The Masters Betting Guide

The Masters remains snooker’s second-longest running tournament behind the iconic World Championship.

To this end, it has been contested by the world’s top-ranked players every year since 1975, and is one of the sport’s three Triple Crown events along with the worlds and the UK Championship.

Forming part of our snooker betting guide, we’ll take a closer look at this iconic tournament while exploring some Masters snooker betting markets and expert tips.

The Best Masters Snooker Betting Sites

Here at Betinireland, we offer access to a wide range of reputable sportsbooks, each of whom offer Masters snooker odds and markets.

However, we’ve outlined the top four online operators below, so you can select the right one to suit your needs.

Best Masters Snooker Irish Betting Site – BoyleSports

If you’re going to engage with Masters snooker betting, there’s no doubt that the Irish-based sportsbook BoyleSports should be one of your first ports of call.

Make no mistake; BoyleSports offer comprehensive coverage of more than 40 different sports, while it provides a particularly large range of markets associated with Masters snooker. The site also offers particularly competitive ante-post prices for the event, while such odds are usually published early and well ahead of time.

New BoyleSports customers can also qualify for a welcome offer that comprises a €20 free when they credit their account with a deposit of €10 or more. This wager can be deployed across all Masters snooker betting markets, so long as you choose outcomes with odds of 2.0 or higher.

• www.begambleaware.org

Best Masters Snooker Free Bet Offer – Bet365

If it’s the welcome bonus that remains a deal-breaker when selecting online sportsbooks, we’d definitely recommend that you check out Bet365.

In addition to offering a wide selection of Masters snooker bets, the sportsbook is also running a 100% deposit match bonus up to the value of €50. This can reward you with one or more free bets to place on the Masters tournament, so long as the wagers in question boast minimum odds of 1.50 or higher.

This is definitely suitable for high-rollers or frequent bettors, who can realise the full value of the bonus during one of their favourite snooker tournaments.

• www.begambleaware.org

Best Masters Snooker In-Play Betting Site – Betway

Micro or in-play betting is now popular across a wide range of sports, and snooker is no exception to this rule. From this perspective, Betway is one of the best live Masters snooker betting sites, particularly when you consider its capacity to live stream matches throughout the tournament.

At Betway, you can wager on a huge selection of in-play bets, from identifying the winner of the next frame to predicting which coloured ball will be the first to be potted. You can even wager on which player will be the next to be snookered or make a century, so there really is something to keep fans interested at every turn.

Betway’s welcome bonus takes the form of a free bet offer up to the value of €30 and depending on the size of your deposit (between €5 and €30). You can then place your Masters Snooker bet on any outcome with odds of 1.75 or greater, while there are no wagering requirements in play here.

• www.begambleaware.org

Best Masters Snooker Betting Site – Ladbrokes

Last, but not least, we come to Ladbrokes, which is considered to be one of the best sites when it comes to Masters snooker betting odds.

Certainly, Ladbrokes is renowned for offering highly competitive ante-post and in-play odds, while it tends to publish its outright prices very early and drive enhanced-odds promotions for events such as the Masters.

As a new Ladbrokes customer, you can also qualify for a welcome offer worth €20 when you credit their account with a minimum of €5. This bonus comprises four free €5 bets, each of which must be deployed on outcomes with odds of 1.50 or above. You can check the bonuses precise terms and conditions to find out more.

• www.begambleaware.org

Masters Snooker Betting Odds for 2023

The Masters is always one of the first events of the calendar year and the 2022 edition of the tournament ran between January 9th and the 16th. As you can imagine, it's too early for the sportsbooks to published their 2023 odds, both for the outright markets and matches.

We’ll continue to update this section prior to the start of the next event, so you can keep up to date with how the prices are fluctuating in the build-up to the 2023 Masters.

Masters Snooker Predictions

Since the next tournament will be taking place in 2023, we will be publishing our expert predictions closer to date. These future predictions will have a preview and link to the prediction in this section. Watch this space!

Masters Snooker Betting Markets

Aside from outright Masters snooker betting, there’s also a wide range of wagering options associated with this event.

We’ve outlined some of the most popular betting markets below, while asking what sets these wagers apart?

