Key Differences in Snooker, Pool, and Billiards

As the senior wealth manager of Blacktower (US), LLC, a financial firm based in New York City, Bradley Hamilton handles cross-border tax and estate planning for UK nationals residing in the United States. Beyond his work in financial services, Bradley Hamilton has a strong interest in competitive games such as golf, tennis, and billiards.

Billiards is the most traditional form of a category of table-based cue games. Its later iterations, pool and snooker, have distinct differences in gameplay and equipment. For example, billiards is played with two cue balls and one target ball.

In pool, three to 15 balls may be in play, while in snooker, 22 balls, including the cue balls, are in play. While snooker tables are larger than other cue game tables, the balls are smaller. Pool tables and snooker tables have side pockets, which are absent in billiard tables. Each cue game has several varieties that follow different scoring rules.