The sport of professional snooker has had a world ranking system in place since 1976. Certain tournaments were given "ranking" status, with the results at those events contributing to a player's world ranking. The events that made up the 1976–77 snooker season were the first to use a ranking points system. Originally, the world rankings were decided based only on results in the World Snooker Championship, but other events were later added. The system used for the 2018–19 snooker season was first used in the 2010–11 season, where players won ranking points based entirely on prize money won from these events. The rankings are based on the prior two seasons, with eleven revisions after specific tournaments throughout the season. These revisions are used as official rankings, with points awarded in the current season overwriting those from two years prior.
Ranking list Revision dates Seedings for each event were based on the world rankings, with totals being updated at specific revision dates. On these dates, ranking points from the 2016–17 snooker season were removed from a player's total.
+Revision dates Revision point Date After 2016/2017 points dropped 1 30 July 2018 Riga Masters Riga Masters 2 13 August 2018 World Open World Open 3 1 October 2018 China Championship Paul Hunter ClassicIndian OpenShanghai Masters 4 8 October 2018 European Masters European Masters 5 22 October 2018 English Open English Open 6 19 November 2018 Northern Ireland Open International ChampionshipNorthern Ireland Open 7 10 December 2018 UK Championship UK Championship 8 4 February 2019 German Masters Scottish OpenGerman Masters 9 11 February 2019 World Grand Prix World Grand Prix 10 8 April 2019 China Open Welsh OpenSnooker Shoot OutPlayers ChampionshipGibraltar OpenChina Open 11 7 May 2019 World Championship World ChampionshipSources:
Seeding list The following table contains the rankings which were used to determine the seedings for following tournaments. Other provisional and unofficial rankings are produced after each ranking event which are not noted here. Blank fields indicate that the player was not active on the tour, or had no ranking. The names are initially sorted by the scores at the end of the season.