Internationally, the World Pool-Billiard Association and the World Eightball Pool Federation both publish rules and promote events. The World Pool-Billiard Association (WPA), the governing body of pool which has continental and national affiliates around the world, promulgates standardized rules as Pool Billiards - The Rules of Play. 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, 10 ball billiards rules although it has been eclipsed by snooker. Professional competition generally employs regulation tables, while the amateur championships of various leagues, including BCAPL, VNEA, and APA, use the seven-foot tables in order to fit more of them into the hosting venue. In most leagues, it is the breaker's opponent who racks the balls, but in some, players break their own racks. This is usually done with the players hitting their preferred cue ball simultaneously to the end of the table and returning to them.

Instead of pockets, holes are sunk into the table; 5 in a row across the far end of the table and four set in a diamond pattern in the rear half of the table. If the breaker fails to make a successful break-usually defined as at least four balls hitting cushions or an object ball being pocketed-then the opponent can opt either to play from the current position or to call for a re-rack and either re-break or have the original breaker repeat the break. The idea is to leave the balls safe by creating either a double baulk (both object balls in baulk), or the red in baulk with the cue-ball tight (frozen) to the top-side cushion. When in-hand, not hitting an object ball or cushion out of baulk before hitting a ball in baulk. Other cushion contacts are immaterial, except as prohibited below. If the cue stick strikes the cue ball more than once on a shot, or if the cue stick is in contact with the cue ball when or after the cue ball contacts an object ball, the shot is foul. After the coin flip, the lowest numbered ball on the table must be contacted first (i.e. the balls are shot in "rotation").

If playing in-hand and all balls on the table are in baulk, and contact is not made with any ball, this is a miss; 2 points are awarded to the opponent, who must play from where the balls have come to rest. The order of the balls should be random, with the exceptions of the 8-ball, which must be placed in the center of the rack (i.e., the middle of the third row), and the two back corner balls, one of which must be a stripe and the other a solid. If the striker then makes 15 consecutive hazards, the non-striker's ball is spotted, after the fifteenth hazard, in the Middle of the Baulk-line or, if that spot is occupied, on the right-hand corner of the "D", as viewed from baulk. 15. When a game is on, and the cue ball is touching another ball, it is declared ‘a touching ball.’ The striker in such a scenario is required to play the cue ball away from the ball it’s touching. If an object ball drops into a pocket "by itself" as a player shoots at it, so that the cue ball passes over the spot the ball had been on, unable to hit it, the cue ball and object ball are to be replaced to their positions prior to the stroke, and the player may shoot again.

13. After a cue ball jumps off the table, the incoming player must place the cue ball within the arc line and is not restricted to the position he keeps the ball within the arc. The most that can be scored in a single shot is therefore 10 - the red and the other cue ball are both potted via a cannon (the red must be struck first), and the cue ball is also potted, making a losing hazard off the red. Matches held under professional regulations include a rule forcing the player to execute a shot in a way to have his cue ball cross the baulk line, heading towards the baulk cushion, once between 80 and 99 points in every 100 in a running break. The rule has been increasingly adopted by amateur leagues. American-style eight-ball is played around the world by professionals and in many amateur leagues. Meanwhile, many amateur leagues - such as the American Poolplayers Association (APA) and its affiliate the Canadian Poolplayers Association (CPA), the Valley National Eight-ball Association (VNEA) and the BCA Pool League (BCAPL) - use their own rulesets which have slight differences from WPA rules and from each other.