World Snooker Championship 2024

The profile of snooker today has never been better.  The sport emerged from some bleak times at the turn of the millennium and through some clever marketing and a load of new global events the sport is enjoying popularity not seen since the 1980’s.

In spite of all the new Snooker available today the World Championship still lives up to its name and is without doubt still the leading snooker tournament. In terms of expectation, prize money and prestige there is no better event.  Established over 90 years ago in 1927 the tournament, along with the Masters, has helped to not only preserve but popularise this great sport.

With live coverage on the BBC the Championship attracts large audiences and a lot of bets too.  The online betting markets now available for snooker are bigger than ever, particularly live in-play, and this means online bookmakers are running promotions for the event.  Latest offers are shown below with more information about the tournament further down the page.

World Snooker Championship Betting Offers for 2024

New Customer

Bet £10 Get £50 In Bonuses

New customers only. Register (excl. 13/04/24) with WELCOME50. First bet £10+ at Evens (2.0)+ on Sports within 7 days to get Free Bets: £20 In-Play, £20 Acca & 50 x £0.20 (£10) Free Spins on Fishin’ Frenzy within 10 hours of settlement. 7-day expiry. Eligibility & payment exclusions apply. Full T&Cs apply. #ad

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Bet £10 Get £20 In Free Bets

New members. £10 min deposit & bet on sportsbook, placed & settled at 1.5 min odds within 14 days of sign-up. Win part of E/W bets. 2 non-withdrawable £10 Free Bet Tokens: accept in 7 days, valid for 7 days from acceptance (ex. E/Ws & Multiples), stakes not returned. Click here for Rules & Exclusions. Bet Responsibly. BeGambleAware.org, 18+ #ad

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Bet £5, £20 in Free Bets

18+. UK+IRE only. Min first bet £5 at odds 1/2 or more. Tote and Pool excluded. Must be placed within 14 days of account reg. £20 credited as 4 x £5 free bets. Not valid with Cash Out. Free bet valid for 4 days. Free bet stake not returned. T&Cs apply. #ad

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Existing Customer Promotions

Acca Boost – Up To 100% All Sports Bonus

Applies to successful pre-match acca bets of 3+ selections and System bets of 4+ selections; min odds of 1/2 per selection; cashed out bets or bets placed with a free bet aren’t eligible; max cash bonus: £5,000; bonus % depends on bet type; Terms apply. 18+ #ad

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World Snooker Championship

The World Championship is held over 17 days in April and May each year at Sheffield’s famous Crucible Theatre where it has been held since 1977.  Players must compete in five matches to win the title (excluding qualifiers), with an increasing number of frames each round.

The winner can earn £500,000 (or more for hitting high or 147 breaks) from a total prize fund of nearly £2,395,000, and of course achieve a place on the winners board alongside the likes of Ronnie O’Sullivan, Stephen Hendry and Alex Higgins.

Qualification Format

All players in the top 16 world rankings receive automatic qualification, the remaining 16 places are made up from qualifiers.

128 players ranked 17 and below must enter the first qualifying round and must then win three best of 19 frame matches to gain a spot at the World Championship.

Players ranked 17-80 in the world receive seeding with the rest of the players drawn randomly. Players who make it into the last 80 are guaranteed £10,000, and last 48 players get £15,000. Those who reach the final 32 are guaranteed minimum prize money of £20,000.

Championship Format

Highest Break – £15,000, 147 Break  – £40,000

The Championship format has not changed much since 1982. Thirty two players compete in a series of knockout matches over 17 days.

Schedule – 20th April to 6th May 2024

About the Snooker World Championship

Pre-Modern Era, 1927 to 1968

The first Professional Snooker Championship was held in 1927 in Birmingham, following on from the English Amateur Championship which had run since 1916, won by Joe Davis.  Joe dominated the sport at this time winning every single championship up to and including the 1946 title.

During the early years the competition was in fact mainly about billiards with snooker played as a sideshow by the then leading billiard players.  A lack of prize money along with long games and little chance of victory meant the early championship was shunned by players.  In 1931 just two players competed, Joe Davis and Tom Dennis.

