5 Things the Royal Family Gets Surprisingly Competitive About

The Royal Family has enjoyed many interests in their time off. And some of those tend to bring out the 'vicious' competitive streak in them. A board game can get heated, a baking challenge can turn into a full-blown rivalry, and a horse race can have the royals watching every second.

The royal family is reportedly more competitive about their annual engagement tally. Prince Harry revealed in Spare, “It didn’t create the feelings of competitiveness that ran in my family, but it amplified them, weaponized them.” The Court Circular is the official record of royal engagements, with the numbers tallied at the end of each year, and is widely scrutinized by the media. Harry claimed that “certain family members” had become “obsessed,” “feverishly striving” to have the highest number of official engagements recorded in the Circular.

Shooting was more than a country-house pastime for some royals, and it could become a serious contest. According to The Independent, King Charles and Princess Anne would organize competitions, leading the rival shooting parties, with Prince Philip taking the sport particularly seriously. During one German hunting trip, he and Charles were responsible for 50 wild boar in a single day. Philip also regularly invited sporting friends to Sandringham, and during a seven-week stay in 1993, he spent as many as four days a week shooting and reached a tally of 10,000 pheasants. William and Harry also took part in the family tradition during their younger days.

Board games have reportedly caused many a fight in the royal family. Marie Claire reported that the late Queen Elizabeth banned Monopoly from Christmas gatherings to avoid arguments. Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor too once explained that the game “gets too vicious.” Scrabble does not seem much calmer either. As per The Independent, Olympic boxer Anthony Ogogo once shared an amusing story about Princess Kate during a reception, saying she told him that Scrabble matches between her and William rarely stayed friendly for long. According to Ogogo, the game could descend into an argument, with either royal eventually shutting the board and walking away in frustration.

The kitchen has become another unlikely arena for royal competition, particularly for William and Kate. During the 2019 Christmas special A Berry Royal Christmas, the couple went up against each other in a roulade-making challenge, with Kate joining Mary Berry and William teaming up with Great British Bake Off winner Nadiya Hussain. The two teams competed to create the better roulade, with the result ultimately declared a draw. The couple again had a face-off in making Welsh cakes during their 2025 visit to Pontypridd, competing in pancake-flipping challenges. It gave fans a rare glimpse of their competitive side.

Polo has been another competitive pursuit for the royal family for years. Prince William and Prince Harry followed in their father’s footsteps, playing both together and against other competitors. Such was their talent in the game that Tim Keyte of Cirencester Park Polo Club once told The Telegraph the brothers could have represented Britain internationally. He described Harry as “more of a fighter” and William as “more calculated.” Harry’s competitiveness was even more apparent during a 2024 charity match for Sentebale, when polo star Nacho Figueras said (via The Independent), "[Harry] is a very good rider; he's a very good athlete, he has great eye-hand coordination. He's very competitive. He's a very good polo player."