Outside the cue sports industry, pocket billiards is almost exclusively referred to as "pool," due to a perhaps unfortunate association with the "poolrooms" where gamblers "pooled" their money to bet remotely ("off-track") on horse races.

Because these venues often provided billiard tables, the term "pool" became synonymous with billiards, and though the original "pool" game was played on a pocketless table, the name stuck to pocket billiards as it gained in popularity.

There are three major subdivisions of games within cue sports:

Carom billiards, referring to games played on tables without pockets, including among others balkline and straight rail, cushion caroms, three-cushion billiards and artistic billiards .

Pocket billiards (or "pool") generally played on a table with six pockets, including among others eight-ball (the world's most widely played cue sport), nine-ball, straight pool, one-pocket and bank pool .

Snooker, which while technically a pocket billiards game, is generally classified separately based on its historic divergence from other games, as well as a separate culture and terminology that characterize its play.