Top 10 Interesting Facts About the Board Game Monopoly
10.
Are You Playing the Game Correctly?
Have you
ever taken the time to read the rules of Monopoly?
Probably not, because an overwhelming amount of people don’t follow the official rules
while playing.
One rule that many people didn’t know existed is that if you land on a property and choose
not to buy it, the property goes up for auction.
The opening bid can start at any price and the highest bidder pays the bank.
This speeds up the game and when playing with these rules, it lasts about an hour to 90
minutes.
(Another hint if you really want to speed up the game, but isn’t in the official rule
book, is to deal out all the properties at the beginning of the game.)
One reason that so many of us play Monopoly the same way, which is different from the
official rules, is because Monopoly is so popular, and many people are taught how to
play as children.
So for generations, no one read the rules, and older generations just taught younger
generations to play the way that they were taught.
Think about it – do you even remember learning how to play Monopoly?
If you can, did you read the instructions, or were you taught to play by someone who
already knew?
As for why no one plays the game according to the official rules, it could be because
the game is often played by children, and the auctions may have led to fights, so parents
omitted the rule and it simply got phased out as the rules of the game were handed down
generation-to-generation.
Another common house rule, which isn’t an official rule, is that when fines and taxes
are collected, they go into the center of the board and whoever lands on Free Parking
wins the jackpot.
However, in the official rules, nothing happens when you land on the Free Parking space.
Finally, some people play that you can’t get money while you are in prison, but there
is no official rule against that.
Since the house rules and official rules are so different, Hasbro did a study and ended
up releasing official House Rules of the game.
9.
Three Most Landed on Spots include Illinois Avenue, GO, and B&O Railroad
One thing that might be helpful to winning the game is getting the square that is landed
on the most.
According to computer scientist Truman Collins, who built a simulation of the game, the square
most likely to be landed on is In Jail.
This is for several reasons.
The first is that if you land on the Go to Jail square, technically you go straight to
jail (duh).
Secondly, people roll to get out of prison.
All of this in addition to landing on the prison square, and you’re just visiting.
The second most landed on square is Illinois Avenue.
This is followed by Go, New York Avenue, and rounding out the top five is B&O Railroad.
As for the least likely squares to get visits?
Those would be the three Chance squares, the Community Chest Square, and Mediterranean
Avenue.
When it comes to the most expensive property, Boardwalk, it’s the 18th most likely square
to be landed on.
8.
The Characters
In Monopoly, there are several different characters and all of them have their own name.
The first one is Mr. Monopoly.
He is the iconic character who has a three piece suit, a top hat, and white hair.
Also, a lot of people seem to remember him having a monocle, but he has never worn one.
It’s unclear who the inspiration for Mr. Monopoly is.
Some people think it is famed American banker and financier J.P. Morgan.
It certainly would make sense because they look and dress similar, and both are businessmen.
Others believe that it is based on a salesman at Parker Brothers who had business cards
with over-the-top caricatures of himself printed on them.
Often times he would be wearing a top hat, or riding a train.
Finally, it could be based on Little Esky, which is a former mascot of Esquire magazine.
The character wasn’t given a name until 1946, and even then, it wasn’t announced
via Monopoly.
Instead, he appeared as the mascot on a different game called Rich Uncle.
In the game, the Daily Bugle identifies him as Rich Uncle Pennybags, and he is the man
who runs the town.
However, in 1999, Hasbro conducted a study and found that many people didn’t know that
Rich Uncle Pennybags was his name, so they changed it to Mr. Monopoly.
Of course, there are other characters in the game.
On the Community Chest and Chance cards, there is Mr. Monopoly’s wife, Maude, and his three
nephews – Randy, Sandy, and Andy.
Finally, there is Officer Mallory, who sends people to jail, and Jake, the Jailbird.
7.
People Have Killed Each Other Over the Game
If you’ve even been near a group of people playing Monopoly, you know that players can
easily get frustrated.
All it takes is one flip of the board to end a friendship.
While most adults don’t resort to violence when it comes to their frustrations over Monopoly,
some games have spiraled violently out of control.
One such game happened in Santa Fe, New Mexico, on October 25, 2011.
