Well cheap snooker cues have won tournaments when in the right hands. Everyones heard of John Spencers cue that had a nail in it for extra weight and Stephen Hendry had a cheap machine made cue when he won all those tournaments in the 1990s.
So how cheap is cheap? You need to look for certain features in the cue as a basic minimum, it must be made of either Maple or Ash, either will do, there is no real difference between the types of wood, just get one you like the look of. Also at the business end, make sure there is a ferrule around the top of the cue to protect the end of the cue when changing the cue tip, it can be plastic or metal. And lastly make sure you have a 3/4 split cue, that means a cue that splits into 2 pieces with a long shaft section typically 39-40 inches and a smaller butt section of about 17-18 inches.
This is so you can take advantage of the cue extensions on the market today, from the small 6 inch smart extender type to the longer 20-30 inch extensions that will make your cue as long as the big cues that come as part of the long tackle set with snooker tables. So you can use your own cue instead of those cues that live under the table and usually havent been chalked for months.
This means you will need a longer snooker cue case as well, what they call a 3/4 cue case, but they also have the room in them usually to put your extensions in there as well. So how much should you pay as a minimum for these cheap snooker cues? As a rule of thumb, if you pay between $60 and $70 for the cue, that should do you nicely, just make sure it has all those features we discussed earlier. Add onto that the cue case and extensions and you should get a good snooker cue kit for around $140.