The Monopoly (game) reference article from the English Wikipedia on 24-Jul-2004 (provided by Fixed Reference: snapshots of Wikipedia from wikipedia.org)

Monopoly (game)

Monopoly is a board game which involves using play money to trade real estate. It is named after the economic concept of monopoly, the domination of a market by a single seller.

Table of contents

1 History 2 Board 2.1 London Monopoly 3 Equipment 4 Rules 5 House rules 6 Strategy 6.2 Relative values of each color group 7 Tactics 8 Paper 9 Spinoffs 10 External links

History

Monopoly was first marketed on a broad scale by Parker Brothers on November 5, 1935 with international licensing rights given to Waddington Games of the United Kingdom (both of which are now part of Hasbro). Waddington's version (with locations from London) was first produced in 1936.

Although Monopoly is frequently thought to have been invented by Charles Darrow, its origins actually go back to 1904, when Lizzie Magie, a supporter of Henry George, patented a game called "The Landlord's Game" with the object of demonstrating how rents enrich property owners and impoverish tenants. She knew that some people can find it hard to understand why this happens and what might be done about it and she thought that if Georgist ideas were put into the concrete form of a game, they might be easier to demonstrate.

This original game was enjoyable but although patented it was not taken up by a manufacturer until 1910 when it was published in the US by the Economic Game Company of New York. In the UK it was published in 1913 by the Newbie Game Company of London under the title Brer Fox an' Brer Rabbit. Despite the title change, it was recognizably the same game.

Apart from commercial distribution, it spread by word of mouth and was played in slightly variant home-made versions over the years by Quakers, Georgists, university students and others who became aware of it. As it spread, its rules were changed, most notably in dropping the second phase of the game during which a Land tax was introduced to replace the other taxes, and the shortened game became known as "Auction Monopoly". It was often localized; the original fanciful property names being replaced by street names from the cities where the players lived. By the late 1920s it was known as just plain "Monopoly" and was played very much as it is now. One version of the game, commonly played in the Philadelphia area, had Atlantic City street names; this game was taught to Charles Darrow, who then sold it as his personal invention to Parker Brothers. Parker Brothers subsequently decided to pay off Magie, and others who had copyrighted commercial variants of the game, in order to have legitimate, undisputed rights to the game, and promoted Darrow as its sole inventor. Decades later, when they attempted to suppress publication of a game called Anti-Monopoly, designed by Ralph Ansbach, the trademark suit went all the way to the Supreme Court of the United States in 1983, and the court found in favor of Ansbach because Darrow did not actually invent the game.

The original Monopoly game was localized for the cities or areas in which it was played and Parker Brothers has continued this practice. Their version of Monopoly has been produced for international markets, with the place names being localized for cities including London and Paris, and for countries including the Netherlands and Germany, among others.

In recent years, different manufacturers of the game have created dozens of versions in which the names of the properties and other elements of the game are replaced by others with some theme. There are versions about national parks, Star Trek, Star Wars, Disney, various particular cities (such as Las Vegas), states, NASCAR, and many others.

Board

The board consists of 40 squares, containing 28 properties, 3 "Chance" squares, 3 "Community Chest" squares, a "Luxury Tax" square, an "Income Tax" square, "GO", "Jail", "Free Parking", and "Go to Jail". In the US version the properties are named after locations in Atlantic City, NJ.

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Standard (American Edition) Monopoly game board layout

GO ⇒		Mediterranean Avenue ($60)	Community Chest	Baltic Avenue ($60)	Income Tax (Pay 10% or $200)	Reading Railroad ($200)	Oriental Avenue ($100)	Chance	Vermont Avenue ($100)	Connecticut Avenue ($120)	Jail
Boardwalk ($400)		Monopoly										St. Charles Place ($140)
Luxury Tax (Pay $75)											Electric Company ($150)
Park Place ($350)												States Avenue ($140)
Chance												Virginia Avenue ($160)
Short Line ($200)											Pennsylvania Railroad ($200)
Pennsylvania Avenue ($320)												St. James Place ($180)
Community Chest											Community Chest
North Carolina Avenue ($300)												Tennessee Avenue ($180)
Pacific Avenue ($300)												New York Avenue ($200)
Go To Jail			Water Works ($150)			B&O Railroad ($200)			Chance		Free Parking
		Marvin Gardens ($280)		Ventnor Avenue ($260)	Atlantic Avenue ($260)		Illinois Avenue ($240)	Indiana Avenue ($220)		Kentucky Avenue ($220)

Note that Marvin Gardens on the above board is actually a mis-spelling of the original street name, Marven Gardens. The misspelling was originally introduced by Charles Todd, whose home-made Monopoly board was copied by Charles Darrow and subsequently used as the basis of their design by Parker Brothers. They have never corrected the error.

