One of the richest invitation events on the snooker schedule is back this week with the Riyadh Season Snooker Championship starting on Wednesday.
Boulevard City in Riyadh will once again host the controversial tournament that introduced the 20-point golden ball into the game.
There is a top prize worth £250,000 up for grabs, but any player who successfully pots the golden ball at the end of a 147 to make the sport’s first-ever 167 break will earn a jackpot $1,000,000 bonus.
Considering there have already been 14 maximum breaks this season and with a stellar field boasting ten of the best players in the world, there’s every possibility it could happen.
Riyadh Season Snooker Championship Prize Money
Champion: £250,000
Runner-up: £125,000
Semi-Finals: £75,000
Quarter-Finals: £50,000
Round of 10: £25,000
Round of 12: £5,000
167 Break: $1,000,000
Who is in the Riyadh Season Snooker Championship draw?
This is the third edition of the tournament, which was staged for the first time as the World Masters of Snooker in March last year when Ronnie O’Sullivan emerged with the trophy.
The event was renamed the Snooker Championship last December as Mark Allen managed to etch his name onto the silverware for the first time.
Both O’Sullivan and Allen will be back for another crack at glory, with betsio.com Casino and Sportsbook providing all the best snooker odds for the three-day event.
Both O’Sullivan and Allen will be back for another crack at glory, but the pre-tournament favourite in the outright betting market is Judd Trump, the world number one still in search of his first title of the calendar year.
Trump reached the final of the Champion of Champions at the weekend but lost to Mark Selby, who missed out on a spot in Riyadh by one spot in the rankings list.
The high-quality field, however, also includes reigning world champion Zhao Xintong and world number two Kyren Wilson.
Allen, Zhao, Trump, and Wilson represent the top four seeds and won’t enter the fray until the quarter-finals stage on Thursday alongside Neil Robertson and Mark Williams.
O’Sullivan and John Higgins are forced to enter a round earlier but await the outcome of the two first-round clashes that feature Ding Junhui and Shaun Murphy.
The latter pair will face a couple of Saudi Arabian amateurs who have been invited to participate as wildcards – Ayman Alamri and Ziyad Alqabbani respectively.
Considering the short best-of-seven format up until the final, it’s going to be difficult to predict an overall champion.
One would expect Ding and Murphy to easily get beyond their opening hurdles in the competition, but after that it will be a succession of could-be finals.
2025 Riyadh Season Snooker Championship
Times in UTC/GMT
Round of 12 (bo7)
Ding Junhui 4-0 Ayman Alamri
Shaun Murphy 4-0 Ziyad Alqabbani
Round of 10 (bo7)
John Higgins 4-0 Ding Junhui
Ronnie O’Sullivan 0-4 Shaun Murphy
Quarter-Finals (bo7)
Mark Allen 4-2 John Higgins
Kyren Wilson 0-4 Neil Robertson
Judd Trump 4-0 Mark Williams
Zhao Xintong 4-2 Shaun Murphy
Semi-Finals (bo7)
Mark Allen 1-4 Neil Robertson
Judd Trump 3-4 Zhao Xintong
Final (Bo9)
Neil Robertson 2-5 Zhao Xintong
How to watch
There are several options available to watch the upcoming snooker live, depending on your location.
Many of the popular betting sites provide live streaming of snooker events through signing up on their websites or apps.
Below is a full list of the official options, as published on the World Snooker Tour website:
Worldwide
WST Play (via free registration)
UK & Ireland
TNT Sports and discovery+
Mainland Europe
Eurosport and locally relevant streaming platforms
(discovery+ in Germany, Italy, and Austria. HBO Max in all other markets)
China
Huya.com
CBSA-WPBSA Academy WeChat Channel
CBSA-WPBSA Academy Douyin
Hong Kong China
Now TV
Malaysia
Astro
Philippines
Tap
Taiwan
Sportcast
Thailand
True Sport
Featured photo credit: WST
