Puzzles are widely liked. A majority of U.S. adults say they enjoy jigsaw puzzles, but that broad affinity is not matched by large amounts of measured daily time.
The more interesting detail sits in who plays what. Time-use data shows younger Americans spending the most time on games overall, while surveys of older adults put puzzle and logic formats at the top of what they choose to play.
Older adults are also likely to describe a reason for doing puzzles beyond entertainment.
And the retail category that contains puzzles has just become the largest segment of the U.S. toy market, though the growth behind that milestone came mostly from elsewhere in the category.
This report draws on retail tracking data, national time-use statistics, and consumer surveys to set out what the numbers show about puzzle participation, format preferences, age differences, and the wider category in which puzzles sit.
Key Highlights
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61% of U.S. adults said they enjoy jigsaw puzzles either "a lot" or "somewhat," according to a 2020 YouGov survey of more than 24,000 adults
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Word puzzles beat number puzzles by more than three to one: 43% of Americans prefer crosswords and word scrambles, against 13% who prefer Sudoku or similar number puzzles
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Puzzle and logic games are the most popular game category among gamers aged 50+, played by 50% of respondents in AARP research
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39% of adults aged 40+ say they play games or do puzzles specifically for their brain
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70% of adults aged 40+ had worked on puzzles to maintain or improve brain health, in earlier AARP research
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Americans spent an average of 24 minutes per day playing games in 2025, rising to 53 minutes among those aged 15–24 and falling to 8 minutes among those aged 55–64 (this BLS category covers games broadly, not puzzles alone)
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U.S. Games & Puzzles retail sales reached $4.9 billion in 2025, making it the largest toy supercategory tracked by Circana
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Puzzle sales specifically grew 1% in 2024, a cleaner puzzle-only retail indicator than the broader category figure
Most Americans Enjoy Puzzles and They Prefer Words to Numbers
The broadest available measure of puzzle affinity comes from a 2020 YouGov survey of more than 24,000 U.S. adults, which asked how much people enjoyed doing jigsaw puzzles. Responses were:
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22% enjoyed them a lot
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39% somewhat enjoyed them
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16% didn't enjoy them very much
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12% didn't enjoy them at all
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6% had never done a jigsaw puzzle
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5% didn't know
Combined, 61% of adults reported enjoying jigsaw puzzles at least somewhat, against 28% who did not.
Only 6% had never done one at all, which suggests jigsaw puzzles are close to universally experienced even where enthusiasm is modest.
The survey dates from 2020, and it measures enjoyment rather than participation. Liking puzzles and regularly doing them are different things.
Enjoyment also splits sharply by format. A separate 2022 YouGov survey of 5,598 U.S. adults asked whether people preferred word puzzles or number puzzles:
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43% preferred word puzzles such as crosswords or word scrambles
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13% preferred number puzzles such as Sudoku or 2048
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23% liked both equally
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17% preferred neither
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4% were unsure
Word puzzles lead number puzzles by more than three to one, though the 23% who like both equally sit outside that comparison.
Taken together, 79% either preferred one format or enjoyed both. "Puzzles" is not a single activity, and its two most familiar forms draw noticeably different-sized audiences.
Puzzle Preferences Look Different Among Older Adults
The 2025 American Time Use Survey, which separates "playing games" from other leisure computer use, shows game-playing time falling steadily through middle age before rising again after 65. Average time per day was:
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53 minutes among 15 to 24-year-olds
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36 minutes among 25 to 34-year-olds
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20 minutes among 35 to 44-year-olds
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11 minutes among 45 to 54-year-olds
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8 minutes among 55 to 64-year-olds
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16 minutes among those aged 65 and over
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24 minutes across all ages 15 and over
The BLS category includes computer, board, and card games, so it measures game-based leisure generally rather than puzzle activity, and it says nothing about what people are playing.
AARP's research on gamers aged 50+ addresses that directly, and the ranking is distinctive:
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50% played puzzle and logic games
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48% played card and tile games
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24% played trivia, word, and traditional board video games
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7% played action or shooter games
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6% played racing or sports games
Puzzle and logic games sit at the top, with card and tile close behind, while action, racing, and sports formats each account for under 10%.
Among non-digital gamers aged 50+, the commonly enjoyed activities were crosswords, Sudoku, solitaire, board games, and card and tile games. That list maps onto the puzzle and logic category rather than the broader games market.
Placed side by side, the two surveys show that the age group logging the least game time is also the group most likely to name puzzles as its preferred format. They are separate studies with different samples and questions, and neither explains the other.
Why Adults 40+ Say They Do Puzzles
AARP's research is the only source here that asks about motivation, and among the adults it surveys, a substantial share describe a purpose beyond enjoyment.
Its nationally representative survey of adults aged 40+ found that 39% say they play games or do puzzles specifically for their brain.
Earlier AARP research recorded higher levels of the same behavior across several formats:
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70% had worked on puzzles to maintain or improve brain health
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67% had solved word problems
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59% had solved math problems
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55% had played memorization games
In a further AARP survey, adults aged 40+ asked which activity mattered most for brain health chose challenging the mind with games and puzzles more often than any other option.
These figures measure beliefs and reported behavior, not outcomes. AARP's own Global Council on Brain Health notes that the evidence around commercial brain-training games is limited.
What they do establish is a framing: for a large share of adults over 40, puzzles are described as something more deliberate than passing the time.
Category Context: Games & Puzzles Retail
The retail picture needs care, because the category that contains puzzles is much wider than puzzles themselves.
According to The Toy Association, using Circana Retail Tracking Service data, Games & Puzzles became the largest U.S. toy supercategory in 2025.
Category sales held flat at $3.6 billion in each of 2021, 2022, 2023, and 2024, then rose to $4.9 billion in 2025.
That represents a 37% increase between 2024 and 2025, and a 36% increase against 2021, while the wider U.S. toy market grew 6%.
Circana attributes the jump heavily to Pokémon, placing it in the "games" half of the supercategory rather than the puzzles half.
For a puzzle-specific read, Circana's 2024 reporting broke categories out individually against an essentially flat toy market:
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Building sets: +14%
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Explorative and other toys: +5%
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Vehicles: +3%
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Plush: +1%
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Puzzles: +1%
Puzzles grew, but modestly, and in line with plush rather than with the categories driving the market. The picture is of a stable segment inside a supercategory whose recent expansion came from somewhere else.
What the Data Shows
Puzzles are one of the most familiar leisure activities in the country and one of the least dramatic in the numbers. Almost everyone has done a jigsaw puzzle, most people say they enjoy them, and puzzle sales grew 1% in 2024.
Where the data gets more specific, it points consistently in the same direction. Word puzzles reach a much larger audience than number puzzles.
Adults over 50 who play games pick puzzle and logic formats ahead of everything else, even though their age group logs the least game time overall. And adults over 40 are unusually likely to say they do puzzles for a reason, not just for fun.
The 2025 headline that Games & Puzzles is now the largest toy supercategory is real, but it belongs to collectible games. The steadier figure is that 1% puzzle growth: not a boom, but a long-running activity holding its ground with an audience that spans generations and knows what it likes.