In 1935 the fortunes of the competition began to change.  Thurston Hall in London became its home for five years from 1935 to 1940 and the tournament was given greater prestige incorporating the word ‘World’ into the title.  Growing popularity caused the first qualification to be introduced in 1937 however the championship was suspended from 1940 for the duration of WWII.  Thurston Hall was destroyed by a parachute mine in late 1940 and never hosted snooker again.

Following the war the tournament continued and was extended to two weeks becoming a financial success for both organsiers and players.  Joe Davis won £1,800 in 1946, significantly more than the £6 he won in 1927, following this win Joe retired undefeated.

The Championship continued to grow and with Joe Davis out of the way it was the turn of his brother Fred (whom Joe had defeated in numerous finals) to dominate.  Fred Davis won 8 finals from 1948 t0 1956.

John Pullman won the title in 1957 after which no championship was played until 1964.  The event returned as a series of challenge matches and Pullman won 7 consecutive titles (multiple titles each year) up to and including the 1968 championship.  During this time two matches were held in South Africa in 1965.

Modern Era, 50 Years From 1969 – 2019

In 1969 the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association took over the running of the professional game, the tournament became a true knockout event and it was from this time onwards that event became properly competitive.  John Spencer won the first modern era title at Victoria Hall in London.  In 1970 Ray Reardon won his first of 6 titles, Spencer winning again in 1971 (in Sydney Australia) before the legend Alex Higgins emerged to win his first of two titles aged just 22 years in 1972.

Ray Reardon won the following 5 titles at various venues until in 1977 the Championship moved to its long term home, the Crucible Theatre.  16 Players now competed but it was the same old faces, John Spencer beating Ray Reardon in the final in 1977 and Reardon winning again in 1978.  Fellow Welshman Terry Grifiths won in 1979 followed by Cliff Thorburn in 1980, seeing in a new decade that would witness snooker rise in popularity to unprecedented levels.

Steve Davis dominated the 1980’s, winning his first of six titles in the decade as 13th seed in 1981.  In 1982 the championship expanded to 32 players and was won by the great showman Alex Higgins.

Davis won in 1983 and 1984 before the famous black-ball final of 1985 which saw over 18 and a half million people tune in to see Dennis Taylor beat Davis.  Regarded as the closest final of all time the match finished at twenty past midnight.  The first in a long line of late finals.

Just as Davis dominated the 1980’s it was a young Stephen Hendry who took the sport by storm in the 1990’s.  Hendry won his first title at 21 in 1990, the first of seven in ten years.  Hendry remains the record world championship winner of the modern era.

The 2000’s saw the World Championship open up like never before.  Following the dynasties of Reardon, Davis and Hendry no less than nine players have shared the Championship from 2000 to 2016, of which five have been won by Ronnie O’Sullivan.  This period has also seen a further revival in the fortunes of the WC with popularity returning to 1980’s level, partly to do with foreign influence form the likes of China.

Mark Selby won his second title in three years in 2016 beating Ding Junhui, the first player of Chinese origin to reach a final.

Selby beat John Higgins 18-15 in a pulsating 2017 final which swung both ways, with a late rally from Higgins was not enough to prevent Selby winning the title again, his third overall and second in a row.  It was Higgins on the losing side in 2018 however in another pulsating final won by Mark Williams to claim his third title and first in 15 years.

John Higgins was also the loser in 2019, this time to Judd Trump who won the title for a long overdue first time.  Revenge for finishing runner up to John back in 2011.

2020 A Very Different Year

In 2020 the world championship was in doubt due to the spread of corona virus that resulted in a shut down for all major sports.  Fortunately the event was rescheduled for early August and went ahead largely behind closed doors, except for the final, where a limited number of spectators were allowed as a pilot.

The lack of a crowd produced some interesting snooker.  Some players struggled to raise the bar without people in the theatre where others were able to play more freely due to the practice game type atmosphere.