London Monopoly

In the 1930s, John Waddington Ltd. was a firm of printers from Leeds that had begun to branch out into packaging and the production of playing cards. Waddingtons had sent the card game Lexicon to Parker Brothers hoping to interest them in publishing the game in the United States. In a similar fashion Parker Brothers sent over a copy of Monopoly to Waddingtons early in 1935 before the game had been put into production in the United States.

The managing director of Waddingtons, Victor Watson, gave the game to his son Norman (who was head of the card games division) to test over the weekend. Norman was impressed by the game and persuaded his father to call Parker Brothers on Monday morning. This call resulted in Waddingtons obtaining a license to produce and market the game outside of the United States. Watson felt that in order for the game to be a success in Britain the American locations would have to be replaced, so he asked Norman and his secretary, Marjory Phillips, to go to London to scout out locations. The Angel Islington is not a street in London but an area of North London named after a coaching inn that stood on the Great North Road. By the 1930s the building had become a Lyons Corner House (it is now a Co-operative Bank). Some accounts say that Marjory and Norman met at the Angel to discuss the selection and celebrated the fact by including it on the Monopoly board.

The standard British board, produced by Waddingtons, was for many years the version most familiar to people in countries in the Commonwealth and many other nations and is shown below.

Standard (British Edition) Monopoly game board layout

GO ⇒		Old Kent Road (£60)	Community Chest	Whitechapel Road (£60)	Income Tax (Pay £200)	King's Cross railway station (£200)	The Angel Islington (£100)	Chance	Euston Road (£100)	Pentonville Road (£120)	Jail
Mayfair (£400)		Monopoly										Pall Mall (£140)
Super Tax (Pay £100)											Electric Company (£150)
Park Lane (£350)												Whitehall (£140)
Chance												Northumberland Avenue (£160)
Liverpool Street station (£200)											Marylebone Station (£200)
Bond Street (£320)												Bow Street (£180)
Community Chest											Community Chest
Oxford Street (£300)												Marlborough Street (£180)
Regent Street (£300)												Vine Street (£200)
Go To Jail			Water Works (£150)			Fenchurch Street station (£200)			Chance		Free Parking
		Piccadilly (£280)		Coventry Street (£260)	Leicester Square (£260)		Trafalgar Square (£240)	Fleet Street (£220)		Strand (£220)

The other versions of the game have different property names, and the prices may be denominated in another currency, but the game mechanics are almost identical. (The income tax choice from the US version is replaced by a flat rate in the UK version.)

For a list of some of the localized versions and the names of their properties, see localized versions of the Monopoly game.

Equipment

Each player is represented by a small pewter token which moves around the edge of the board according to die roll. The ten playing pieces currently used in the classic edition are as follows: a top hat, an iron, a Scottie (Scottish terrier) dog, a battleship, a car, a wheelbarrow, a thimble, a cannon, a horse and rider, and an old boot.

In 1999, a token representing a bag of money was added following an online vote. The other two options were a biplane and a piggy bank. Unlike the tokens introduced in special editions, this token was added to the base set.

Also included in the standard edition are:

• A pair of dice.
• A deed for each property. A deed is given to a player to signifiy ownership, and specifies purchase price, mortgage value, the cost of building houses and hotels on that property, and the various rentss depending on how developed the property is. Properties include:
  • 22 streets, divided into 8 color groups. A player must own all of a color group (have a monopoly) in order to build houses or hotels.
  • 4 railways. Players collect higher rent if they own more than one railway. Hotels and houses cannot be built on railways.
  • 2 utilities. Players collect higher rent if they own both utilities. Hotels and houses cannot be built on utilities.
• A supply of paper money. The supply of money is theoretically unlimited; if the bank runs out of money the players must make do with other markers.
• Thirty-two plastic houses and twelve plastic hotels. Unlike money, houses and hotels have a finite supply. If no more are available, no player may build them.
• A deck of "Chance" cards and a deck of "Community Chest" cards. Players draw these cards when they land on the corresponding squares of the track, and follow the instructions printed on them.

