Monopoly Crowned Nation’s Favourite Board Game, With Jenga Topping The List For Stress-Free Family Fun

A study by UK holiday park provider, Away Resorts, has revealed the nation’s favourite board games right now, and identified which games are best for different groups and least likely to cause arguments.

The new poll of 2,000 UK adults revealed the most popular board games for this holiday season, Christmas, and going into 2025:

Top 10 most popular board games: (and how many people enjoy playing them)
1. Monopoly - 55%
2. Scrabble - 44%
3. Trivial Pursuit - 31%
4. Snakes and Ladders - 27%
5. Ludo - 26%
6. Connect 4 - 26%
7. Chess - 24%
8. Cluedo - 24%
9. Guess Who - 21%
10. Jenga - 20%

Monopoly reigns supreme as the nation’s most beloved board game with over half (55%) of us enjoying it the most. Interestingly, despite well over 100 board game options on shop shelves, most adults in the UK are still opting for the classic style board games.

The top three - Monopoly, Scrabble, and Trivial Pursuit - all have some of the longest play times too, of 300 minutes, 120 minutes, and 90 minutes respectively; meaning we are a nation that just loves to settle down to a board game.

Melody Munday, head of entertainment at Away Resorts comments:
“Our study aims to reveal which board games are true staples in UK homes, and which new market entries are entertaining us and which are the least likely to cause feuds between players. Comedy and entertaining games such as Pie Face, Cards Against Humanity, and Herd Mentality are definitely growing in popularity with younger adults. The funny party game What Do You Meme is also twice as popular with the 18-34 year olds group than the all-age adult average for example. But despite this, Monopoly remains champion as the resoundingly most popular game for all age groups.”

Monopoly has even evolved in various regional Monopoly editions, with two of Away Resorts’ own parks appearing on the boards.

Which games are best for each player group?
According to the poll though, board games really divide the nation with almost half (49%) of us admitting that they lead to tensions and disagreements, whether that be some of, most of, or every time! Only a lucky 14% say that this has never happened.

To settle the debate on which board game to play with your group that’ll be least likely to create tensions, Away Resorts has also studied and scored almost 30 British board games. Looking at six ranking factors, the study scored the board games on; number of players, age/child suitability, average play time, game emotion, level of skill needed, and popularity from a poll.

Best board games for families and mixed age groups
To establish what games are most suitable for families and mixed age groups, the top games were filtered by shorter play time, child-suitability, a high maximum number of players and less skill being required.

Based on this, the study places the following as the top five for families and mixed age groups:
1. Jenga
2. Herd Mentality
3. Kerplunk
4. Pie Face
5. Snakes and Ladders

Best board games for adults and parties
Board games can easily be turned into drinking games for adults, or just enjoyed as a focal point of a group get-togethers. But which ones are best for these purposes? The study ranked nearly 30 games to include those that feature the most number of players, were not necessarily suitable for children and are engaging or comedy by nature - removing all serious and highly competitive games.

The results for this category are:

1. Jenga
2. Cards Against Humanity
3. Snakes and Ladders
4. Pictionary
5. Herd Mentality

Best board games for competitive players
Trying to find the best games for competitive players can be tricky. For those wanting to knuckle down, play a serious game and get competitive - the study has ranked popular games by their level of skill or focus needed, competitive or serious elements, and those with the longer play times to delight those with a competitive flair.

The highest scoring games for competition seekers are:

1. Scrabble
2. Monopoly
3. Risk
4. Chess
5. Trivial Pursuit

Best board games for minimal effort
Sometimes you just need a game that requires little set-up, does not involve much focus or skill, and is just an enjoyable hour at most.

When filtering all the games in the study to include the shortest play time and those with no skill needed, the study revealed that the best games for minimal effort are:

1. Pie Face
2. Kerplunk
3. Connect 4
4. Jenga
5. Operation

Christmastime, holidays, and group get-togethers are some of the most common times of year to get the board games out. These family-centric times tend to instill feelings of tradition and nostalgia, so it’s no wonder the board game cupboards get raided on these occasions. Board games are a popular British pastime that we’ll nearly all remember from our youth, and so playing games tends to bring back a child-like sense of competitiveness in all of us - which likely explains why they create memories and tensions in equal measure!

Away Resorts offers guests a range of board game packages which you can find here.