On Thursday, after a long and miserable campaign, the UK public voted to leave the EU.  Boardgamers are a friendly bunch, so what does the imminent divorce mean for us?  Obviously there’s lots of speculation and scare stories, but the most immediate and obvious effect is undoubtedly the cost and potentially the availability of boardgames in the UK.  A copy of Ticket to Ride: Europe bought from Germany using Amazon.de would have cost €43.92 including postage, which would have been about £33.45 on Thursday evening at 10pm.  At 5am the following morning, this had risen to £35.94, an increase of £2.50 in just seven hours.  The same game bought from the USA from Amazon.com costs $64.69 (including shipping and tax waivers etc.) which was about £43.21 at 10pm on Thursday rising to a staggering £48.25 at 5am the next morning – an increase of over £5!  The exchange rates will probably improve over time, however, it will be a while before they achieve pre-referendum levels and there will no doubt be more uncertainty to come too, no doubt.

– Image by boardGOATS