History Main / DecisionDarts

* In The Mouse On Wall Street by Leonard Wibberly Duchess Gloriana XII has been given the task of losing a large sum of money in a manner that seems feckless rather than deliberate. Her chosen method is to place several pages on the Wall Street journal on a wall and use darts to randomly select companies to invest large sums in on the grounds that investing randomly like this without any regard for prudence or knowledge should be as good a way of losing money while seeming to be feckless as any. She does cheat a little by doing enough research to make sure that the companies selected in this way are the sort no investor would ever make money from. This being the Fenwick series, instead of things going wrong as planned things go Horribly Right instead and HilarityEnsues.
* In David Feldman's ''Why Do Dogs Have Wet Noses?'' an illustration accompanying the entry on why US highways are numbered like they are depicts a man throwing numbered darts at a crude road map.

* In The Mouse On Wall Street by Leonard Wibberly Duchess Gloriana XII has been given the task of losing a large sum of money in a manner that seems feckless rather than deliberate. Her chosen method is to place several pages on the Wall Street journal on a wall and use darts to randomly select companies to invest large sums in on the grounds that investing randomly like this without any regard for prudence or knowledge should be as good a way of losing money while seeming to be feckless as any. She does cheat a little by doing enough research to make sure that the companies selected in this way are the sort no investor would ever make money from. This being the Fenwick series, instead of things going wrong as planned things go Horribly Right instead and hilarity ensues.

[[folder:Film]]

* ''WesternAnimation/TomAndJerryTheFastAndTheFurry'': [[CorruptCorporateExecutive J.W. Globwobbler]] throws darts at a world map while blindfolded to decide where the big race will go next.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'': Using a sword for a dart and a globe for a board, Sideshow Bob tried to pick a place to start a new life in "The Italian Bob". Not liking the randomly chosen places (Orlando, Florida, North Korea, Shelbyville, and "Bartovia"), he more carefully spun the globe so his sword landed on Tuscany.

Sister trope to WheelOfDecisions. See also DartboardOfHate for a more focused use of dart-throwing. Compare HeadsTailsEdge. Contrast QuickDrawDecision.

* Some restaurants and similar establishments let indecisive people throw a dart to choose what food to get.
* There are people who make all their important decisions in this manner. Either they go with the result they get, in which case it obviously didn't matter much to them, or they override it, having realised which option they preferred all along.
* There's a popular theory in some areas that this is how weather forecasters decide what to predict.
* Many economists believe that [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Efficient-market_hypothesis the market is smarter than you are,]] so a random strategy (or at least a "buy all the biggest stocks" strategy) will save you wasting time on a lot of research and calculations that won't actually pay off. It's the basis of those "index" funds you may have seen advertised[[note]]Index funds usually work along the lines of "buy all the stocks in the index". So if the index chosen is the Dow Jones, the fund performs exactly as well as the Dow Jones Industrial Average does. There are other indices (NASDAQ, S&P 500, etc) that can be used instead.[[/note]] It's also the basis of a ''Dilbert'' cartoon where Dogbert was selling a fund whose investment decisions were taken by a group that was expected to outperform traditional stock analysts: [[TakeThat a bunch of monkeys with a dartboard.]]
** John Stossel once illustrated that point ''literally'' on ''20/20'' by throwing darts on a big list of stocks and then purchasing the hits and showing how they did.
** One problem with using any kind of actual research to make decisions on when to buy or sell stock (as opposed to this method) is that nearly the only people who know enough about the company's status and plans to make good decisions can't legally act on them most of the time, because of laws forbidding insider trading. It's also true that one of the flags the SEC looks for to investigate insider trading is someone making a lot of money quickly, but another flag is someone ''losing'' a lot of money quickly: even insider trading is not a sure thing.
** The Guardian pitted three investment professionals against a group of students and a cat batting around his favourite toy for selecting and swapping stocks over a year. [[http://www.theguardian.com/money/2013/jan/13/investments-stock-picking The professionals did better than the students, but lost out to the kitty.]]
* Dartboards (and spinner wheels) have been sold with this premise, with the catch that there's a magnet under some of the options (usually along the lines of "nap", "go fishing", "loaf around"...) that forces the dart/arrow to land there.