Hasbro also sells a deluxe edition, which is mostly identical to the classic edition but has wooden houses and hotels and gold-toned tokens, including two additional tokens: a railroad locomotive and a moneybag.

Rules

From two to ten people may play Monopoly, but the game dynamics are ideal with six players. With more than six players, it is too likely that an individual will not have the opportunity to purchase significant property, and be bankrupted without ever having been in contention. With four or fewer players, there are not as many possible combinations of property ownership, and the importance of astute trading and negotiation is diminished.

Each player begins the game with $1500 in cash and his token on the Go square. All property deeds, houses, and hotels are held by the bank until purchased by the players.

Players take turns in order, as determined by chance prior to the game. A player's turn consists of rolling two dice and advancing on the board the corresponding number of squares clockwise around the track. Depending where he lands, he takes the following additional actions:

• If the player lands on an unowned property, he may buy it for the price listed on the deed. If he declines to buy it, the property is immediately put up for auction. All players are eligible to participate in the auction, including the player who declined to buy it, and the bidding may start at any price.
• If the player lands on an unmortgaged property owned by another player, he pays rent to that person, as specified on the property's deed.
• If the player lands on his own property, or on property which is owned by another player but currently mortgaged, nothing happens.
• If the player lands on Luxury Tax/Super Tax, he must pay the Bank $75.
• If the player lands on Income Tax he must pay the Bank $200 or 10% of his assets. The player must decide which to pay before totalling his assests. (The 10% option is not available on the British board.)
• If the player lands on Chance, he receives a Chance card that has instructions on it which must be followed. Most of these involve moving, e.g. "Take a ride on the Reading", which means the player must advance his token to the Reading Railroad square, paying the owner the applicable rent, and collecting $200 if he passes Go. An oft-quoted Chance card is the one that reads, "Go directly to Jail. Do not pass Go, do not collect $200".
• If the player lands on Community Chest he receives a card as with Chance, except that most Community Chest cards involve money, and are usually favorable to the drawing player, e.g., "Bank error in your favor. Collect $200".
• If the player lands the Go to Jail square, he must move his token to Jail.
• If the player lands on or passes Go he receives $200 from the bank, unless he is going to Jail.
• If the player lands on Jail he is "Just Visiting" and does nothing. No penalty applies. However, if a player is directed to go to Jail by a card, or from having landed on the Go To Jail square, or by virtue of having rolled doubles three times consecutively, he lands in the Jail proper. A player in the Jail proper can get out by paying a $50 fine, using a "get out of jail free" card, or by rolling doubles. If a player refuses to pay the fine and fails to roll doubles, he loses his turn. If a player in Jail refuses to pay the fine three consecutive turns, and each turn fails to roll doubles, the $50 fine is assessed anyway, and he moves the number of pips on his last unsuccessful roll.
• If the player lands on Free Parking nothing happens.

A player who rolls doubles takes another turn after completing the first one. If he rolls doubles again, he takes a third turn after completing the second. If, on the third turn, he rolls doubles again, he does not take that turn, but instead goes directly to Jail.

Properties are arranged in "color groups" of two or three properties. Once a player owns all properties of a group (a monopoly), that player may purchase either one to four houses or one hotel (which is equivalent to five houses) for those properties, which raise the rents that must be paid when other players land on the property. The properties in a color group must be developed evenly, i.e. each house that is built must go on the property in the group with the fewest number of houses on it so far. If the number of houses built on the color group is not evenly divisible, then one or two properties may have one extra house. For example, houses in a group may be distributed (2,3,2) or (0,1,1) or (4,4,3) but not (1,2,3) or (0,4,4).

A hotel may be built on a color group only after all properties in the group have four houses. A player purchases a hotel by paying the price of an additional house, and returning the four houses on that property to the bank in exchange for a hotel. If there are not enough houses in the bank for a player to build four houses on each property before building a hotel, the player may not skip directly to buying a hotel by paying the full price at one go.

