With 30+ years in racing and betting, Darren helps punters develop their skills. As OLBG’s Tipster boss and expert guide, he turns insight into winning strategy.
Riyadh Season Snooker Championship: Xintong the champion in Dubai
Zhao Xintong won the 2025 Riyadh Season Snooker Championship beating Neil Robertson, Judd Trump and Shaun Murphy along the way and picked up a winner's cheque for £250,000 plus an additional £5000 for making the highest break.
The Riyadh Season Snooker Championship took place at a different time of year for the 25/26 season with the event scheduled for the 19th to the 21st of November and takes place at the Global Theatre in Boulevard City, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
The event was televised for free by DAZN worldwide.
The field comprised the top ten players on the world rankings plus two local wildcards.
The ninth and tenth seeds (Ding Junhui and Shaun Murphy) will play the wild cards in the opening round and the winners of those matches will go on to face John Higgins and Ronnie O'Sullivan in Round Two.
All matches in this event were played over seven frames up to and including the semi-finals. The final was played over nine frames.
The Riyadh Season Snooker Championship saw the return of the innovative rule change for this event where a golden ball will be in play and the players have an opportunity to make a 167 break and pocket a cool $1,000,000!
WST have released a video, narrated by Jack Lisowski, which explains how the golden ball will be used.
OLBG's expert snooker tipsters will have tips on all the matches at the Riyadh Season Snooker Championship
Riyadh Season Snooker Championship 2025: Prizemoney
The Riyadh Season Snooker Championships is one of highest paid tournaments of the whole season:
- Winner: £250,000
- Runner-up: £125,000
- Semi-finalists: £75,000
- Quarter-finalists: £50,000
- Round two losers: £25,000
- Round one losers: £5000
- Golden Ball 167 Break: $1,000,000
Will there be a 167 break in the 2025 Riyadh Season Snooker Championship?
A couple of bookmakers are offering odds of 2/1 that a 167 break is achieved so is there any way of discerning if that is a value price or not?
The same bookmakers are offering odds of 6/4 on the chances of a traditional 147 so, by association, they feel that the odds of the person going on to pot the golden ball is 1/5. That seems a little short given the positioning of the golden ball but the question then is are the odds of 6/4 to score a 147 accurate? In the 2025 calendar year there have been twenty events and a 147 has been scored in twelve of them. Of course, this is a very blunt comparison given that most of those tournaments comprise of many more frames than are likely to take place in Riyadh but if you take those results at face value (12 147s from 20 possibilities) the odds of a 147 so far this year in each tournament have been 4/6.
2025 has seen a big increase in the number of 147s scored as our blog on maximum breaks illustrates.
Over the last five years the number of 147s per season breaks down like this:
- 2025 (so far): 23
- 2024: 14
- 2023: 9
- 2022: 11
- 2021: 8
Again, this is a rather blunt set of figures as it doesn’t take into account the number of frames and tournaments in each year but it does show that this season so far has been something of an outlier.
In the two previous renewals of this event the highest breaks have been 143 and 138 (both by Ding Junhui) but John Higgins did score fifteen reds and fifteen blacks in the first event only to miss out on the yellow.
Ronnie O’Sullivan is contracted to the Riyadh Season franchise and obviously felt inspired when playing in the other tournament in Riyadh earlier this year, the Saudi Arabia Masters, where he achieved two 147s in the same match.
The event organisers will be very keen for the 167 break to be made as undoubtedly the amount of press coverage the feat will achieve will be more than worth the $1,000,000 prize money they are putting up so it may be that the pockets are slightly more forgiving than usual.
All of this makes me feel that the 2/1 about the 167 break being made this week is just about worth a small bet and if any bookmaker offers a price about certain players making that break I would definitely be very interested in the price of Ronnie O’Sullivan.*
*Since this was written one firm has priced up Ronnie O'Sullivan at 12/1 to make a 167 break
Riyadh Season Snooker Championship 2025: Draw and Results
FInal - Best of nine frames:
- Neil Robertson v Zhao Xintong 2-5
Semi-FInals - Best of seven frames:
- Mark Allen v Neil Robertson 1-4
- Judd Trump v Zhao Xintong 3-4
Quarter-FInals - Best of seven frames:
- Mark Allen v John Higgins 4-2
- Kyren Wilson v Neil Robertson 0-4
- Judd Trump v Mark Williams
- Zhao Xintong v Shaun Murphy
Second Round - Best of seven frames:
- John Higgins v Ding Junhui 4-0
- Ronnie O'Sullivan v Shaun Murphy 0-4
First Round - Best of seven frames:
- Ding Junhui v Ayman Alamri 4-0
- Shaun Murphy v Ziyad Alqabbani 4-0
Riyadh Season Snooker Championship: Previous winners
Below is a table detailing the previous winners of the Riyadh Season Snooker Championship:
| Year | Winner | Runner-up | Score |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 November | Zhao Xintong | Neil Robertson | 5-2 |
| 2024 December | Mark Allen | Luca Brecel | 5-1 |
| 2024 March | Ronnie O'Sullivan | Luca Brecel | 5-2 |
Riyadh Season Snooker Championship December 2024: Draw and Results
Mark Allen knocked in two centuries on his way to a comfortable 5-1 victory over former World Champion, Luca Brecel, to collect the trophy and the £250,000 first prize.
Final - Best of nine frames
Luca Brecel v Mark Allen 1-5
Semi-Finals - Best of seven frames
Mark Williams v Luca Brecel 3-4
Ronnie O'Sullivan v Mark Allen
Quarter-Finals - Best of seven frames:
Ronnie O'Sullivan v Ding Junhui 4-0
Mark Selby v Mark Allen 2-4
Judd Trump v Mark Williams 3-4
Kyren Wilson v Luca Brecel 3-4
Round Two - Best of seven frames
Shaun Murphy v Ding Junhui 0-4
Luca Brecel v Zhang Anda 4-0
Round One - best of seven frames
Ding Junhui v Abdulraouf Sayegh 4-0
Zhang Anda v Ahmed Aseeri 4-0
World Masters March 2024: Draw and results
Round One: Best of seven:
Ding Junhui v Omar Alajlani 4-0
John Higgins v Ali Alobaidli 4-0
Round Two Best of seven:
Ali Carter v Ding Junhui 4-3
Mark Williams v John Higgins 2-4
Quarter Finals Best of seven:
Luca Brecel v Ali Carter 4-1
Mark Allen v Mark Selby 4-3 (decided on the final black)
Judd Trump v Shaun Murphy 4-3
Ronnie O'Sullivan v John Higgins 4-0
Semi-finals: Best of seven frames:
Luca Brecel v Mark Allen 4-2
Judd Trump v Ronnie O'Sullivan 1-4
Final - Best of nine frames:
Ronnie O'Sullivan v Luca Brecel 5-2
