The stripes were the last addition. The goal of eight-ball, which is played with a full rack of fifteen balls and the cue ball, is to claim a suit (commonly stripes or solids in the US, and reds or yellows in the UK), pocket all of them, then legally pocket the 8 ball, while denying one's opponent opportunities to do the same with their suit, and without sinking the 8 ball early by accident. Bank pool can be played with a full rack (can be a long game), but is more typically played with nine balls (frequently called "nine-ball bank"). The balls are racked in nine-ball formation, Billiards and Pool but in no particular order. This is the only pocket into which that player can legally pocket balls. A typical game might require a player to score 100 points to win. Supposedly, participants would put an equal amount of money into a pot and throw stones at a live chicken, and the person who successfully hit the chicken first would win the pooled money. To see who will be the starting player, players perform a lag, where both simultaneously hit a cue ball up the table, bouncing it off the top cushion so that it returns to baulk (the first quarter-length of the table).

Losing hazard (in-off in snooker terms) - striking one's cue ball so that it hits another ball and then enters a pocket: 3 points if the red ball was hit first; 2 points if the other cue ball was hit first; 2 points if the red and the other cue ball are hit simultaneously. The other cue ball remains off the table until the opponent's first turn, when they play in hand from the "D". There is one exception to this rule: if the non-striker's ball is off the table as a result of the final stroke of the non-striker’s last turn. The organization compounds the words to result in an acronym of "WPA", "WPBA" having already been taken by the Women's Professional Billiards Association. A Professional Billiard Players Association (PBPA) was formed on 26 July 1946, with Joe Davis as chairman. Founded as the Professional Billiard Players Association (PBPA) in 1946, with Joe Davis as chairman, it was revived in 1968 after some years of inactivity and renamed the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association in 1970. Its current chairman is Jason Ferguson. Played on pool or snooker tables, players must complete a set number of shots of varying difficulty.

World Disability Billiards and Snooker (WDBS) is a subsidiary company of the WPBSA set up in 2015 with a remit to create opportunities for people with disabilities play cue sports. The goal is to reach a set number of points determined by agreement before the game. If a foul occurs, two points are awarded to the opposing player who has the choice of playing from where the balls lie or they can be respotted. If the red is potted it is respotted on the spot at the top of the table (the black spot). Pool is the name given to a series of cue sports played on a billiard table. In 2019, World Snooker announced that there would be a ranking event in Saudi Arabia in 2020, the first in a ten-year series. English pyramid pool and life pool players were the first to adopt balls with different colors. Rotation games require players to make legal contact with the lowest numbered ball on the table or a foul is called. Cowboy pool and bottle pool are games involving only a few balls which are placed at specific spots on the table.

Bottle pool shares traits with pin billiards games such as Danish pin billiards. It was established as a limited company in 2011, with all shares owned by the WPBSA. The WPBSA owns a 26 per cent share of World Snooker Ltd, which organises the professional World Snooker Tour. World Snooker Tour is responsible for running and administrating snooker's ranking and non-ranking professional circuit. It also became favored in British colonies; the game's longest-running champion was an Australian, Walter Lindrum, who held the World Professional Billiards Championship from 1933 until his retirement in 1950. The game remains popular in the UK, although it has been eclipsed by snooker. In the 19th century and up through the mid-1950s, a common way for championship titles to change hands was by a challenge match. A challenge was issued to a championship title holder accompanied by stake money held by a third party. The first champion was Jonathan Kentfield, who held the title from 1820 to 1849, losing it to John Roberts Sr. after Kentfield refused his challenge. The red ball is placed on the spot at the top of the table (same as the black spot in snooker) and the first player begins by playing in-hand from the "D" behind the baulk line.