Three Disciplines, Three Rulebooks, Three Money Streams: Why Billiards Has Never Been One Sport

In the same week, two billiards events took place half a world apart but were both called by the same name. In Sheffield, a snooker player stepped up to the table with a champion's prize of half a million pounds waiting behind the electronic scoreboard. At an arena in Asia, a three-cushion carom player quietly scored points in a tournament whose total prize fund was only a fraction of that figure, before a packed stand that international television barely reached. Those two men have never touched the same kind of table. They do not use the same cue. They do not follow the same rulebook. And more importantly than all of that, they do not belong to the same governing system. Yet both are called professional billiards players. That is the greatest paradox of this sport. It is famous enough that everyone knows it, yet almost no one, including those inside the game, can define exactly what it is. And it is precisely that ambiguity that is reshaping the money, the titles, and the future of thousands of athletes around the world. One name, many sports When a Vietnamese fan says they are going to watch billiards, they could mean at least four entirely different things. It could be carom, played on a table with no pockets, with only three balls, and a goal of scoring by making the cue ball contact a set number of cushions before touching the other two balls. It could be pool, played on a six-pocket table with 15 numbered balls, where the winner is the one who pockets all their own balls first. It could be snooker, with 22 balls, the largest table, the smallest pockets, and the most complex rules. Or it could be Chinese billiards, a hybrid between pool and snooker that is booming across Asia. These four games share no common rule, table, cue, or even philosophy of play. But they share one common name. And that shared name is creating a problem far bigger than getting the label wrong: it leads the public, sponsors, and even governing bodies to believe they are talking about the same thing. The first consequence is confusion over scale. A snooker world championship can draw hundreds of millions of television viewers, mostly in the United Kingdom and China. A three-cushion carom world championship draws an audience concentrated in Europe, Vietnam, South Korea, and Turkey, with far more modest numbers. A professional pool event staged by Matchroom draws a younger, multinational audience tightly bound to streaming platforms. Three different audiences, three different business models, yet all counted under a single heading: billiards. The second consequence is a split in governance. There is no single world federation governing all of billiards. Snooker sits under the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association (WPBSA) and the World Snooker Tour system. Pool is dominated by the World Pool-Billiard Association (WPA) and increasingly leans toward Matchroom, which stages the major commercial events. Carom is run by the Union Mondiale de Billard (UMB). And Chinese billiards is controlled by the Chinese Billiards and Snooker Association (CBSA) and the equipment brand Joy. Four organizations, four ranking systems, four calendars, and four ways of splitting prize money. A player who wants to compete at the top of all four games would essentially have to live four different lives. A power map and the flow of money If you were to draw a power map of world billiards, you would see a clearly asymmetrical structure. Snooker is the game with the longest tradition, tied tightly to the United Kingdom, where the World Championship has been held at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield since 2026. It is also the game with the highest prize structure at the top. A snooker world champion receives around half a million pounds, a figure any other billiards discipline can only dream of. Pool is the game with the greatest commercial potential but also the most fragmented. For decades, professional pool events were split among multiple systems, forcing players to pick sides. The arrival of Matchroom, a group best known for boxing and darts, created a new axis, with events such as the World Pool Championship and the Mosconi Cup staged professionally, streamed globally, and paying out ever more. But even Matchroom has yet to unify the whole pool world. Carom is the game with the deepest tradition in Europe and Asia, especially in Vietnam, South Korea, Turkey, and several South American countries. It has an enormous grassroots player base, but its professional prize structure is far lower than that of snooker or pool. A carom world champion may receive a sum only a fraction of what a snooker player earns by reaching the semifinals. Chinese billiards is the newest and most controversial phenomenon. It is a variant developed by China, played on a large table close to snooker but with rules close to pool, with tournaments offering surprisingly high total prizes thanks to domestic capital. Its rise poses a question the world of billiards has yet to answer: is this the growth of the sport, or a separate market built to serve itself. When the money does not flow evenly The asymmetry in prize money creates a deep psychological and professional consequence. In snooker, even players ranked outside the world's top 64 can make a living from the game, however modestly. In carom, many of the world's leading players still have to teach, open clubs, or work as coaches to make ends meet. In pool, the gap between the top stars and the rest is an abyss. That gap is not merely a question of fairness. It is fertile ground for more serious problems. When a player competes at a high level but earns little, outside pressure, especially from betting networks, becomes far harder to resist than it is for someone who has already earned enough not to have to think about it. Billiards history has recorded many painful cases. In 2026, Scottish player John Higgins was accused of match-fixing after a newspaper published a recording. He was later cleared but still fined 75,000 pounds and lost part of his reputation. In 2026, English player Stephen Lee was banned for 12 years for fixing. And in 2026, a group of Chinese players including Liang Wenbo, Li Hang, Yan Bingtao, and Zhao Xintong were banned with varying sanctions, with Liang Wenbo and Li Hang receiving lifetime bans, after a lengthy investigation into irregular matches. What these cases share is not nationality or discipline. It is income structure. When prize money is too low in the early rounds, and when tournaments concentrate in just a few countries, the financial pressure on young players and those outside the top tier becomes crushing. Where Vietnam stands Vietnam is a special case in that picture. It has one of the strongest grassroots billiards scenes in Asia, with thousands of clubs across its major cities. But Vietnam's strength is concentrated almost entirely in one discipline: carom, especially three-cushion carom. Vietnamese players such as Tran Quyet Chien, Nguyen Duc Anh Chien, and Bao Phuong Vinh have repeatedly ranked among the world's best, winning major titles on the international stage. It is a proud achievement, but