This resulted in John Higgins producing a 147 break in the second round, although he lost the game.  It also produced two of the best semi-finals ever, both going to a final frame decider.

It was Ronnie O’Sullivan who was able to adapt the best to the conditions, perhaps because he doesn’t care much either way about the whole situation given he plays his own game all of the time anyway.  He won his 6th World title beating Kyren Wilson 18-8 in a one sided final to now sit just one title behind Steven Hendry.

The Roaring 20’s

While the World Championship is steeped in history it is now seeing some changes in the type of players that are competing, with more non-British players than ever turning it into a truly global tournament.

The old guard are still dominating but there are easily now six or seven players each year that could comfortably win it. Both snooker and the World Championship are in rude health these days and for long may it continue.

The 2021 Championship was held at the end of the corona virus pandemic and started with reduced fans, although for the final a capacity crowd was allowed in.  Those fans that waited over a year to watch live snooker were not disappointed either as Mark Selby won his fourth title in eight years beating Sean Murphy 18-15 in a fantastic final.

Rocket Ronnie Matches All Time Great Hendry

DerHexer, Wikimedia Commons, CC-by-sa 4.0, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The debate around who is the greatest snooker player of all time is not something that can easily be settled but one thing you can guarantee is that both Ronnie O’Sullivan and Steven Hendry will be the mix.  In 2022 Ronnie finally matched one of the only remaining records Steven has by winning his 7th World Title beating single time Champion Judd Trump 18-13 in a final that he never really looked like he could lose.

He didn’t just match Hendry’s record for titles, at 46 he also became the oldest player to win at the Crucible, surpassing Ray Reardon who win at 45 years old in 1978.  It wasn’t a twilight swan song either as Ronnie took the number 1 in the world badge at the same time and frankly looks set to now beat Hendry’s record in the coming years.

2022 also saw the most century breaks at the tournament, 109 surpassing the 108 record set one year earlier.  It was also notable that Mark Williams and John Higgins made it to the semi-finals, showing the old ‘class of 1992’ is just as capable today as they ever were.

First Non-British Winner In 13 Years

Benutzer:Bill da Flute, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Belgian Luca Brecel had never progressed past the first round prior to 2023.  This time he won his first round match and then he knocked three time world champion and 2018 winner Mark Williams out in the second round. When Ronnie O’Sullivan took a 10-6 lead into the final session in the quarter final, however, everyone assumed that would be the end of the run.  It wasn’t and Brecel came back to put The Rocket’s fire out with a fantastic 13-10 turnaround.

That set the tone for the rest of the tournament with Brecel coming from 14-5 behind against Si Jiahui in the semis.  He banged out 11 frames in a row eventually winning 17-15.  This led to one of the best finals ever against three time champion Mark Selby.  Despite the usual brilliant play from Selby, often called the king of the Crucible, it was Brecel’s excellent potting that saw him come out on top winning 17-15, that was despite Selby making the first 147 break in a World Championship final.

At just 28 Brecel became the first ever Belgian to win the biggest title in snooker, he was also the youngest player to play in the Championship back in 2017 aged just 17.  This means he is only the fourth non-British player to win the event but it seems unlikely it will be his last.  Again another demonstration of the health of snooker globally.

The Crucible Theatre

The Crucible Theatre, or as most people call it The Crucible, is the most famous and iconic snooker venue in the world.  Fitting then that it has hosted the World Championship for 41 years in row now since 1977.

With a capacity of 980 it provides one of the largest largest crowds a snooker player will ever see.  The design of the multi-purpose theatre means spectators sit on three sides of the table with no one person more than 20 meters away form the table.

The grade two listed Sheffield building is a jewel in the crown for the city.  The venue was refurbished from 2007 to 2009, opening only for the World Snooker Championship.  The Crucible will continue to host the event until at least 2027.

Snooker World Championship Records and Statistics

Record Winners (Modern Era 1969-)

The table above shows players who have won the title on two or more occasions.

Player Facts

Championship Facts