Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (Aus./US) to hide.

1900		E.H. Babbitt ‘College Words and Phrases’ in DN II:i 61: snooker, v. To absent one’s self from class.
1968		J. Alard He Who Shoots Last 224: We’ll have ta snooker da dough some place.
1986		R.G. Barrett Godson 37: ‘You could rent it easy enough and snooker him up there’.
1990		Tupper & Wortley Aus. Prison Sl. Gloss. 🌐 Snooker. To hide something or the place where it is hidden. From the game snooker where the ball to be played is obscured by another.
1993		Smith & Noble Neddy (1998) 256: I got into the car with the hash in the boot and headed towards Redfern where I was going to snooker [hide] the hash until I delivered it to my buyer that afternoon.
1998		R.G. Barrett Goodoo Goodoo 225: They’re all snookered away up here somewhere.
2000		R.G. Barrett Leaving Bondi (2013) [ebook] ‘You’ve got plenty snookered away’.
2001		D. Looser Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 171/2: snooker v. 1 to hide.

2. to trick, to cheat.

1908		N.Z. Truth 8 Feb. 6/3: What a drinky, snookering snout is liable to do with a gun when he has had too many may well be imagined.
1989		J. Lansdale Savage Season (1996) 112: Think I want the world to know I got snookered by you goofs?
2000		W.T. Vollmann Royal Family 672: Don’t tell me you ended up falling for that horseshit you snookered me with.
2019		V.D. Hanson Case for Trump 79: According to the author of The Art of the Deal [...] both Republican and Democratic free-traders had been easily snookered.

3. (N.Z. prison) for two people to attack one; one holds the victim and after the other does the attack, takes away the weapon [‘A “snooker” occurs when three balls end up in a line: the cue ball, the target ball, and a ball in the middle, which obstructs the direct line between the cue and the target. Thus the middle ball is a problem, something to be “got out of the way”’].

2001

D. Looser Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 171/2: snooker v. 2 to assault a person by sandwiching him between two assailants; one assailant holds the victim and the other hits him or attacks him with a weapon. This second assailant then passes the weapon on, so that when authorities arrive to investigate, all is clear.