60-year-old Laura Chavez and 48-year-old Clyde “Butch” Smith were playing the game with
their 10-year-old grandson.
At some point, Chavez caught Smith cheating.
A fight ensued and the grandson was sent into a bedroom, and that’s when the grandparents
got violent.
Smith hit Chavez with a wine bottle, and then she went at him with a knife.
He was stabbed and slashed around the chest, neck, and face.
Luckily, he survived.
Another tragic fight that stemmed from the game happened on July 19, 1991, in Bensalem,
Pennsylvania.
Two best friends, 25-year-old Marc Cienkowski and 31-year-old Michael J. Klucznik, were
playing Monopoly when a fight broke out.
It got physical and several punches were thrown.
Cienkowski grabbed his compound bow and an arrow, and told Kluvznik to leave.
Kluvznik left, and when he was seated in his car, his best friend fired an arrow into his
chest.
Kluvznik ended up dying and Cienkowski was sentenced to nine-to-25 years in prison.
We like to think the judge told him to go directly to jail, to not pass GO, and to not
collect $200 at his sentencing.
6.
You Can Win a Game with 2-players in 21 seconds
Games of Monopoly are notoriously long, and can drag on for hours, or even days.
On the other end of the scale, Daniel J. Myers, a professor of sociology at Notre Dame, and
his son have figured out the quickest way to end a game of Monopoly.
It’s just four turns and nine rolls, and the game lasts 21 seconds.
How it would have to work is that player one rolls double sixes and lands on Community
Chest, where they receive $200 because of the “Bank error in your favor” card.
Next, player two has to land on the Income Tax square.
The next turn involves player one getting double twos and landing on Park Place, where
they purchase it, and then double ones to land on Boardwalk, which they need to purchase
as well.
Since they got doubles, then they roll again and pass GO, collecting $200.
Once they are past GO, they need to purchase three houses for Park Place and two for Boardwalk.
Player two would then land on a Chance square and pick up the “go directly to Boardwalk”
card.
When they do, they won’t have enough money, and the game is over.
Of course, the chances of this game happening in real life aren’t exactly good.
According to a Columbia professor, it would happen once every 253,899,891,671,040 games.
So he’s saying there’s a chance.
5.
Best Way to Win
As we’ve already mentioned previously, and will probably continue to mention throughout
the article, playing Monopoly can be downright frustrating.
However, if you really want to ratchet up the frustration level among your opponents,
and win in the process, you should follow this strategy to win, which comes from a reddit
user named Elfie.
Basically, the diabolical plan revolves around the houses.
There are 32 in the box, and once the houses are sold out, then no one else can buy one.
So the plan is simply to buy up as many houses as you can.
Early in the game, buy a set of properties and build all houses on it (not a hotel).
It can also be any set of properties.
Later in the game, get a second monopoly and build up houses on each of those properties.
If you get two monopolies containing three properties, then that only leaves 8 other
houses out there among the rest of the players.
Limiting the number of houses is important because houses are needed to build hotels.
By monopolizing the houses, it makes it harder for people to progress, and then you simply
outlast them.
Evil, right?
4.
The Real Creator was a Woman Who Didn’t Get Credit For Her Invention
The person credited with inventing Monopoly is Charles Darrow, an unemployed heater salesman
from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
While Darrow created the Monopoly we know today, he ripped off the idea.
The real inventor was a stenographer named Elizabeth Magie, who lived in Washington D.C.
Magie worked at night trying to teach people about the evils of monopolies.
She was concerned with the accumulation of wealth and power by a small group of families
during the Gilded age.
She thought that this type of control by a small group of people could lead to monopolies,
which could have devastating effects on everyday Americans.
The problem was that her message was hard to spread because many people simply weren’t
interested in listening.
Looking to spread her message faster, Magie developed The Landlord’s Game in 1903, and
got a patent on it in 1904.
The game was never mass produced, and instead, the game spread through word-of-mouth.
Usually someone would learn the game, and then they would make their own copy of the
board and the pieces.
In turn, they would teach it to someone else.
One of those people who learned to play the game was Charles Darrow.