Handicap Betting

Handicap betting can be difficult to get right when betting on the snooker Masters, not least because this invitational event boasts a relatively small and highly competitive field.

Although this means that there are very few mismatches at any stage of the event, you’ll usually find at least one or two opportunities for handicap betting during the first round. This is particularly true in instances where one or more top 16-ranked players are unavailable and replaced by less able competitors.

With this type of wager, you’ll have to carefully identify such matches and apply a –3.5 frame (or larger) handicap to the relevant short-price favourite. In this case, so long as your selection wins by a margin of four frames or more, the bet will come in and you’ll bank relatively higher returns.

Of course, all of your individual selections have to come in if the bet is to be successful, which is why you’ll need to be selective when structuring the wager.

Over/Under Betting

Over/under betting is also highly popular at the Masters tournament, with this type of wager most commonly used when predicting the winning margin in a particular match.

For example, when betting on the Masters final (which is the best-of-19 frames), you could wager on one player to win by a margin of 3.5 frames or more. You can also bet on the winning margin without backing a particularly player to win, agruably increasing your chances of success while shortening the odds accordingly.

However, it’s also possible to engage in over/under markets that relate to the number of frames played in a match. When betting on a best-of-11 first round match, for example, you could wager that the contest will be settled in under 8.5 frames. So long as the match is subsequently won before the ninth frame starts (which may be likely when better players face lower-ranked operators), your bet will be successful.

Match Betting

From a broader perspective, individual match betting is another highly popular snooker Masters market. This is certainly one of the most simplistic bet types, and one that may be particularly appealing to casual fans and punters alike.

The reason for this is simple; as this represents an even-money bet where you simply have to bet on the outright winner of a match, with the draw eliminated due to the knockout nature of the Masters and snooker as a whole.

Match betting also enables you to leverage your knowledge of the sport and two participating players, affording you a small but competitive edge against the sportsbook in question.

Masters Snooker Betting Tips

With these markets in mind, the next step is to leverage them to their full potential by placing informed bets that can maximise your bankroll.

The team at Betinireland can help in this respect, and we’ve prepared some expert Masters snooker betting tips for your attention!

Avoid Acca or Combination Masters Betting

While accumulator or combination betting is popular in snooker tournaments such as the World Championship, it may be a little less effective during the Masters.

This is thanks to the smaller and slightly more competitive nature of the field, which means that there are less matches to include in your wager and those that are played tend to be closer and more keenly-contested overall.

Remember, the key to successful acca and combination betting is to combine short-price favourites in a single wager at extended odds, as each selection must come in if you’re to be successful. So, once you’re forced to include tighter matches where there’s no obvious favourite, the bet begins to offer considerably less value.

Don’t Ignore Historical Performance

Form is undoubtedly a key consideration when engaging in Masters snooker betting, with players such as Neil Robertson and Judd Trump playing particularly well.

However, it’s also important to bear historical performance in mind when betting on the snooker Masters, with some players known to have an affinity with the event and reserve some of their best performances for the tournament.

London-born Ronnie O’Sullivan has won seven Masters crowns and appeared in 13 finals to date, for example, while world number one Mark Selby has also won three titles since 2008. Defending champion Yan Bingtao is also one to watch after becoming the youngest Masters’ winner since O’Sullivan in 1995.

Understand the Impact of Live Betting

As we’ve already touched on, live betting is now a staple of snooker wagering and widely used during tournaments such as the Masters.

However, the nature of in-play and micro betting means that you’ll have the opportunity to place a high volume of small wagers within a relatively short period of time, placing pressure on your bankroll and potentially encouraging you to spend more than you can afford to lose in the process.

So, you need to recognise this as a punter by apportioning a fixed percentage of your bankroll for in-play betting and ensuring that you never exceed this. This will require planning and no little discipline, but it can help you to make the most of your betting experience over time.

The Masters Snooker Format

The Masters format has been largely unchanged since 1984, with this invitational event welcoming the top 16 players in the world-rankings to compete for a £250,000 prize and one-third of snooker’s coveted Triple Crown.

There have been some variations through the years, of course, including the so-called “wild-card” round that ran from 1990 to 2010 and pitted the 15th and 16th ranked players against two randomly selected competitors from outside of the top 16.

