13 Gifts for Board Game Lovers Who Already Own Too Many Games (2026)
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Buying gifts for board game lovers is a trap. They have a shelf. Possibly a wall. Whatever game you pick at the store, there’s a good chance it’s already in there, still in the shrink wrap from last year’s sale.
So this list starts with five recent, widely loved games that are easy to wrap and hard to dislike (if they own one already, it’s an easy exchange). Then it moves on to the stuff gamers don’t buy for themselves: sleeves, a dice tower, a proper mat, a table topper. We finish with a few dexterity games for the end of the night, when nobody wants to read a rulebook anymore. Everything is on Amazon US. I skipped novelty Monopoly editions and anything that needs a 40-page teach.
Quick picks
- Safest game gift: Cascadia
- For couples who play together: Sky Team
- Stocking stuffer: Flip 7
- Thing they’d never buy themselves: Roll-Play Board Game Mat
- End-of-night chaos: Klask
Board game gifts they probably don’t own (yet)
Sky Team
Two players land a plane together. One is the pilot, one is the co-pilot, and you place dice on the cockpit controls without being allowed to talk strategy during the round. It won the Spiel des Jahres in 2024, which is the big German game of the year award and the closest thing this hobby has to an Oscar. It’s strictly a two-player game, so it’s a great gift for a couple and a bad one for the friend who hosts eight people every Friday.
Cascadia
Cascadia is a calm tile-laying game about building a patch of Pacific Northwest wilderness and filling it with bears, elk, salmon, hawks and foxes. It won the Spiel des Jahres in 2022, it plays one to four people, and it’s easy to teach to the in-laws. If they already own it, the Landmarks expansion adds a fifth and sixth player.
Heat: Pedal to the Metal
A racing game where the danger is your own engine. You play cards to set your speed, and push too hard in a corner and your car overheats. It’s from Days of Wonder (the Ticket to Ride people) and The Dice Tower named it its 2022 game of the year. Days of Wonder says it plays one to six, so it works for a bigger group than most games on this list.
Harmonies
You stack little wooden tokens into mountains, trees and rivers, then place animal cubes on the habitats they like. Designer Johan Benvenuto and publisher Libellud (the Dixit people) released it in 2024, and it plays one to four people in about half an hour. Get the multilingual edition below, not the French/Dutch one that also shows up on Amazon.
Flip 7
A deck of cards, a simple rule (flip cards one by one, bust if you draw a number you already have) and a lot of yelling. Flip 7 by Eric Olsen was nominated for the 2025 Spiel des Jahres and the jury says it plays 3 to 18 people. It’s small enough for a stocking, and if they own it already, there’s a sequel called Flip 7: With a Vengeance.
Accessories gamers never buy for themselves
Dragon Shield Matte Card Sleeves
Card sleeves are the board gamer’s equivalent of a phone case. Everybody knows they should, few people do it for the full collection. Dragon Shield’s matte sleeves have more than 40,000 ratings on Amazon, and a 100-pack fits standard-size cards (the same size as Pokémon and Magic cards). One practical note: board games use a lot of different card sizes. Look up their favorite game on BoardGameGeek, which lists the sleeve size per game, before you buy ten packs.
Forged Dice Co. Citadel Dice Tray and Tower
Dice rolled across a busy board knock over everything. A dice tower fixes that: you drop the dice in the top, they tumble down inside and land in a tray. The Citadel from Forged Dice Co. is a dice tray, storage box and removable tower in one, and it has more reviews than the other dice towers near the top of Amazon’s search. It’s marketed at D&D players, but it works the same for any game with dice.
Gamegenic Token Silo Convertible
Half the setup time of a modern board game is sorting tokens out of plastic baggies. The Token Silo is a box that holds nine small trays, so you can store coins, cubes and dice in it and pull the trays out onto the table when you play. Pair it with one of the games above if a box of trays on its own feels a bit too sensible.
Roll-Play Board Game Mat (3’ x 4’)
A 3 by 4 foot neoprene mat that goes on the dining table before the game comes out, so cards and dice land on something soft instead of the wood. It’s double-sided, with a pattern on one side and plain rubber on the other. A three-mat comparison on r/boardgames pointed out you can flip it to the rubber side to keep tiles from sliding around in tile-laying games. It’s exactly the kind of thing that sits on a gamer’s wishlist for years.
Game Night Table Topper (40” x 60”)
The splurge in the accessory section. It’s a 40 by 60 inch topper that goes on top of a regular table, so a dining table becomes a game table without buying new furniture. There’s also a 40 by 80 inch version for long tables. I couldn’t find much about it beyond the Amazon listing, so check the photos and measure the table before you order. It ships in blue or red.
Dexterity games for the end of the night
Klask
Half foosball, half air hockey, on a little wooden board. You steer your player with a magnet under the table and try to knock the ball into the other player’s hole, while avoiding three white magnets that stick to your player and cost you points. It was designed by Danish carpenter Mikkel Bertelsen in 2014, and there’s an actual world championship. We wrote a whole post about Klask. It’s for two players, so it fits a couple as well as a party table.
Rhino Hero: Super Battle
A stacking game from HABA, the German toy maker that has been around since 1938. Players build a wobbly cardboard skyscraper floor by floor, move little superhero figures up it and fight with dice, while spider monkeys hang off the floors. Whoever makes the tower fall loses. It’s for two to four players aged five and up, and Amazon reviewers say the parents get just as into it as the kids.
Tournament Crokinole Board (30”)
Crokinole is a Canadian flicking game: you flick wooden discs toward the center hole of a round board and knock your opponent’s discs off. Serious players buy handmade boards. This 30-inch board is the entry-level version, and the back is a checkers board. Its 4.3-star rating is lower than the rest of this list, so think of it as a way to find out whether they like the game, not as an heirloom. Also: it’s big. Check that they have space for a 30-inch circle.
Gift tips
- Check the shelf first. Ask a partner or roommate for a photo of the game shelf. It’s the board gamer’s equivalent of checking someone’s ring size.
- Expansions are safer than new games if you know their favorite. Cascadia, Sky Team and Heat all have expansions on Amazon, and Flip 7 has a sequel.
- Pair a game with an accessory. A new game plus a pack of the right sleeves for it looks like you know what you’re doing.
- Measure the table before buying a mat or topper, and the shelf before buying a crokinole board.
- Buy early. Hobby games go out of stock around the holidays, and a reprint doesn’t show up overnight.
FAQ
What do you buy a board gamer who has everything?
Accessories. Sleeves, a dice tower, a playmat and token storage get used every week, and most gamers spend their money on new games instead. A dexterity game like Klask also works, because it’s a different kind of game from what’s on their shelf.
What is a good board game gift for two people?
Sky Team is built for exactly two players. Klask is two players too. For an older classic, our post on the wooden strategy game Quoridor is worth a look.
Are game expansions good gifts?
Yes, if you’re sure they own the base game. An expansion without the base game is useless, so check the shelf (see tip one).
If they’re more into puzzles than games, we have a list of the most challenging gifts for puzzle lovers. And if they own all thirteen things on this list already, get them a bigger table.