Northern Ireland Open Snooker 2025 Predictions: Will it be feast or famine for Home Boy?

The World Snooker Tour continues to the fabulous city of Belfast this week, as the Northern Ireland Open takes place.

Play gets underway on Sunday and our expert snooker tipster Craig Edwards (@EdwardsTips_) has three each-way selections for us, so here are his Northern Ireland Open Snooker 2025 Predictions...

History, Location and Format

The Northern Ireland Open is the 10th running of this event, having been introduced to the WST back in 2016. The competition forms part of the four-part Home Nations Series, with players competing for the Alex Higgins Trophy.

The magnificent Waterfront Hall in Belfast is once again the host venue, with the tournament running from Monday, October 19, through to Sunday, October 26. The action will be broadcast live on TNT Sports and discovery+.

There have only been five winners of this event, with Judd Trump a four-time winner and hometown hero Mark Allen winning it back-to-back in recent years. The defending champion is Kyren Wilson, who beat Trump 9-3 in the 2024 final.

Prize Money

Northern Ireland Open Snooker Odds

1 pt Mark Allen each-way (1/2 - 2 Places) @ 12/1

Northern Ireland’s Mark Allen has had a love-hate relationship with his home event for the last decade.

In the early years of the event, the 39-year-old from Antrim felt the pressure of home expectations, and he was barely able to win a match.  Once he did finally negotiate the initial stages, he went on to win back-to-back titles in 2021 and 2022.

Since then, Allen has only won one match in the interim years, begging the question: Will it be a feast or famine at the Waterfront Hall this year in front of his adoring fans?

Peculiarly, this year Allen is also in a period of feast or famine, winning the first Home Nations event of the year, the English Open, but surprisingly, he has since come unstuck in the early rounds of two events, to Oliver Lines and Mitchell Mann.

Certainly, Allen has a tricky opener against Rob Milkins, a player coming into form and under the threat of losing his tour card, and pertinently with a particularly good record against Allen.

Nevertheless, Mark Allen’s price is value if he can negotiate the tricky opener, with a huge upside of being a proven winner and closer of tournaments, especially pre-Christmas during his illustrious career.

0.5 pts Zhou Yuelong each-way (1/2 - 2 Places) @ 50/1

Zhou Yuelong is once again a standout selection for this week’s Northern Ireland Open.

Regular readers of the Betfred column will know he landed plenty of each-way profits at the first home nations event, the English Open at 66/1.

Then we took the 27-year-old Chinese star in last week’s Xi’an World Grand Prix, where he once again looked in good nick, despite losing to the evergreen Mark Williams, who went on to lift the title.

Yuelong has history in Belfast, where he was a losing runner-up to Mark Allen in 2022, and given his stats for the current season, there is every reason to believe that Yuelong is in the year’s top 10 performers despite his ranking.

An awkward-looking last 32 match versus Neil Robertson is a worry, but the Aussie has an unusually poor record in Belfast, and his presence in our draw brings the value in Zhou Yuelong’s price.

0.5 pts Anthony McGill each-way (1/2 - 2 Places) @ 66/1

1 pt Anthony McGill to beat Judd Trump @ 5/2

The pick of the opening round clashes for the first round is the four-time Northern Ireland Open champion, Judd Trump against Anthony McGill.

McGill just reached the British Open final in his penultimate start, so he is in good form, but the same cannot be said of Trump, who is enduring the most difficult spell of his career for over eight seasons.

There have been substantial changes for Trump, with a new cue, and move to Hong Kong, along with a special person in his life. For many years, Trump has been single-minded in pursuit of titles, with him and his brother Jack travelling the globe accumulating titles, but at 36, the time has come for a change.

It is possible, his game may never be as consistent at the top of the sport because there is only one way to go after so long at the pinnacle of a sport, and currently, he has yet to get further than the quarter-finals of any event this season.

Playing such an accomplished performer as Anthony McGill is the worst possible timing for Trump, and we are supporting the Scot to beat Trump and at small stakes in the outright market.

Please keep stakes sensible with most of these selections being big prices and enjoy the snooker.

Check out the rest of our Snooker Betting Tips over at Betfred Insights.