#861 Monopoly makes me smile bigger than Rich Uncle Pennybags

I like the game of Monopoly. I have many different versions in my collection which has grown so large I lost count of them. Why so many versions? More on that later. Read on…

Monopoly is an American-originated board game originally published by Parker Brothers. Subtitled “The Fast-Dealing Property Trading Game”, even though games can last many hours, Monopoly is named after the economic concept of, well, monopoly or the domination of a market by a single entity. The game is produced by the United States game and toy company Hasbro. I imagine most of you have played Monopoly at some point but for those who have not I’ll explain that players move around the game board buying or trading properties, developing their properties with houses and hotels, and collecting rent from their opponents, with the goal being to drive their opponents into bankruptcy. Good times.

The history of Monopoly can be traced back to 1903, when an American woman named Elizabeth J. Magie Phillips created a game by which she hoped to be able to explain the single tax theory of Henry George. (You can download a PDF explaining it here. You’re welcome.) Her game was called ‘The Landlord’s Game’ and was self-published, beginning in 1906. Look at that. Before crowdfunding and Indiegogo and all that this woman made it happen.

By 1933, a board game called Monopoly had been created which formed the basis of the game sold by Parker Brothers, beginning in 1935. By the 1970s, the idea that the game had been created solely by Charles Darrow had become popular folklore: it was printed in the game’s instructions and even in the 1974 book The Monopoly Book: Strategy and Tactics of the World’s Most Popular Game by Maxine Brady.

According to Kids Toy Shop HQ, the Monopoly game board consists of forty spaces containing twenty-eight properties (twenty-two colored streets, four railway stations and two utilities), three Chance spaces, three Community Chest spaces, a Luxury Tax space, an Income Tax space, and the four corner squares: GO, Jail/Just Visiting, Free Parking, and Go to Jail.

So why do I have so many Monopoly games? In 1994, Hasbro granted a license to USAopoly to begin publishing a San Diego Edition of Monopoly, which has since been followed by over 100 more. (It is not cheap by the way. It is on Amazon for $145. Seriously. Click the link to see for yourself.) Yet even before that many countries had translated the game into their own language and using locations familiar to them. I lived in Europe for many years and made it a point to collect the game whenever I visited a new country. When I returned to the states, friends and family learned of my collection and started buying me versions of the games from their own travels. It almost got out of hand. I would get ASU-opoly from Arizona State University or whatnot. Someone even bought me a version from Rolla, Missouri Population: 19,789.

Monopoly themed slot machines and lotteries have been produced by WMS Gaming in conjunction with International Game Technology (IGT) for land-based casinos. I see them all over the place in Las Vegas.

Along the way I also picked up a few versions similar to Monopoly including: Anti-Monopoly, one of several games that are a sort of monopoly backwards where free market competitors clash with ruthless monopolists. I also have Make Your Own -OPOLY which allows you to customize the board, money, and rules to your liking. I even have one that is three layers high.

I don’t fancy the new versions where monetary values are multiplied by 10,000 so one collects $2,000,000 instead of $200 for passing GO and each player starts with $15,000,000 instead of $1,500, etc. and there are credit cards instead of cash. Times are changing though.

Whenever I play I like to get many people involved, have some food and drink and make a full evening about it. Or if it is just me and a friend or two, we can play a shortened version where all the deed cards are shuffled and passed out to the players at the start.

Either way is fun and fine with me as I know everyone will be smiling bigger than Rich Uncle Pennybags.

Do you like to play Monopoly? Do you have a favorite ‘house rule’? Do you ever turn it into a ‘drinking game’? Click here to leave a comment and share your opinion and experience. Would love to hear from you.