How many people play snooker?

[cueless]

Hello, snooker seems to be so popular these days. Has anyone got an idea how many world wide? i think it could be as high a 100 million but my friend thinks alot less, any ideas?

Also any ideas which countries snooker is most popular in?

Many thanks and enjoy the rest of the snooker.

[Belloz22]

to be honest it is very hard to put a figure on the amout of people who play snooker, their are many who play once a month, but i suppose the figure is hi, if you go by the viewing figures from the world championship finals, roughly anywhere from 8mil - 16mil can watch the final, so if only 3/4 played snooker that is 6-12 million from Britian alone, this is not including other countries.

Britain has always been the dominant force in the snooker scene with British players making up around 3/4 of the professional rankings (may be less now)
- however with the likes a Ding Junhi and Marco Fu getting television exposure, their home nations are starting to gather intrest in the sport, in China, snooker is the fastest growing sport, some Chinese schools even have compulsory snooker lessons.

So maybe 100mil could be a realistic figure

It goes to show why snooker is possible the most popular indoor sport