Nicky Smith presents two theories of the origin of the modern game of croquet, which took England by storm in the 1860s and then spread overseas. It quickly spread to other Anglophone countries, including Australia, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa, and the United States. It is contested every three to four years between Australia, England (formerly Great Britain), the United States, and New Zealand. The sport has particularly strong followings in the UK, US, New Zealand, Australia, and Egypt; many other countries also play. Fast Eddie B, is described as a "world class croquet player", and two other gang members, Ihor Ihorovich and Scar Graynolt, also play the sport. Every four years, the top countries play in the World Team Championships in AC (the MacRobertson Shield) and GC (the Openshaw Shield). Teams are promoted and relegated between the lower tiers, but there is no relegation to or promotion from the MacRobertson Shield. The most prestigious international team competition in association croquet is the MacRobertson International Croquet Shield. At the Golf Croquet World Team Championships, eight nations contest the Openshaw Shield. Some other early modern sources refer to pall-mall being played over a large distance (as in golf); however, an image in Strutt's 1801 book shows a croquet-like ground billiards game (balls on the ground, hoop, bats, and peg) being played over a short, garden-sized distance.

The second theory is that the rules of the modern game of croquet arrived in Ireland during the 1850s, perhaps after being brought there from Brittany, where a similar game was played on the beaches. As well as club-level games, county-level tournaments, and leagues, there are regular world championships and international matches between croquet-playing countries. Snooker games are organized into frames. Several incomplete sets of this form of croquet are known to exist, and one complete set is still used for demonstration games in the West of Scotland. The image's caption describes the game as "a curious ancient pastime", confirming that croquet games were not new in early-19th-century England. In Samuel Johnson's 1755 dictionary, his definition of "pall-mall" clearly describes a game with similarities to modern croquet: "A play in which the ball is struck with a mallet through an iron ring". The oldest document to bear the word croquet with a description of the modern game is the set of rules registered by Isaac Spratt in November 1856 with the Stationers' Company of London. Croquet became highly popular as a social pastime in England during the 1860s. It was enthusiastically adopted and promoted by the Earl of Essex, who held lavish croquet parties at Cassiobury House, his stately home in Watford, Hertfordshire, and the Earl even launched his own Cassiobury brand croquet set.

Croquet is popular pastime of Leo Tolstoy's Anna Karenina characters. In Stephen King's 1977 novel The Shining, the main character, Jack Torrance, uses a croquet mallet to chase and attack the other characters. The cover of the 1971 Genesis album Nursery Cryme shows Cynthia, a character in the song "Musical Box" holding a croquet mallet with a few heads on the playing field including another character of the song Henry's head that she removed with said mallet. You can also reach up and touch the underside of the playing surface to be sure. Both billiards and pool can be further classified into cue games, which is one of the main similarity between the two. No doubt one of the attractions was that the game could be played by both sexes; this also ensured a certain amount of adverse comment. If you’re doing a bank shot, you need to not only hit the rail at the correct angle, but you need to put the correct amount of English on the ball so it goes where you want. It does not need to illuminate the surrounding areas.

Its championship was won 38 times by Bernard Neal. October, Hanan Rashad of Egypt beat Yasser Fathy (also from Egypt) to win the World over-50s Golf Croquet championship. In April 2013, Reg Bamford of South Africa beat Ahmed Nasr of Egypt in the final of the Golf Croquet World Championship in Cairo, becoming the first person to simultaneously hold the title in both association croquet and golf croquet. However, purely negative play is rarely a winning strategy; successful players (in all versions other than golf croquet) will use all four balls to set up a break for themselves, what is billiards rather than simply making the game as difficult as possible for their opponents. This may derive from the fact that (unlike in golf) players will often attempt to move their opponents' balls to unfavourable positions. There was a revival in the 1890s, but from then on, croquet was always a minority sport, with national individual participation amounting to a few thousand players. However, there is no evidence that pall-mall involved the croquet stroke, which is the distinguishing characteristic of the modern game.