it also reveals a paradox: Vietnam is strongest in the discipline with the least money. Meanwhile, in pool, where the money is bigger and the young audience larger, Vietnam has also produced figures such as Duong Quoc Hoang and Nguyen Anh Tuan who have made their mark in international events. But the number of Vietnamese players competing professionally in pool remains modest relative to the potential. In snooker, Vietnam has almost no footing at all. This misalignment is no accident. It reflects the reality of infrastructure and cost. A carom table is far cheaper than a standard snooker table. A carom club can open in almost any residential area. Snooker, by contrast, demands a large table, ample space, and high operating costs. Economic conditions have quietly chosen the discipline for Vietnam. But the story does not stop there. As Chinese billiards booms with high prize money, and as pool becomes increasingly internationalized by Matchroom, pressure to shift is emerging. Many young Vietnamese players are starting to look toward pool in the hope of better income. It is a positive signal of opportunity, but also a warning about the risk of gradually losing standing in the discipline where Vietnam is strongest. The knot called identity The central question of world billiards is not how one discipline can beat the others. The central question is whether the sport needs a unified identity at all. For years, billiards administrators pursued the dream of bringing the game into the program of major multi-sport events, including the Olympic dream. But that dream ran into a basic obstacle: no one knows exactly which discipline to include. Snooker or pool. Carom or Chinese billiards. Choose one, and the others are left behind. Choose them all, and the sport becomes too unwieldy. That is why some experts argue that unifying billiards into a single sport could do more harm than good. Each discipline has its own community, its own rules, and its own culture. Merging them under one roof could blur the very features that have allowed them to survive. A contrarian view: fragmentation may be strength Here a counterintuitive view emerges. We tend to treat the fragmentation of billiards as a weakness, a sport with no leader, no shared rules, no single world championship. But looked at more closely, that very fragmentation is what has kept billiards alive for decades, while many other sports struggle to hold their appeal. Carom does not need snooker's recognition to grow in Vietnam. Pool does not need the UMB's permission to boom in the Philippines or Taiwan. Chinese billiards does not need the West's approval to attract millions of players at home. Each discipline finds its own market, and within that market it can thrive without being bound by the political calculations of a global federation. In other words, billiards cannot be unified because it does not need to be. The real problem is not that there are too many disciplines, but that the money flows too unevenly among them. A carom world champion deserves an income comparable to a snooker quarterfinalist, not because the two games are alike, but because both have reached the pinnacle of the profession. A neglected value chain Looking at billiards' value chain, many missing links come into view. At the lowest tier is the grassroots club system, which produces players, audiences, and culture. This is the tier that is strongest in Vietnam and Asia, yet the least professionally invested. In the middle is the national tournament system, which connects grassroots players to the international stage. This tier remains thin and lacking in continuity in many countries. At the top are the international events, where money and prestige concentrate. The problem is that the lower and middle tiers do not benefit proportionally from the growth of the top tier. When an international event brings in millions of dollars from sponsorship and broadcasting rights, most of that money stays with the organizers and the leading players. Very little flows back down to nurture youth development. This is also why many talented young players leave the game before they can reach the international stage. Not because they lack talent, but because they lack a path. A sport without a clear route from the local club to the world stage will always lose a large part of its potential. Vietnam's challenge For Vietnam, this challenge is especially timely. Vietnam possesses one of the region's largest billiards communities, a generation of world-class carom players, and a solid cultural foundation. But turning those advantages into a sustainable ecosystem requires more than isolated titles. It requires a professionally organized national tournament system, with a stable calendar and prize money sufficient for players to make a living. It requires a structured youth development pathway, connecting local clubs to high-level training centers. It requires transparency in management, to avoid the pitfalls world billiards has already stumbled into. And it requires a multi-discipline strategy, rather than focusing on a single game. Notably, Vietnam has an advantage many countries lack: a simultaneous presence in both carom and pool. If exploited well, this could be the foundation for a special regional standing, not as the strongest country in one discipline, but as the country with the most diverse billiards ecosystem. What lies ahead In the coming years, the world billiards landscape may shift in unpredictable directions. The rise of Chinese billiards with large prize money could pull a segment of professional players toward it. Matchroom's expansion in pool could create an almost closed tournament system, where only invited players get a chance. And the growth of streaming platforms could help disciplines rarely shown on television, such as carom, reach a global audience as never before. At the same time, governing bodies will continue to face pressure over integrity. As more money flows in, the risk of fixing rises with it. The 2026 cases in snooker are a warning that even the disciplines with the highest prize money are not immune to this scourge. For fans, this could be an exciting moment. They have access to more disciplines, more stars, and more stories than ever before. But for those who work in the game, it is also a moment of difficult choices: which discipline to choose, which market to choose, and what to trade off in order to survive. A final thought There is a truth the world of billiards has long known but rarely says out loud: the sport does not lack stars, does not lack audiences, and does not lack money. What it lacks is a structure fair enough for the money to reach the people who create the value. Fragmentation between disciplines is not the problem to be solved; the problem to be solved is the unfairness in how the shares are divided. For Vietnam, the opportunity lies in recognizing that its strength is not only in medals, but in a vast grassroots ecosystem, one that many billiards powers have lost in the course of professionalization. If it can turn that foundation into a structured system, Vietnam could become a model for a sport that has never been unified, but has always had room for those who know how to make the most of its diversity.