Snooker is a veritable sporting colossus, standing astride the four corners of the globe and attracting huge numbers of active participants and TV spectators in every continent. Of course, it wasn’t always this way. Snooker is just one variant of a number of different cue sports that gradually developed in Europe over the last few hundred years. Ironically, it was in India that the most successful variant of all, the modern game of snooker, first emerged, albeit as an import of the British army. English cue sports manufacturer Riley has a history that stretches back almost to those days and there are some things that have changed little over the years of the company’s existence – their commitment to making the best tables they possibly can, for example. However, they’re not afraid to let technology lend them a hand in the meticulous and demanding job of creating and assembling world-class snooker and pool tables. The most obvious example of this is in their use of precision laser-cutting machines. These are needed to cut the slabs of Italian slate used in making the table’s ‘playfield’. It is crucial that they are perfectly flat and even and so pinpoint accuracy is a must.