He pitched the game to Parker Brothers and they eventually bought the rights to it, and
gave Darrow a royalty.
However, Parker Brothers knew that Magie actually owned the patent on the game.
So they contacted Magie and bought the rights to The Landlord’s Game and another game
that she developed for $500.
But in a massive jerk move, Parker Brothers never intended to mass produce The Landlord’s
Game.
Instead, they released a few hundred copies of it, but mass produced Monopoly, which became
a massive hit.
Beyond the $500, Magie didn’t get any other payment or credit for the game.
She died in 1948 and her contributions to the game weren’t publicized until the 1970s.
Darrow died a millionaire in 1978.
3.
The Unusual Story of Marvin Gardens
There are localized versions of Monopoly, but the original game, and one that most people
in North America are familiar with, has all of the properties named after streets or areas
in Atlantic City, New Jersey.
With one exception, that is: Marvin Gardens, which is supposed to be Marven Gardens.
While it’s a small mistake, it actually shows the interesting history behind Monopoly.
When asked why he chose Atlantic City, instead of Philadelphia, where he was born and lived,
Charles Darrow said it was because it was his favorite vacation spot.
However, what we know from the last entry is that Darrow didn’t invent the game, he
just signed a deal with Parker Brothers to sell it.
Before Monopoly’s publication, when people made their boards for The Landlord’s Game,
they would localize the street names.
Darrow was taught to play The Landlord’s Game by a couple from Atlantic City and when
Darrow was given a copy of the board by the couple, it contained the wrong spelling of
Marven Gardens.
In turn, Parker Brothers copied Darrow’s incorrect board.
Making Darrow not only a thief, but a lazy one at that.
In 1995, Parker Brothers apologized to the people of Marven Gardens for the misspelling.
However, they have never credited Magie’s contributions to the game.
Just wanted to really emphasize that part again.
2.
Monopoly was Rejected by Milton Bradley and Parker Brothers
After Magie developed the game, she didn’t get it mass produced because she didn’t
want to.
She took it to Parker Brothers, twice.
Once in 1910, and again in 1924, and both times it was turned down.
The reason they gave was that it was too political.
Jump ahead to 1934, and Darrow pitched his version of the game to both Milton Bradley
and Parker Brothers.
Both of them sent back rejection letters.
Part of the creation myth is that Parker Brothers rejected it for 52 fundamental reasons.
However, there is no real evidence of that and it definitely does not say it in the rejection
letter.
The game was rejected unanimously by the executives of Parker Brothers because they thought it
took too long to play and was too complex to be popular.
Instead, Darrow used his own money to make 7,500 copies, which sold well in stores in
Philadelphia, and Parker Brothers changed their mind and struck a deal with Darrow.
From there, the game grew to be the biggest board game in history.
1.
Escape Maps Were Smuggled to British POWs during WWII
When it comes to making maps for war, paper is a terrible material for many reasons.
For example, it can’t get wet, it rips, it crumples, and so on.
A better material for maps is silk, and it has been used for hundreds of years.
During World War II, a printing company that had mastered printing on silk was John Waddington
Ltd.
The company was used by the British secret service unit MI9, which was the secret service
unit for escape and evasion, to print silk maps.
Waddington was also the printer of Monopoly for the United Kingdom.
An MI9 agent named Christopher Clayton Hutton came up with the idea to put maps and other
materials into board games that would be sent to POW camps.
Games were often brought into POW camps by humanitarian and charity groups, and the games
wouldn’t have drawn too much attention from the enemy.
Inside the Monopoly boxes were hidden compartments that contained compasses, tools, maps, and
under the money were real bank notes.
There were six different maps created for areas around German POW camps, and other maps
for Italy.
They marked the special Monopoly boxes by putting a red dot on the Free Parking space.
Also, to figure out where the maps should go, periods were added to the end of specific
properties.
For example, if it was going to Germany, there was a period after Mayfair, and if it was
going to Italy, there would be a period after Marylebone Station (since the game was the
UK version, the properties were named after streets in London, not Atlantic City).
Some historians believe that thousands of POWs used the Monopoly games to escape.
Since the war, all of the Monopoly escape kits were destroyed.