How to Bet on Snooker Online: Bet Types and Rules

Recognised Snooker tournaments, sanctioned by The World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association (WPBSA) and that you can bet on, are staged in only a handful of countries – similar to Baseball – but snooker players come from all parts of the world and the sport is broadcast live on TV stations around the globe. It is also streamed on Facebook and via a number of online sportsbooks including US facing ones such as William Hill US and Bet365.  These betting sites and apps, and others like off-shore based BetOnline, Bookmaker.eu, all offer Snooker betting both pre-event and in-play.

How to play snooker? Learn the rules before betting

With the balls being lighter and smaller than Pool balls and Snooker tables being considerably bigger – a snooker table’s playing surface is 11 feet 8.5 inches by 5 feet 10 inches – with smaller pockets, the game is extremely difficult to play and highly skilful.

There are 22 balls on a Snooker table when a frame starts.  Games are often made up of a ‘best of seven frame’ format but also the ‘best of nine frames’ all the way up to a ‘best of 35 frame’ match in the final of the World Championship.

To begin a player needs to pot one of the 15 red balls, and every time that is achieved they earn a point and can pot a coloured ball which all have different values (a yellow is the lowest at 2 points, a black is highest with 7 points).  The highest possible score in a frame of snooker is 147, which is achieved when a player post 15 reds, 15 blacks and then all the remaining coloured balls in point scoring value (yellow, green, brown, blue, pink, black).  It is a rare achievement – but something you can bet on.

Snooker Betting Opportunities

There’s loads of betting opportunities involved with snooker on both individual games and outright competition results.  Snooker competitions are simple elimination events whereby a player will progress through every round providing they keep winning.  Some competitions feature 128 players, others 64 and 32.  There are some elite invitational competitions with just 16 player fields.

On individual snooker games you can place bets on the following markets:

• Match winner. Which of the two snooker players will emerge as the winner
• Handicap markets. A player to win with a defined frame start or deficit
• Correct scores bet in snooker. The exact score-line of a snooker match
• Highest break. The plater to score the most points in a single visit to the table in the game
• Player to win the next frame. An in-play market on who will win the next frame
• Total match frames in snooker. A line bet on the number of frames a match will take to be won
• Number of match centuries . How many times will snooker players achieve a 100+ score (break) on one visit to the table.
• Total frames (odd or even). Will the score-line be add up to be an odd or even number? Note – any game that goes to a deciding frame is guaranteed to be odd.

On the outcome of snooker tournaments or competitions you can place bets on:

• Outright winner bet. Just who will lift the winner’s trophy
• To make the final. Get paid on a snooker player making the final table
• Name the finalists. Selecting the two snooker players that will contest the final
• Section of the draw. Select the player that will ‘win’ his draw bracket (and proceed to the semi-finals from it)
• 147 breaks bet in snooker. Will there be a maximum 147 break in any match during the competition

The History

Snooker, visually similar to Pool, is a cue sport which can trace its roots back to the 1700s.  But the game only became a recognised competition sport around the First World War and truly struck a chord with television viewers in the early 70s thanks to the advent of colour television.

Snooker reached the peak of its popularity in the mid-1980s with it wallpapering many UK TV channels.  Unbelievably when Steve Davis and Dennis Taylor faced-off in a final frame decider of the 1985 World Championship, over 18 million people – a third of the country’s population – were watching live on TV despite the action concluding in the small hours of the morning.

In the years since the popularity in snooker in the UK has diminished but Canada, Australia saw increased interest and the past decade has since a massive growth in Far Eastern countries, particularly Hong Kong and China.