* In The Mouse On Wall Street by Leonard Wibberly Duchess Gloriana XII has been given the task of losing a large sum of money in a manner that seems feckless rather than deliberate. Her chosen method is to place several pages on the Wall Street journal on a wall and use darts to randomly select companies to invest large sums in on the grounds that investing randomly like this without any regard for prudence or knowledge should be as good a way of losing money while seeming to be feckless as any. She does cheat a little by doing enough research to make sure that the companies selected in this way are the sort no investor would ever make money. This being the Fenwick series, instead of things going wrong as planned things go Horribly Right instead and hilarity ensues.

* {{Creator/Seanbaby}} theorized that this was the method Capcom used to design enemies in the NES game ''Yo, Noid!''

* This is used a few times in ''ComicStrip/NonSequitur''. In one strip a criminal defense lawyer is using darts to pick his closing arguments for why the judge should be merciful to his client. In another comic Danae is shown using a dartboard to come up with a completely random false celebrity story and then calling a news organization telling them the fake story to see if they will report it, which they do, in order to prove a point about how bad the news is.

* Many economists believe that [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Efficient-market_hypothesis the market is smarter than you are]], so a random strategy (or at least a "buy all the biggest stocks" strategy) will save you wasting time on a lot of research and calculations that won't actually pay off. It's the basis of those "index" funds you may have seen advertised[[note]]Index funds usually work along the lines of "buy all the stocks in the index". So if the index chosen is the Dow Jones, the fund performs exactly as well as the Dow Jones Industrial Average does. There are other indices (NASDAQ, S&P 500, etc) that can be used instead.[[/note]] It's also the basis of a ''Dilbert'' cartoon where Dogbert was selling a fund whose investment decisions were taken by a group that was expected to outperform traditional stock analysts: [[TakeThat a bunch of monkeys with a dartboard.]]

** The Guardian pitted three investment professionals against a group of students and a cat batting around his favourite toy for selecting and swapping stocks over a year. [[http://www.theguardian.com/money/2013/jan/13/investments-stock-picking The professionals did better than the students, but lost out to the kitty]].

* In the [[http://www.palinaspresident.us/ Palin as President]] Web interactive, this method is used to select the [[UnfortunateNames name]] of UsefulNotes/SarahPalin's next child.

* In ''Blankman'' a sleazy tabloid news programme producer uses this method to determine that evening's stories: "The Vice President..." [dart] "... and an alien..." [dart] "... have S&M sex!"

** It's said in one episode that this is how Cosmo decided to go out with Wanda... and she still has the scar to prove it.

* ''Series/TheAddamsFamily'': In "The Addams Family Meets the [=VIP=]s", a pair of foreign VIPs get frustrated with the tour their assigned guide has given them, thinking that he's trying to present only what America wants them to see. They decide to stick a pin in a phone book to decide which ordinary American family they will drop in on to find out what things are really like...and hit the Addams' name. Misunderstanding and HilarityEnsues.

* In ''Manga/AkagamiNoShirayukihime'' Garak throws a dart at a map to decide which region they're going to source certain medicinal plants from since using the same region every year would damage the plants' stock in that region and make it difficult for it to recover. Her [[BeleagueredAssistant assistant]] and her apprentice both wish she'd choose a less destructive method since they live in a society where maps and most books are still drawn and written by hand and are not cheap.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'': Using a sword for a dart and a globe for a board, Sideshow Bob tried to pick a place to start a new life in "The Italian Bob". Not liking the randomly chosen places, he eventually decided to move to Tuscany.

* In one ''Franchise/ArchieComics'' story, Professor Flutesnoot is frustrated that Jughead's forecasts for the school paper continually prove to be accurate- even when they're the opposite of official forecasts. In the end, Flutesnoot confronts Jughead on his method- and is more than shocked to see this trope in action.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheFairlyOddParents'': Timmy Turner tried to use one to decide which part-time job he should seek. He hit the ball boy of a basketball team, which forced said ball boy to leave the job, allowing Timmy to take it.

See also DartboardOfHate for a more focused use of dart-throwing. Compare HeadsTailsEdge. Contrast QuickDrawDecision.

* In ''Blankman'' a sleazy tabloid news programme producer uses this method to determine that evening's stories: "The Vice President..." [dart] "... and an alien..." [dart] "... have gay oral sex!"