If more players decide to build houses at the same time than there are houses in the bank, the houses are auctioned off one at a time to the highest bidder. This rule favors the owners of expensive properties, for which the houses cost more in the first place, because the auction price of a house is not tied to the value of the property on which it will be placed.

At any time a player may, to raise cash, return hotels and houses to the bank for half their purchase price. If there are sufficient houses in the bank, hotels may also be "broken down" into a number of houses for the corresponding percentage of their purchase price. For example, hotels in one color group may be replaced by two houses each, and for each hotel thus broken down, the player receives half the cost of three houses. Also, properties with no houses or hotels may be mortgaged for the price listed on the deed. A property does not collect rent while mortgaged and may not be developed. To de-mortgage a property a player must pay "interest" of 10% in addition to the mortgage price.

Players may freely make trades amongst themselves, involving cash and/or properties. This is often done to obtain all the properties in a particular color group. In tournament games it is against the rules to loan money or trade anything for future consideration.

A player continues playing until he owes the bank or another player more than the amount of cash he can raise and is thus "bankrupted". When a player is bankrupted by a debt to the bank, all of his property is returned to the bank. When a player is bankrupted by a debt to another player, all of the bankrupt player's property is given to his creditor. The winner is the last player left solvent.

Because of the transfer of assets when a player leaves the game, it is tempting for a player on the verge of insolvency to play kingmaker. For example, a player who owes a larger rent than he can pay to a player he detests might say, "You wouldn't trade with me earlier when I needed it, so before I go out, I'm selling everything I own to a different player for one dollar, and that's all you are getting out of me!" To prevent this sort of behavior, it is forbidden for a player who has just incurred a debt to sell or trade anything unless he thereby raises enough cash to pay off the debt in full.

Alternatively, a player whose chances of winning have been destroyed by incurring a large debt may be tempted to leave ungracefully by handing everything over intact to his creditor without having been technically bankrupted. This also is forbidden by the rules. Before going bankrupt, a player must tear down all houses and all hotels, and then mortgage all his properties in an attempt to pay off the debt. Thus a player who comes into property by bankrupting someone else never receives anything other than mortgaged and undeveloped property.

The bankruptcy rules are an effort to enforce fair play, but in spite of them there are many ways within the rules by which a losing player can substantially affect the balance of power between the players left in the game.

House rules

Many casual Monopoly players are surprised and disappointed to discover that some of the rules they are used to are not part of the official rules. Yet, although many popular variations to the rules seem intuitively reasonable, most of them weaken the game dynamics in one way or another.

• A very common house rule is to have a kitty of cash based at the Free Parking space. A player who lands on Free Parking collects the cash, and the kitty is restarted. The disadvantage of having extra money flow to the players which would otherwise stay in the bank is that it prolongs the game by making it less likely for players to go bankrupt. Furthermore, it adds an additional element of luck to a game already rife with luck. The kitty may be built in several different ways, for example
  • by sending Jail fines to the kitty
  • by paying the fines and taxes on the Community Chest and Chance cards into the kitty rather than to the bank
  • by placing a predetermined amount of money from the bank into the kitty at the beginning of the game and whenever it is emptied
  • by requiring every player who passes Free Parking without landing on it to pay in a specified amount
• Some house rules award a player $400 or some other bonus for landing exactly on Go, instead of the $200 specified by the official rules. This extra cash bonus prolongs the game and increases the luck factor.
• Some house rules omit the auction rule. That is to say, when a player lands on an unowned property and elects not to purchase it, the property remains unowned. This rule tends to prolong the game by delaying the formation of monopolies. Furthermore, it increases the luck factor in the following way: A player who gets poor rolls and doesn't land on unowned property at the start of the game can be shut out by a player who luckily lands on more unowned property than he can buy. The official rules, in contrast, allow a cash-rich and property-poor player a better chance at competing with a player who is property-rich and cash-poor.
• It is common in home games to trade current assets for future consideration. For example, one might trade Boardwalk for $800 in cash plus a promise that one will never have to pay rent when landing on that color group in the future. The difficulty with such deals is that they are technically unenforcable. It is too easy for players to squabble over what was actually promised, or find some other pretext to renege on an agreement. Rather than importing contract law into the rules, or finding a way to say that one must do what one has promised to do, the official rules simply outlaw promises.
• According to some house rules, no trading happens until all properties are owned by someone. At this point, play stops and trading ensues until all players are satisfied, e.g. when everyone owns at least one color group. This prolongs the game by delaying the formation of monopolies. Also, to require that everyone be content before trading stops reduces the importance of astute negotiation. According to the official rules, trades are legal as soon as players have anything to trade, so there is no official trading period, and there is no obligation to trade long enough for anyone's satisfaction.
• Some house rules allow a player to build a hotel directly, without building four houses first. This weakens the balance between cheap and expensive properties, and eliminates some of the decisions that a housing shortage creates (see tactical tips below).
• One way to shorten the game is to play for a predetermined amount of time, say half an hour or an hour. At the end of the time limit, the victor is the one with the greatest assets in cash and property. This variation has the social advantage of not dragging on interminably after some players have been eliminated, but unfortunately also removes much of the strategy in which players sacrifice greatly in the short term in the hopes of making a monopoly pay large dividends in the long term.

