List of snooker ranking tournaments

In snooker, some tournaments are used for the official system of ranking professional players, which determines automatic qualification and the seedings for the events that belong to the World Snooker Tour.^[1] These tournaments also allow players to gain more ranking points based on the results.^[1] They are regarded as "ranking tournaments" or "ranking events".^[1]

The World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association, the governing body for professional snooker, first published official world rankings for players on the main tour for the 1976–77 season. Before this, the defending champion was seeded first and the previous year's runner-up second for each tournament.^[2][3][4] For the 1976–77 season, players' performances in the previous three World Snooker Championships (1974, 1975, and 1976) contributed to their ranking points total.^[4] This has led to the 1974 edition of the World Championship being regarded as the first ranking tournament in history.^[1] Ray Reardon defeated Graham Miles 22–12 in the final.^[5]

The same rudimentary system was used for a number of years, until the rankings for the 1983–84 season included performances in two additional tournaments—the International Open and the Professional Players Tournament—held during the 1982–83 season.^[6][7] The UK Championship became a ranking tournament in 1984.^[8] The calendar of the 2025–26 season included as many as 18 ranking tournaments.^[9] In the 1992–93 season, and from 2010–11 to 2015–16, a number of events were classified as "minor-ranking tournaments".^{[citation needed]} These contributed to the world rankings but to a lesser degree than the standard ranking tournaments.^[1] From 2010 to 2016, the minor-ranking events were all part of the Players Tour Championship, regarded as a "second-tier" tour.^[10] The tournaments belonging to that system, discontinued in 2016,^[10] are not included in this list.

As of the 2026 World Snooker Championship, a total of 460 ranking tournaments have been held.^[1] A total of 82 players have claimed at least a ranking tournament trophy. ^[11] Ronnie O'Sullivan is the most prolific champion, having won 41 ranking titles, followed by Stephen Hendry with 36 and John Higgins with 33.^[11] Several countries have hosted at least one ranking tournament: Australia, Austria, Bahrain, Belgium, Canada, China, England, France, Germany, Gibraltar, Hong Kong, India, Ireland, Latvia, Malta, Netherlands, Northern Ireland, Romania, Saudi Arabia, Scotland, Thailand, Turkey, United Arab Emirates (Dubai), and Wales.^[1]