Section 8: Safety Considerations
Snooker is a low-contact, non-collision cue sport, and the WPBSA's Official Rules of the Games of Snooker and English Billiards is chiefly a code of fair play and equipment integrity rather than a personal-injury safety manual. Even so, several provisions of the Rules exist to protect the fairness and physical safety of play at the table.
Equipment integrity. The requirement that a cue show no departure from "the traditional tapered shape and form" (Section 1, Rule 3), and that playing with a non-standard cue is itself a foul (Section 3, Rule 11(a)(xi)), guards against the use of implements that could behave unpredictably or unsafely. Section 3, Rule 20 places responsibility for any rest, extension, or adaptor brought to the table on the striker using it, and requires that such devices receive prior approval from the relevant governing body — preventing unvetted equipment from being introduced to a match in progress.
Table and ball condition. The tight manufacturing tolerances on ball diameter (±0.05 mm) and inter-ball weight (no more than 3 g difference across a set), set out in Section 1, Rule 2, keep the balls' behaviour consistent and predictable for both players. Section 3, Rule 11(b)(ix) makes it a foul to strike before any balls removed for cleaning have been returned to the table, ensuring the playing surface is fully reset — and therefore safe and fair to play on — before the next stroke.
Controlled handling of the cue-ball. The prohibition on push strokes (Section 2, Rule 19) and on the striker having both feet off the floor during a stroke (Section 3, Rule 11(a)(iii)) both constrain how forcefully and from what body position a player may strike the cue-ball, reducing the risk of an uncontrolled or mis-cued shot.
Conduct at the table. The Unsporting Conduct provisions of Section 4, Rule 1 — covering offensive gestures and wilfully disruptive behaviour — together with the referee's standing authority to intervene under Sections 2 and 3, maintain a controlled competitive environment. Broader player discipline and conduct matters are governed by the WPBSA's separately published Conduct Regulations and Members Rules, which sit outside the scope of the Rules of the Game itself and are not reproduced in this summary.