Strategy

Monopoly involves a substantial portion of luck, with the roll of the dice determining whether a player gets to own key properties or lands on squares with high rents. Even the initial misfortune of going last is a significant disadvantage, because one is more likely to land on property which has already been purchased, and therefore be forced to pay rent instead of having an opportunity to buy unowned property.

There are however, many strategic decisions which allow skilled players to win more often than the unskilled. The fundamental strategic point is that securing monopolies (i.e. all the properties in a color group) is the way to amass wealth, but monopolies arise more through trade than through chance. In a standard six-player game there is a fair probability that none of the players will be able to purchase all of one color group without trading. If no monopolies emerge by chance, and the players do not trade, it is rare for anyone to be eliminated. The game could last indefinitely, with the $200 for passing Go keeping the poorer players from going bankrupt.

Since monopolies are the key to victory, and monopolies arise by the exchange of property from one player to another, a well-played game of Monopoly is from start to finish a game of trading, negotiation, and diplomacy. Players must be aware of the strategic value of the each property at any particular time, considering who needs it to complete a monopoly and which properties in that group are as yet unowned. As soon as two players between them own all the properties in two color groups, they are likely to make a some sort of bargain whereby each of them obtains a monopoly, because if they are the first to be able to build houses and hotels, they each have a much better chance of winning.

Not only is it critical to trade shrewdly, it is important to be diplomatic. Knowing the exact strategic value of all the properties doesn't help much if the other players won't trade with you because you offended them early in the game. It helps to be a genial sort that others don't mind losing to, rather than someone people go out of their way to thwart. For example, because a losing player can to some extent choose to which surviving player to give his property, someone who has annoyed or offended his opponents may find a strong position come to naught when the game is "given" to another player.

Apart from property trading, the most important strategic decisions involve cash management. There is great pressure to build as much and as soon as possible in order to begin collecting large rents. On the other hand, a player who doesn't have the cash to pay a large rent may be forced to tear down houses, getting only half the invested cash back. It can be as dangerous to build as it is to refrain from building.

Furthermore, holding cash is important when unowned property is landed on and must be auctioned off, as well as important when there is a shortage of houses and the remaining houses are auctioned off. Being cash poor can lead to frustration when another player gets a good deal in an auction in which you can't compete. Also, holding cash allows one to cut favorable deals with a player who is cash poor. For example, a player who would be forced to undevelop his property to pay a large rent might decide to instead sell some other undeveloped property for cash, even though he would normally be reluctant to trade property for anything other than property. If only one player has significant cash reserves, that player has significant negotiating leverage.

Because of the importance of cash, many players treat any ungrouped property they own primarily as a cash source through which they can develop their monopolies. Holding unmortgaged and undeveloped property is rather similar to holding a cash reserve, because mortgaging is relatively inexpensive. To de-mortgage a mortgaged property costs only 10% more than the cash received for mortgaging, whereas to rebuild a house one has torn down costs 100% more than the cash received for tearing it down.

Relative values of each color group

While the route to victory in Monopoly is clearly to build houses and hotels in order to take maximum rent, a player is unlikely to be able to acquire a complete set of properties in a game with four or more participants, except by trading. It is therefore very useful to be able to determine which color groups are more valuable.

