Younger adults are now more likely than their elders to play chess, according to recent YouGov data.

Why it matters: The centuries-old game is becoming a Gen Z phenomenon.

What they're saying: "It was not the coolest thing in the world to be a chess player" when I was growing up, 30-year-old chess master and educator Levy Rozman tells Axios.

• "Nowadays, kids come up to me who love chess and they look like they would've bullied me in school," he says.

The big picture: Chess play spiked in 2020, with online gaming and the Netflix series "The Queen's Gambit." Momentum continued with news of a major cheating scandal, arrival of a chess bot called Mittens and an infamous table slam, Rozman says.

• Now, there are popular chess livestreamers (like Rozman, aka GothamChess), chess dating clubs, chess nights at bars and even chess romance scenes on TV.

By the numbers: As of June 1, there were 6.4 million active U.S. Chess.com players, up from 4 million on the same date the year prior, according to data shared with Axios.

• The number of active Chess.com users in Portland increased roughly 48% from June 2025 to June 2026, up to about 41K, according to data shared with Axios.
• And there was nearly a 10% increase in chess experiences on Eventbrite nationally from 2024 to 2025, the ticketing platform tells Axios.

Women challengers are boosting the game's popularity, too.

• Rozman says women grew from roughly 1% of his YouTube audience in 2020 to more than 10% today. They now make up about 25% of viewers of his "How to Play Chess" video.

What we're watching: As chess grandmasters keep getting younger, we have to wonder if Generation Alpha will keep the game's popularity in play.

Chess isn't the only game capturing young people's attention.

Zoom in: Compared to their elders, those under 45 are much more likely to have tried newer games like Bananagrams, Catan and Wingspan, according to YouGov data.

• And adults under 30 are more likely to care about winning, per the data.

Zoom out: Many Gen Zers are turning to analog activities as a way to reclaim time spent on screens.

The intrigue: Mahjong is nearly as popular among those under 45 and those older, per the survey.

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Call it the "Mahjong Belt" — a swath of mostly Southern cities leads the country in online mahjong player density and growth, new data shows.

State of play: Lafayette, Louisiana, is the U.S. "mahjong capital," according to online platform Mahjong 4 Friends' analysis of user data.

• Player density is highest in Charleston, South Carolina, Atlanta, and Orlando, Florida, with over 50 active players per 1,000 residents in the past year.

What they're saying: "The South has a strong table-game and hospitality culture, so we suspect mahjong is folding easily into a social fabric that was already there," Neal Taparia, co-founder of Mahjong 4 Friends, tells Axios.

• The South's glitzy take on IRL mahjong does have its critics, though.

👀 Yes, but: If you don't want to jaunt off to the South, the PDX Mahjong Club has you covered, with classes for beginners and open play in Lake Oswego.

The big picture: The centuries-old Chinese tile game is sweeping the country as younger generations and Southern transplants fuel new growth.

• A staple among Asian families and later beloved by Jewish communities, mahjong has more than 40 global variations — including an American one that started on the East Coast before spreading in recent years to the South, Midwest and beyond.

Reality check: Online play may be surging, per Mahjong 4 Friends, which counted nearly 1.8 million U.S. players in the past year. But not everyone plays virtually.

• For many players, gathering around a real table is part of the appeal.

What we're watching: Where the "Mahjong Belt" stretches next. Omaha, Nebraska, Louisville, Kentucky, and St. Louis are the fastest-growing mahjong cities on the platform.

👋 Sami here. A few months back, my friends and I took our weekly mahjong game to the next level — the pool.

Why it matters: We're far from the first to bring our tiles into the water.

• A black-and-white photo of four women playing mahjong in a pool recently crossed my Instagram feed.
• It was taken in 1924, right around when the game was introduced in the U.S.

Zoom in: My own floating set looks a bit different. It's bigger and made of hot pink foam.

• But a century later, pool mahjong is still just as fun. And now I have waterproof tiles.