With an expanded snooker season and plenty of new events created for the tour, betting on snooker has grown considerably, and here we pinpoint the best snooker free bets and some great betting offers that can be used across many sports, including snooker.
Rather than waiting for weeks and months until the next event takes place, those looking to bet on snooker can do so almost weekly, thanks to the great schedule we now have in place.
2023 Snooker World Championship
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Best Snooker Free Bets
The Growth of Snooker Betting
Domestically, snooker reached the zenith of its popularity in the mid-1980s.
The late 90′s and 2000′s were not so kind to the sport, but since the turn of the decade, snooker, particularly betting on snooker, has enjoyed an amazing renaissance.
The Big Ones… Major Snooker Tournaments to Bet On
The major snooker tournaments to bet on obviously include the World Championship, the holy grail of the sport, which takes place in Sheffield, UK, between April and May every year.
Triple Crown
The ‘Triple Crown’ refers to the three most prestigious competitions on the Snooker calendar - The UK Championship, The Masters, and the World Championship.
Only nine players have won all Triple Crown events at least once - Stephen Hendry, Ronnie O’Sullivan, John Higgins, Steve Davis, Mark Williams, Alex Higgins, Terry Griffiths, Neil Robertson, and Mark Selby.
But in this snooker betting era, there are 20 ranking tournaments every year. All are broadcast on either Eurosport or ITV 4, and most are streamed as snooker betting offers by online sportsbooks and bookmakers.
Winning the UK Championship is hard enough, but defending the title has proved impossible in recent years, meaning the UK Championship snooker odds are always very tempting but potentially very tricky to gauge.
Best Snooker Bookmakers
A select few online snooker bookmakers have and do sponsor the key snooker competitions.
Betway Sports have title rights to the UK Snooker Championship, and Coral bookmakers support a number of events, including the Players Championship.
- bet365 – Amazingly, the betting giant does not currently sponsor any snooker competitions, but they do offer a huge variety of snooker betting markets
- Betfred – Betfred put their name to the World Championship and often are the first place you look when betting on the World Snooker event. Always lots of snooker betting promotions and interesting markets on offer.
- William Hill – Hills also offers a large range of markets for all the major and smaller ranking tournaments.
As ever, you will have to shop around for the best snooker betting offers and prices – and there are plenty of bookmakers to choose from. Our recommended snooker betting bookmakers above are based on snooker betting tips / blogs, odds and variety of markets.
Snooker Betting Odds
Snooker odds on the Betfred World Championship are available throughout the year. A select few snooker betting sites will also have long-range markets on events like The Masters and the UK Championship.
These markets will be ‘live’ meaning they are updated as and when players perform well, or badly, in the weeks and months leading up to these triple crown events.
Popular Snooker Betting Markets
There’s loads of snooker betting opportunities to choose from when betting on snooker. Apart from the straightforward ‘win’ markets you can also bet on:
- Handicap markets – The underdog is given a virtual head start.
- Correct scores – Predict the exact match final match score
- Highest break – Which player will get it?
- Player to win the next frame – Individual frame betting
- Outright competition winner – Who will win the whole event
- Total match frames – Higher or lower than a bookies line
- Asian Handicaps – Alternative snooker handicap markets
- Number of match centuries – How many for both players combined
- Total Frames (odd or even) – if that’s your thing
Betting on 147 Breaks in Snooker
For years the 147 break in snooker, which involves potting all 15 red balls with 15 black balls and all the colours, carried an almost biblical status. It was not until 1982 the first (televised) 147 in a professional competition was made (by Steve Davis who won a new Lada car for his effort).
Maximum breaks have not become commonplace but certainly more frequent in snooker since the 1980′s when only eight were recorded. 26 were achieved in the 1990s and 35 in during the 2000s. In the current decade there have been over 80 recognised ‘maximums’.
Bookmakers do offer different snooker odds on a 147 within individual matches and for one taking place during the course of a competition.
Top Snooker Players and Ranking
Despite there being hundreds of professional snooker players there are only a handful of pro snooker players that consistently reside towards the higher echelons of the sport and the men to beat.
In the current climate they are:
- Ronnie O’Sullivan,
- Kyren Wilson,
- Zhao Xintong,
- Barry Hawkins,
- Mark Allen,
- Neil Robertson,
- Judd Trump,
- Yan Bingtao,
- Mark Williams,
- Mark Selby,
- Ding Junhui
- and John Higgins.
Naturally all are highly ranked and it is a player’s ranking which gives them automatic qualification into major tournaments plus exclusive entry into major non-ranking tournaments such as the Shanghai Masters, Champion of Champions, Championship League and The Masters.
The current snooker ranking system, which is vital knowhow for snooker punters that bet on snooker, utilises a two-year ‘rolling’ format where points (based on prize-money) are earned for deep runs in ranking tournaments and are added to their current points total.
These are removed from the corresponding tournament of two seasons ago and replaced by the points earned in the most recent rendition of the competition once it has been played.
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