World Snooker Championship 2024 Odds: Mark Allen to win the big one

The snooker season concludes this week, with the biggest and most prestigious event in the sport. As always we have our snooker expert Dean Strand (@DSSnookerTips) on hand, with his comprehensive preview and World Snooker Championship Predictions.

History, Location and Format

The World Snooker Championship is not only the most prestigious event in Snooker but is also the longest-running, dating back to 1927. It is also the richest tournament in the sport with a prize pot just shy of £2.5m. The tournament is being held at the iconic Crucible Theatre in Sheffield for the 48th consecutive year.

Brothers Joe and Fred Davis dominated the early years of the event winning the championship a respective 15 and eight times. In the modern era there have been several other multiple champions including Stephen Hendry, Ronnie O'Sullivan (both seven times), Steve Davis, Ray Reardon (six), John Higgins, Mark Selby (four), Mark Williams and John Spencer (both three).

The defending champion is Belgian Luca Brecel, who beat Mark Selby 18-15 in the 2023 final.

Prize Money

128 players battled out last week in qualifying to join the 16 seeds in the first round and with seven former ranking event winners qualifying, not even including the likes of last year's semi finalist Si Jiahui and multiple ranking event finalist Jack Lisowski, this is arguably the strongest ever group of qualifiers.

Neil Robertson is one notable omission from the draw, after he fell to a deciding frame defeat to Jamie Jones in the final qualifying round.

1 pt - Mark Allen to win - 10/1

For my first outright pick I'm sticking with a player I've backed on numerous occasions this season in Mark Allen.

Allen has adapted his game more over the last couple of seasons and shown huge improvements in his safety game. At last seasons World Championship he showed these improvements to reach the semi final stage for the first time since 2009, where he was narrowly beaten 17-15 to Mark Selby.

With Judd Trump, Ronnie O’Sullivan and Mark Williams all in the other half of the draw he has a great chance for another deep run in this event. His 2nd round match will be a potential clash against John Higgins who he’s beaten in three out of five matches this season, including their only two session match, winning 10-7 in the Tour Championship.

With three trophies to his name this season, the Shootout, Players Championship and the Champion of Champions, he’s been the standout player from this half of the draw and odds of 10/1 for him to go all the way look a good price to me.

0.5 pts Pang Junxu each-way (1/2, 2 Places) - 100/1

1 pt - Pang Junxu to win Quarter 1 - 12/1

Quarter 1 looks pretty wide open to me and you could make a case for a lot of these players, but at these odds I’m going to back Pang Junxu to win the quarter, as well as an each way bet for the trophy outright.

Luca Brecel is seeded first as defending Champion, but at 16/1 I don’t see much value in the ‘Belgian Bullet’. He is often very unpredictable and before last year's shock win, he’d never won a match at the Crucible. Although he went on some amazing runs last year, his attacking style does leave him very vulnerable if he’s not on the top of his game and this season he’s struggled for large periods, finishing 37th on the one year list.

Pang Junxu made his Crucible debut last year and had the toughest draw possible, meeting Ronnie O’Sullivan in the first round. He made a poor start losing the first five frames but once he settled he looked the better player for long periods, eventually losing a respectable 10-7 and outscoring the ‘Rocket’ in the end.

This year he faces a much easier first round draw, facing the lowest ranked seed Robert Milkins. Milkins is 16th in the rankings but that is mainly due to last season’s performances. He hasn’t done a lot of note this season and his history at the Crucible hasn’t been amazing either, having never progressed past the last 16.

If Pang makes it past Milkins in a match he’s favourite to win he’ll face Brecel or David Gilbert. His two previous head to heads against Brecel have both gone to deciders and his only meeting against Gilbert was also a very close one.

1 pt - Jak Jones to win Quarter 3 - 14/1

In Quarter 3 Jak Jones looks worth backing to me. He made his Crucible debut last season and looked very comfortable here with wins over Ali Carter and Neil Robertson to reach the quarter finals, where he was beaten in a close match by Mark Allen.

He hasn’t followed it up with a lot this season but there are a handful of players who have a habit of saving their best for Sheffield and his performance against Zhou Yuelong on Judgement Day looked like he could be hitting form at the right time again, with nine half centuries in the match, winning the last eight frames in a row from 4-2 to comfortable qualify.

I wouldn’t expect any easy matches in this quarter but he showed last year he’s capable of beating very good players here and odds of 14/1 for him to win three matches look worth a punt.

0.5 pts Gary Wilson each-way (1/2, 2 Places) - 33/1

Quarter 4 is where we find tournament favourite and World Number 1 Ronnie O’Sullivan. It’s easy to make a case for Ronnie and it certainly wouldn’t be a surprise to see him lift the trophy for the eighth time, but I still don’t see a lot of value in him at these odds.

His last win did seem to take a lot out of him mentally and last year after a good start he did run out of steam in the quarter finals, losing seven frames in a row against Brecel from 10-6 up.

If he does lose this week I'd expect it to be in one of the earlier rounds and one player capable of taking advantage of that would be Gary Wilson. Wilson showed he has what it takes to give Ronnie a tough match in the recent Tour Championship, with the 2 tied at 7-7 before three good breaks from O’Sullivan ended the match.

Wilson will be confident this week after his best ever season, winning two ranking events and he’s shown he can go far at the Crucible before, beating Brecel, Selby and Carter in 2019 to reach the semi finals here.

Check out the rest of our Snooker Betting Tips here including Dean's daily World Championship picks.