Snooker Shoot Out 2026: Rules, Dates, Tickets & How to Watch
Published · Mark O'Sullivan
The 2026 Shoot Out is at the Tower Circus in Blackpool Tower from 9 to 12 December 2026. Every match is a single frame lasting at most 10 minutes, played against a shot clock, and tickets start from £25. The winner takes £50,000, and the defending champion is Alfie Burden, who won it as an amateur.
The Shoot Out has been a full ranking event since 2017. In 2026 it is sponsored by TAOM, the chalk maker, and billed as the Taom Shoot Out. Blackpool hosts it for the second year running (it was also there from 2011 to 2015); Watford Colosseum, the venue in 2019, hosted it from 2017 to 2019.
The rules
- One frame per match, ten minutes maximum.
- Shot clock: 15 seconds a shot for the first five minutes, 10 seconds for the last five.
- Every shot must hit a cushion or pot a ball.
- Every foul gives the opponent ball in hand.
- The players lag for the break-off, and a tie is settled by a blue-ball shoot-out.
- The draw is made at random before each round.
Who plays
128 players: the professional tour plus amateur nominations from the WPBSA. Players who lose in the last 128 receive no ranking points.
Tickets
Tickets are sold through WST's See Tickets shop, linked from the Shoot Out ticket page, from £25.
How to watch in the UK
The 2025 Shoot Out was on TNT Sports, and the Shoot Out is one of the 16 events in TNT Sports' 2026 rights renewal, which streams on HBO Max (TNT Sports moved its streaming from discovery+ to HBO Max in March 2026). WST had not published its 2026 viewing guide when we checked.
Prize money 2026
| Round | Prize |
|---|---|
| Winner | £50,000 |
| Runner-up | £22,000 |
| Semi-finalists | £12,000 |
| Quarter-finalists | £6,000 |
| Last 16 | £3,000 |
| Last 32 | £1,500 |
| Last 64 | £750 |
| Last 128 | £250 |
| Highest break | £5,000 |
The total is £213,000, up from £171,000.
Recent winners
| Edition | Winner | Runner-up | Final (one frame) | Venue |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| December 2025 | Alfie Burden | Stuart Bingham | 63–8 | Blackpool |
| December 2024 | Tom Ford | Liam Graham | 31–28 | Leicester |
| December 2023 | Mark Allen | Cao Yupeng | 65–4 | Swansea |
| January 2023 | Chris Wakelin | Julien Leclercq | 119–0 | Leicester |
| January 2022 | Hossein Vafaei | Mark Williams | 71–0 | Leicester |
Burden's 2025 win is the Shoot Out's best story. He was an amateur and a late replacement, got the call at 9.30am on the first day, drove from London to Blackpool and won seven matches for his first ranking title, aged 48 and 30 years after he first turned pro. Other firsts: Reanne Evans became the first woman to win a Shoot Out match in January 2023, Shaun Murphy made the event's first 147 in December 2023, and Wakelin's 119 in 2023 is the only century ever made in a Shoot Out final.
A shot clock leaves no time to fiddle with your stance. If you want a quicker, more reliable set-up at the table, our snooker tips for beginners is a good place to start.
Sources
Checked on 30 October 2026. Dates and broadcasters can change; the official pages below have the final word.
- Shoot Out tournament page (WST)
- Shoot Out 2026 tickets (WST)
- Taom Shoot Out prize money increase (WST)
- Taom named Shoot Out sponsor (WST)
- Burden wins first ranking title at the Shoot Out (WST)
- How to watch the 2025 Shoot Out (WPBSA)
- Shoot Out rules and history (Wikipedia)
- TNT Sports: snooker rights renewed to 2030/31 (Warner Bros. Discovery)
- TNT Sports moves from discovery+ to HBO Max (Broadcast)