The overall value of any property is determined by a combination of four factors:

1. Purchase cost
2. House/hotel cost
3. Rent charged
4. Position on the board (visitation frequency)

The first three factors are obvious: valuable properties have a better ratio of expenditure to return. The fourth factor is more interesting because it determines how often players will land on each property and thus pay rent to its owner. In recent years, computer simulations have allowed a probabilistic analysis of the frequency with which each square is visited during the average game.

For instance, the Jail square is the most commonly visited space in the game, because of the 'Go To Jail' direction printed on several cards and the rule that a throw of three successive doubles also sends a player there. Combined with the fact that a player is far more likely to throw 5, 6, 7, 8 or 9 when moving away from Jail than he is to throw 2, 3, 4, 10, 11 or 12, this means that the overall probability of visiting an orange property is far higher than that of visiting a red property, for instance. Similarly, because there are only two properties in each of the dark blue and brown (dark purple in the US and German editions) sets, these sets are visited correspondingly less often.

Taking into account these various factors, it emerges that the orange set is far superior to any other: it is visited quite often, site and property are relatively cheap, and the prospect of collecting damaging rents without too much investment is relatively good. The runner-up for best properties are the purple (St. Charles Place, States Avenue and Virginia Avenue)—statistics demonstrate that while the orange are landed on more often as a group, St. Charles Place is landed on most often as a single entity. The dark purple (brown) and green sets are far inferior: neither attracts many visits, green is very expensive and dark purple offers little in terms of damaging rents. The other sets bunch together, with deficiencies balancing attractions. A player who uses these relative values as a guide to trading ought to do better than chance in the long run.

Tactics

• Early in the game when many properties are unowned, it is a disadvantage to be in Jail. One should pay the fine and get moving with an eye to landing on unowned property or at least passing Go. Later in the game when properties are highly developed, it is an advantage to be in Jail so as to avoid paying high rents. At that stage it is better to refuse to pay the fine and hope not to roll doubles.

• When landing on the Income Tax square, one is not allowed to total one's assets before deciding whether to pay $200 or 10% of one's assets. However, there is a simple rule of thumb that works well in practice. Since one starts with $1500 and collects $200 for passing Go each time, it is generally better to pay 10% until one has passed Go for the third time. Barring exceptionally good or bad fortune, the third time past Go is when a player's assets exceed $2000, and once above $2000 a player is not likely to dip below until late in the game when he has paid some drastic rents and is on the verge of elimination.

• The increased rent for houses takes a long time to pay off the initial investment if there are only one or two houses per property. Starting with the third house, rents rise dramatically, and pay off the investment correspondingly faster. If one owns all of two color groups it is much better to put three or four houses on each property in one group (leaving the other undeveloped) than it is to put two houses everywhere. Similarly, it is unwise to deeply mortgage oneself to develop a monopoly unless one can build to at least the third house.

• If there is a shortage of houses, one should consider buying up the last houses rather than buying hotels, because each hotel one builds returns four houses to the bank for other players to use. When there are no houses in the bank, no one else can build houses. More importantly, no one can build hotels unless they already have four houses on each property of a color group. The owners of inexpensive monopolies should be particularly eager to use this tactic to prevent the owners of expensive monopolies from fully developing.

• Occasionally when there is a housing shortage it can pay to tear down one's own houses on one color group in order to immediately build them on a different color group. However, if another player declares an interest in buying the houses you have torn down, you will have to outbid him for them, so this tactic pays off only when you are buying the torn down houses for expensive properties anyway, you are flush with cash, and the other likely bidders are cash poor.

Paper

• Monopoly as a Markov Process, by R. Ash and R. Bishop, Mathematics Magazine, vol. 45 (1972) p. 26-29.

Spinoffs

Because Monopoly evolved in the public domain before its commercialization, Monopoly has seen many spin-off games.

• Anti-Monopoly was written by Ralph Anspach in 1974.

• Ghettopoly, released in 2003, caused considerable offense upon its release. The game, intended to be a humorous rendering of ghetto life, was decried as racist for its unflinching use of racial stereotypes.

External links

• The official US Monopoly web site
• The official UK Monopoly web site
• The Anti-Monopoly web site
• Early history of Monopoly
• Monopd
• Atlantik (Monopd client)
• gtkAtlantic (Monopd client)
• Probabilities in the Game of Monopoly

This is the "Monopoly (game)" reference article from the English Wikipedia. All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License. See also our Disclaimer.