The game of snooker is a constant companion to sports fans throughout the year, which makes snooker betting very popular.
In fact, in the far east, particularly in countries like China, there is a thriving snooker betting market, which has grown hand-in-hand with the popularity of the game sky-rocketing in the east.
Here in the UK, with reputable providers such as bet365 Sport providing regular snooker betting markets across fixtures from a wide range of ranking and non-ranking events, there’s plenty of opportunities to enjoy snooker betting.
That includes futures betting on major events, as well as extensive pre-match and In Play betting too.
With a credit balance in your account or having made a bet in the preceding 24-hours, you can also fine extensive Live Streaming of snooker events on the site. The streaming service covers a wide range of events ranging from the World Championship, down to smaller, more localised non-ranking events and qualifiers.
In this article, we are aiming to enhance your snooker betting experience in a number of ways. We’ll run down the yearly calendar of the big events you can bet on, bring you details of popular futures markets for the top events, as well as some of the exciting and better paying snooker betting markets you can bet on when wagering on individual matches.
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The Snooker Calendar – When The Big Snooker Betting Events Take Place Each Year
The snooker season is a somewhat unusual one as it runs from the end of June until the end of May each year.
At the time of writing, there are 52 tournaments available for male professionals to compete in, of which 17 are the ranking events. These are the tournaments that the top players want to try and win each year to boost their World Ranking and of course, their earnings.
There are significantly fewer events for female players and senior players. Furthermore, underneath this top level of snooker, there are numerous Q-Tour events for up and coming players seeking to win a tour card for next season.
However, the number of tournaments held each year, and even the number of ranking events, is subject to change as snooker bodies start to change the calendar to meet the growing demand for snooker all over the globe.
Key tournaments and their approximate start date in the calendar alongside the location are shown below.
June to July
- Championship League (Leicester, England)
August
- European Masters (Nuremberg, Germany)
- Huangguoshu Open (Anshun, China)
- US Women’s Open (Seattle, United States)
September
- Shanghai Masters (Shanghai, China)
- British Open (Cheltenham, England)
- UK Women’s Championship (Leeds, England)
October
- English Open (Brentwood, England)
- Wuhan Open (Wuhan, China)
- Northern Ireland Open (Belfast, Northern Ireland)
- Australian Women’s Open (Sydney, Australia)
November
- International Championship (Tianjin, China)
- Champion of Champions (Bolton, England)
- UK Championship (York, England)
- Women’s Masters (London, England)
December
- Shoot-Out (Swansea, Wales)
- Scottish Open (Edinburgh, Scotland)
- Macau Masters Event 1 & Event 2 (Macau, China)
January
- Masters (London, England)
- World Grand Prix (Leicester, England)
- German Masters (Berlin, Germany)
- Belgian Women’s Open (Bruges, Belgium)
- Championship League (Leicester, England – until March)
- Albanian Women’s Open (Golem, Albania)
February
- Welsh Open (Llandudno, Wales)
- Players Championship (Telford, England)
March
- World Masters of Snooker (Riyadh, Saudi Arabia)
- World Open (Yushan China)
- World Mixed Doubles (Manchester, England)
- World Women’s Championship (Dongguan, China)
April
- Tour Championship (Manchester, England)
- World Championship (Sheffield, England)
May
- World Championship Final (Sheffield, England)
- World Seniors Championship (Sheffield, England)
- British Women’s Open (Great Wyrley, England)
- Helsinki International Cup (Helsinki, Finland)
Popular Futures Markets When Snooker Betting
Now that we know when the big tournaments are in the year, let’s now take a look at what kind of futures market betting is available throughout the year at bet365 Sport.
In terms of year-round betting, the only tournament you can bet on across the year is the World Snooker Championship. This starts in April and lasts for three weeks, and it is by far the biggest tournament of the year.
Like the PDC World Darts Championship, it is the pinnacle of the sport and as such, punters are keen to bet on who could win the tournament well in advance, with popular options to back including Mark Selby, Ronnie O’Sullivan, Judd Trump, Mark Allen, Neil Robertson, Shaun Murphy, Mark Williams, John Higgins, Kyren Wilson and current World Snooker Champion, Belgian Luca Brecel.
Outright markets on other tournaments will be made available in the week or so leading up to the start of the event.
The Markets To Target When Snooker Betting
So, what are the key markets that will give you the most enjoyment, and perhaps the best chance of a profit when you are snooker betting?
Of course, nothing is ever guaranteed in the world of snooker, or snooker betting for that matter, but there are some markets or bets that do attract more punters and more bets simply because they are more fun.
Outlined below are some markets or types of bet you can enjoy on snooker tournaments throughout the year at sites such as bet365 Sport.
- Tournament Outright Winner or Each Way Finalist
For the top tournaments, bet365 Sport offers an extensive range of betting options on who will win the event. You may have to wait until some of the qualifying tournaments have been completed before bet365 offers odds on the tournament winner.
However, in addition on backing players to win, you can also back them each way to earn a place in the final on some events. This bet is appealing as it offers more flexibility than the outright win bet.
It is worth keeping an eye out for bet365 Bet Boosts for offers in this particular market (as you can see from the screenshot where Mark Selby’s price for the World Championship in 2024 was boosted from 6/1 to 7/1.
- To Win Match Bets or Accumulators
Another very popular bet is the To Win Match bet, where punters bet on which player will win any given match.
Due to the generally shorter odds available on these markets, you may find that lower stakes punters would prefer to compile a number of selections into one bet in the form of an accumulator.
These are very popular snooker bets at the big ranking events and the World Championship in particular.
- Correct Score Bets
Rather than betting on a match winner, a more potentially profitable bet is predicting the score of a match. If you know a match is a best of five contest, then the possible scores can only be 3-0, 3-1 or 3-2. This gives you a potential six possible outcomes for the match, which gives a greater breadth of odds,
That increases as the number of games in a match increases. So a best of 11 would have a wider choice of results, 6-0, 6-1, 6-2, 6-3, 6-4 or 6-5 for twelve potential outcomes for that game.
- In Play Betting
Snooker is a slower paced game than most which makes it ideal for In Play betting. There’s plenty of great In Play markets you can bet on and given the slower paced nature of the game, it is generally easier to place bets as the odds take a little longer to change compared to, say in play betting on a live football game.
There are four great places to start your snooker betting journey, so why not load up the markets and see what is available?
And if you enjoyed this article, then why not take a look at our list of the ten best snooker players of all time on one of our sister sites!
