Sir Rodney Walker, World Snooker Chairman has announced that they have chosen Betfred, the independent UK bookmaker to sponsor the World Snooker Championship for the following four years. This popular tournament will now be known as the Betfred.com World Snooker Championship.

A number of snooker's top professional players will participate in this championship which will be televised live from Saturday April 18th and end on Monday May 4th at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield.  Amongst these players will be defending champion Ronnie O'Sullivan as well as seven-time winner Stephen Hendry which should result in this tournament being the highlight of the sporting calendar.

24.5 million adults watched at least five minutes of consecutive action when BBC Sport covered the tournament for 127 hours last year.   The tournament was watched by over 60 million people worldwide on Eurosport and 10 million people watched on CCTV5 in China alone.

The Founder and Chairman of Betfred said that it has always been his ambition to sponsor a World Championship and he was looking forward to watching the world's greatest 32 snooker players.

Sir Rodney Walker, World Snooker Chairman, is also thrilled that they have entered into a four year partnership with Betfred.com despite the current economic climate.