that gap between them, and run the line of play across the yard rather than along a fence or a path. The overthrow is the shot that leaves the court, and you want it landing on grass.

For a mixed group, move the throwing line rather than changing the target. Children throw from closer in, adults from further back, and the same game works for everyone — the same approach the NHPA takes with its published class foul lines. The broader version of this is in yard game etiquette and house rules.