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The most popular games amongst British expats in Spain

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It’s a well-known fact that Brits love their home comforts when they travel. Even if you enjoy immersing yourself in the local culture, tasting the traditional cuisine, and exploring the history of where you’re visiting; there’s nothing quite like a good cuppa or the occasional full English.

You don’t have to look far in Spain to find businesses that cater to these British tastes. There’s plenty of cash to be by catering to the almost 300,000 that live across the country, many of whom have retired in the country to take advantage of the better climate in their twilight years.

Of course, you don’t have to be old to be a Brit living in Spain. Around 60% of Brits living the Spanish dream are below retirement age, including many in early adulthood who have moved out for an adventure or for bigger and better opportunities than they’d find in Blighty.

Regardless of the reason for residency, there are plenty of preferences, hobbies, and tastes that the English, Welsh, Scottish, and Northern Irish bring with them when they move to Spain. And one of the biggest is their love of gaming. No matter the age, Brits love playing games, with around two-thirds of the UK’s adults engaging in the hobby at least every now and then.

The games Brits play, both at home and in Spain, often vary across age groups, but there are some particularly popular titles that are very common among expats who have escaped to the sun.

Bingo

While the game of bingo actually originated in Italy and spread to France before making its way around the world, it is a British institution. From Aberdeen to Yarmouth, bingo houses are located in practically every town and city in the UK.

So it shouldn’t be much of a surprise that Brits also enjoy playing bingo in Spain. In expat hotspots, you won’t have to go far to hear “eyes down” being called to a room full of card-dabbing punters.

Big bingo halls may not be as widespread on the Iberian peninsula as they are in Britain, but expat-serving pubs, bars, and other establishments are often known to put on bingo nights. Other people will head online to play bingo, taking advantage of the convenience that the internet and smartphones offer.

Slots

No matter what you call them, whether it’s slot machines, fruit machines, or one-armed bandits, slots are a hugely popular category of casino games that have been popular in both the UK and Spain for decades.

In the UK, you can enjoy slot games in a wide variety of places. Naturally, casinos are usually filled with banks of these machines, but you can also find them in pubs, betting shops, airports, and even motorway service stations.

Online slots are also immensely popular in Britain. The explosion of demand for these games has been driven by a number of factors, including the convenience of mobile slots that can be played from almost any smartphone or tablet, and the fact that most online casinos offer a huge variety of games that span practically every imaginable theme and boast a range of bonus features.

Free spins promotions and bonuses are another factor that makes them popular. Many online brands award them in several situations, including as part of a promotion and as a reward for completing a challenge. At many sites, you can also claim these spins when you sign up and/or make your first deposit.

With so many ways to play slot games in the UK, it goes without saying that slots are also hugely popular among expats living in Spain with most of the same ways to play available.

Fortnite

Image: Unsplash / Joshua Hoehne

Fortnite is one of the most popular video games in the world today. It’s a free-to-play battle royale title that pits up to 100 players against each other by dropping them into random locations across a map with the task of doing whatever they have to to be the last player standing.

Players need to be strategic, gathering resources to help them build fortifications to defend against others who are looking to take them out. This is complicated further by the fact that the size of the map shrinks at set intervals, with any player remaining outside of the shrinking map at one of these intervals being removed from the game.

With Fortnite being available on practically every platform, including current and previous generation consoles, most smartphones and tablets, and PCs, it’s one of the most popular video games almost everywhere, including amongst the British expat community in Spain.