Embassy, a British cigarette company, sponsored the tournament, and the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association (WPBSA) governed the organisation of the event.

The defending champion Steve Davis had defeated Doug Mountjoy with a score of 18–12 in the previous year's final.

Alex Higgins won his second world title by defeating Ray Reardon 18–15 in the final.

Ten century breaks were made during the tournament, the highest of which was a 143 scored by Willie Thorne.

[1] Snooker was founded in the late 19th century by British Army soldiers stationed in India.

In more modern times, the sport has transferred to being played worldwide, specifically in Southeast Asia, such as in China, Thailand and Hong Kong.

[3] Joe Davis won the first World Championship, held in 1927 at Camkin's Hall in Birmingham, England.

[6] Thirty-two professional players competed in one-on-one single-elimination matches that were played over several frames.

[14]: 14–15  Defending champion Steve Davis was the bookmakers' favourite to win the tournament, with odds of 2/5.

[15] However, he lost his opening match 1–10 to Tony Knowles,[16] who won the first and second frames after Davis twice failed to pot the final black ball.

[20]: 148 [21] Wilson, who had been taking medication for a viral infection prior to the first round, was feeling unwell and lost six consecutive frames in the second session.

[22] Dennis Taylor had lost one of his contact lenses the previous week and played without eyewear.

[19] Eight-time champion Fred Davis, the event's oldest competitor at the age of 68, lost 7–10 to Dean Reynolds, who at 19 was the youngest participant.

[19][23] Ray Reardon faced Jim Donnelly, the first Scottish player to play at the Crucible, and built a 6–3 lead over him.

[24] Terry Griffiths, the bookmakers' next favourite after Steve Davis's elimination, led 4–2 but finished his first session behind 4–5 to Willie Thorne, who had never won a match in his six earlier Crucible appearances.

[25] Doug Mountjoy defeated Rex Williams, the reigning world billiards champion, 10–3.

[26] Taylor asked Fagan, who was 7–8 behind, to play again after making a foul shot while failing to escape from a snooker.

[32] Higgins won the first three frames of his match against Mountjoy, two of them on the final black ball after trailing on points in each of them, and finished their first session leading 6–2.

Charlton narrowed the lead to 9–11 and won another frame to score 10–11 when Knowles missed a routine green ball.

Knowles missed a black ball from its spot in the 22nd frame, saying he was distracted by a member of the audience rustling paper.

[14]: 14–15  White, by defeating Stevens in the quarter-finals, had become the youngest-ever player to reach a world championship semi-final aged 20 years.

[40] Higgins then made a break of 69, showing excellent potting but poor positional play that is described in the book Masters of the Baize (2005) as "arguably the greatest clearance of all time" to take the match to a deciding frame.

Reardon took the lead with a 93 clearance at 11–10 but Charlton won the last frame of the session with a break of 64 that started with a fluke.

[44] In the opening session, in which both players made a number of errors, Reardon built a 5–3 lead.

In the second session, Reardon was 6–4 ahead when he failed to pot the pink ball; Higgins won that frame and the next to equalise at 6–6.

In the fourth and final session, Higgins won the first frame and took the second after Reardon missed an easy yellow.

[11][48][49] The day after his 1982 Championship win, he attended a WPBSA disciplinary meeting, which considered incidents including Higgins urinating in a flower display at the Crucible during the event, and an incident at the 1982 Irish Masters where he had told audience members to "shut your traps".

The numbers in brackets are player seeds, whilst those in bold denote match winners.

[14]: 14–15 [51] † = Winner of frame Qualifying matches took place in April 1982 at Redwood Lodge Country Club, Bristol; Romiley Forum, Stockport; Astra La Reserve Club, Sutton Coldfield; and Sheffield Snooker Centre.

[54] Former world champion John Pulman withdrew from the competition because he had not sufficiently recovered after sustaining a broken leg in October 1981.