Similarly, there are occasions where the top 16 players have been unable or unwilling to play and subsequently replaced by lower-ranked competitors. This was borne out, for example, in 2020 when Judd Trump and Jack Lisowski tested positive for Covid-19 and were forced to withdraw from the event and initial replacement Anthony McGill (ranked 17th) refused to travel.

The event itself follows a simple knockout format, with the eight first-round and four quarter-final matches played over the best-of-11 frames. The two semi-finals are also best-of-11 encounters, before the last two men standing to compete in the prestigious, best-of-19 frames final.

As usual, the defending Masters champion (in this case Neil Robertson) will be seeded first, while world champion Mark Selby most likely will enter the event as the top-ranked player and the second seed overall.

The 2023 Tournament Schedule

The official dates for the 2023 Cazoo Masters tournament are the 8th - 15th January 2023. Fans can catch the action in person at Alexandra Palace and watch the 16 greatest snooker players battle for the top spot. Excitingly, as full capacity is expected for the event, this means up to 2,200 people will in the audience cheering for their favourite player.

As the next tournament is just out of sight at the moment, the official player list isn't currently available. You can be sure that we'll update this page with the information as soon as the information is known.

The 2022 Tournament Fixtures and Results

We've published the full 2022 Masters tournament schedule below, as well as the frames won by each player. The names in bold denote the winner of each match. All rounds of the tournament are played as best-of-11 frames, apart from the final which increases to the best-of-19 frames.

Seeded Players

Below is the full list of players that participated in the 2022 tournament, along with their seeding information prior to the tournament.

• Yan Bingtao (1)
• Mark Selby (2)
• Judd Trump (3)
• Ronnie O'Sullivan (4)
• Neil Robertson (5)
• Kyren Wilson (6)
• Shaun Murphy (7)
• John Higgins (8)
• Mark Williams (9)
• Zhou Xintong (10)
• Barry Hawkins (11)
• Mark Allen (12)
• Stephen Maguire (13)
• Jack Lisowski (14)
• Stuart Bingham (15)
• Anthony McGill (16)

First Round

Quarter-Finals

Semi-Finals

Final

Masters Snooker Top Players

A lot of action is yet to happen during this year, however, there are four clear front-runners in the quest to win the 2023 Masters tournament. We’ve taken a closer look at these competitors to see who’s likeliest to prevail in 2023.

Judd Trump

We’ll start with current world number three and 2019 champion Judd Trump, who now has 23 ranking event titles to his name and will likely enter the 2023 Masters with a low seed. The ‘Juddernaut’ was in sparkling form as he won his first-ever Champion of Champions titles in November 2021, although he did recently lose in the last-16 of the World Grand Prix to the unfancied Tom Ford.

Mark Selby

While Selby is a three-time Masters winner, his last title at the event came back in 2013. Although he subsequently reached the 2014 final (losing 10-4 to Ronnie O’Sullivan), he has failed to challenge seriously since, despite subsequently winning four world titles. Selby doesn’t enter the tournament in his very best form, although he did reach the semi-finals of the World Grand Prix before losing to Aussie Neil Robertson.

Neil Robertson

Three-time finalist and 2012 Masters winner Robertson enjoyed an excellent 2021/2022 season. Although he was defeated in the World Grand Prix final, he prevailed at the coveted English Open at the beginning of November 2021. He also won the Players Championship after beating Barry Hawkins 10-4 and 10-5 respectively.

Ronnie O’Sullivan

And now for seven-time Masters winner Ronnie O’Sullivan, who has a current world number two ranking. The ‘Rocket’ loves playing in front of his home crowd in London, although his last title actually came four years ago in 2017. Worryingly for his rivals, he ended a 16-month title drought by winning the 2021 World Grand Prix. He has a whopping 38 ranking titles to his name and over 1000 century breaks.

Previous Winners

Three of O’Sullivan’s seven Masters titles have come since 2012, with the Rocket prevailing in 2014, 2016 and 2017.

But which other players have lifted the coveted title during the last decade? Here’s a quick glance at the most recent winners and their vanquished final opponents.

FAQ