1950s Games: Best Board, Card And Video Games

Scrabble reaches Britain, Risk redraws the map, and a computer plays noughts and crosses.

Below: the board games of the 1950s, the card games people played, the video and arcade games of the era, and how games actually got played at home.

Handy for a themed party, a quiz round, a reminiscence session or working out what someone played growing up.

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Cards, prints and badges, made by us

Funny and warm greeting cards, art prints and pin badges, printed in the UK. We do not sell games - this guide is free to read, print and copy.

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Board games of the 1950s

  • Scrabble - UK rights to J.W. Spear & Sons in 1954, and a household word within two years.
  • Cluedo and Monopoly, now the two boards every family owned.
  • Risk - published in France in 1957 as La Conquete du Monde, then worldwide from 1959.
  • Careers (1955) and Tri-Tactics, both big sellers of the decade.
  • Subbuteo, out of the post-only era and into toy shops.

Card games of the 1950s

  • Canasta - the craze of the early 1950s, played in pairs with two decks.
  • Newmarket and Pontoon, the family gambling games, played for coppers at Christmas.
  • Cribbage and whist, still the backbone of pub and club play.
  • Racing Demon and Cheat for the children's table.
  • Bridge, now a serious club hobby rather than a national craze.

Video and arcade games

  • Nimrod (1951) - a computer built to play Nim, shown at the Festival of Britain.
  • OXO (1952) - A.S. Douglas's noughts and crosses on the Cambridge EDSAC, arguably the first graphical computer game.
  • Tennis for Two (1958), William Higinbotham's oscilloscope tennis, the ancestor of Pong.
  • In the arcades: flipper pinball (from 1947), pushers and one-armed bandits.

How people played

  • Television arrived in the corner, and the board came out when the set went off.
  • Scrabble made a dictionary part of the game, and started a lot of family arguments.
  • Toy shops, not mail order, became the way games were bought.

Years covered in the 1950s

  • 1950 - Petrol came off the ration, the Festival of Britain was being built and there was no chart yet. Full year: /blogs/news/look-back-to-1950
  • 1951 - The Festival of Britain, a Conservative return and still no singles chart. Full year: /blogs/news/look-back-to-1951
  • 1952 - A new Queen, the Great Smog and the first ever singles chart in November. Full year: /blogs/news/look-back-to-1952
  • 1953 - The coronation, Everest, the Matthews final and sweets off the ration. Full year: /blogs/news/look-back-to-1953
  • 1954 - Rationing finally ended and Roger Bannister ran a mile in under four minutes. Full year: /blogs/news/look-back-to-1954
  • 1955 - ITV launched, rock and roll arrived and Britain got its first television adverts. Full year: /blogs/news/look-back-to-1955
  • 1956 - Suez, Elvis arriving in the chart and the start of skiffle. Full year: /blogs/news/look-back-to-1956
  • 1957 - You've never had it so good, the Munich disaster still to come and skiffle everywhere. Full year: /blogs/news/look-back-to-1957
  • 1958 - Munich, the first motorway and Cliff Richard's 'Move It'. Full year: /blogs/news/look-back-to-1958
  • 1959 - The Mini, the M1 and the last year before the sixties. Full year: /blogs/news/look-back-to-1959
  • That is every 1950s year we have written up so far: 1950 to 1959.

How to use this

  • Themed party: pick one board game and one card game from the list and have both out on the table.
  • Quiz round: read a game and ask for the decade, or read the year and ask for the game.
  • Reminiscence: ask what was under the tree one Christmas. Games get remembered better than clothes.
  • Anyone born in 1950 turns 50 in 2000, 60 in 2010 and 70 in 2020.

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Found your words? Now find the card

Shop greetings cards Look back to 1950 Look back to 1951 Look back to 1952

How to write it so it lands

  • Release years matter: a game can be invented in one decade and only reach British shops in the next.
  • For a party, pick a game people can join halfway through. Nobody wants to start Monopoly at ten o'clock.
  • Boot sales and charity shops still turn up the original boxes, usually with one piece missing.

Where to shop next

Frequently asked questions

What board games were popular in the 1950s?

Scrabble - UK rights to J.W. Spear & Sons in 1954, and a household word within two years. The full list above covers the rest of the decade's boards.

What card games did people play in the 1950s?

Canasta - the craze of the early 1950s, played in pairs with two decks. The card games section above has the others.

What video games came out in the 1950s?

Nimrod (1951) - a computer built to play Nim, shown at the Festival of Britain. The section above lists the arcade, console and computer games of the era.

Do you sell games?

No. We make greeting cards, art prints and pin badges in the UK. This guide is free to read and free to copy - charity shops and second-hand sites are the best place to find the older games.

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