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Archive 1Archive 2Archive 3

DO NOT EDIT OR POST REPLIES TO THIS PAGE. THIS PAGE IS AN ARCHIVE.

This archive page covers approximately the dates between 25 February 2002 and 3 July 2005.

Post replies to the main talk page, copying the section you are replying to if necessary. (See Wikipedia:How to archive a talk page.)

Please add new archives to Talk:Monopoly_(game)/Archive_2. Thank you. --JohnDBuell 09:48, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

Free Parking official?

Question about free parking - I don't know if this is just the way our family played or if it's a common variant. When paying Income Tax and other fees and fines owed to the Bank, we placed the money in the center of the board. Then whoever landed on Free Parking would collect the money. Don't remember if the rules allowed this, but it sure could make the game even more exciting! -- Marj Tiefert, Thursday, July 11, 2002

It's not a part of the official rules but it is very commonly done. When played strictly by the rules Monopoly can be a pretty rough game. Eclecticology, Friday, July 12, 2002
Yeah, some people do stuff like this. But we played it like this sometimes: when you land on Free Parking, you get the £1 that has been placed in the centre of the board. Then the next note up, £5, is put in its place. And the next person to land on Free Parking gets it; the amount keeps going up till you hit £500 -- after £500, it goes down to £1; and so on. Just another variant! -- Sam

Removed this text from entry: "Add links to official Monopoly pages, and tournaments?" I think links to tournaments would be a good idea. I added the link to Monopoly's official site. Frecklefoot 18:27 Nov 6, 2002 (UTC)

Too American

This article is a bit Americanised, as it's the American board, and on the British board there is no luxury tax its super tax and you pay £100, I have nothing against, having a copy of the baord here or reference to it, but there are a number of different country versions of the baord, so it may get untidy. Any suggestions. -fonzy

I think this is a big problem with Wikipedia in general. Do we use the American spelling (e.g. color) or the British spelling (e.g. colour)? In the case of this article, I don't know what to do. Having two boards is a bit cumbersome and I think creating different entries for each version is also a bit much. I don't know of a better way of dintinguishing between the two. Perhaps a caption with the British conversions? Anyone else? -Frecklefoot 18:15 Jan 3, 2003 (UTC)
The spelling problem in Wikipedia is "solved" by allowing both. See Wikipedia:Manual of Style. Face it, there is no way to avoid it. The style guide does suggest that Brit spelling is best for Brit subjects and American spelling for American subjects. That rule is not much help here, granted, but Monopoly is an American game after all. Ortolan88
It may be an American game, but arguably the British version is more widespread (for example, in Australia the British version is the "standard", the Australian version a variant, and the American version unheard of). ShaneKing 05:18, 3 Feb 2004 (UTC)
It's an interesting problem. It seems it's really only to do with style; someone who speaks British English will find it perfectly easy to read something written in American English, but they won't feel comfortable with the unfamiliarity of it. When it comes down to whole different languages, wikipedia's approach is to have a separate set of articles (meaning the spanish article can have totally differing content to the french article - good thing?); but this approach applied to dialects of the same language would probably be a bit over the top, as entire articles would need to be written again with minor spelling, grammar and phrasing changes. Perhaps there could be a special tag, whereby entire sections of text could be given separate dialectic versions. e.g.: " [dialect:gb|I found the colour humourous|us|I found the color humorous]". What do people think? --Splidje 11:08, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
Splidje - I agree with your principle, but thought you may like to know that while 'humour'/'humor'has two spellings, 'humorous' is actually spelt the same in both dialects.  ;-) CA 81.6.223.146 18:16, 26 February 2006 (UTC)
It doesn't matter who thought of Monopoly first, the convention adopted by Wikipedia is that if the article is written in American English first, then in American English it shall stay. It's reasonable to refer to both boards in full, and probably others (such as the Star Wars board) in passing DavidFarmbrough 13:04, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

Strategy section

Shouldn't there be a strategy section?

Sure. Go ahead and add it. :) -Frecklefoot

These pictures are way too big. -- Zoe

The images look perfect at 1024x768 and higher screen resolutions, but doesn't it go a bit beyond fair use to list all of the property names? Mkweise

US, British, and other versions

What is special about the american and british version of monopoly? As far as I know, the game has different versions for different places. Wshun

There are also different versions for different cities in the United States. RickK

The American (Atlantic City) version is special because it's the original. The British (London) version is special because it's the most widely known around the world. -- Derek Ross | Talk

There is also a Wales/Cymru version not mentioned in the article. I have this version; I will add something if I have time, although I am busy with other articles right now. If anyone else has time then they can add it I am sure. --The1exile 17:48, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

Please don't. There are hundreds of different versions. The London and Atlantic City versions are the most widespread. That's why they appear here in the main article. There is a separate article for all other Monopoly versions and that that is where you should add details of any other versions. We handle it this way to prevent the article turning into a list of Monopoly versions. -- Derek Ross | Talk 17:55, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

Can you give me a link? I cannot find this list or any article relating to the welsh version of Monopoly. --The1exile 16:59, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

The main list article is at Localized versions of the Monopoly game. The Wales version is not on there currently, feel free to add it. --JohnDBuell 22:01, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Table of Contents

Woah! What is up with this article? How did it get a table of contents and "edit section" links? I've never seen those on any other article in the 'pedia (and I don't see anything special in the source that would make those markers). Anyone know or can point me to the docs? —Frecklefoot 13:54, 29 Jul 2003 (UTC)

They're the result of a software update. See Wikipedia:Software updates for the grizzly details. You can turn both the table of contents and the "edit section" links off via your user prefs, by the way. --Camembert
Thanks, Cam. You know, you'd think they'd post an announcement or some such thing after making such a huge change. I heard some rumblings about a mailing list of some sort that discussed changes like this one. Anyone know how to get on it? —Frecklefoot 14:19, 29 Jul 2003 (UTC)
I'll answer on your talk page (if nobody else has). --Camembert

Georgism

The game was originally designed to promote Georgism, as the losers would resent the evil landlord winner. I don't know whether this is non-NPOV, or whether it's a drollery. Sometimes, though at the very antipodes of common sense, humorless seriousness and wit shake hands. Wetman 05:23, 3 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Um, I'm not sure what Wetman means (sorry), but I move to remove that reference. Whether it's intended as humor or not, I can't find any evidence that it's true. Notice there is no other reference to it anywhere else in the article. —Frecklefoot 15:07, 26 Feb 2004 (UTC)
Okay, I removed the statement. It was unsupported by any research I've uncovered. All I can think is it was added by a Georgism advocate. If someone really wants it back in, find and post the reference. —Frecklefoot 15:59, 27 Feb 2004 (UTC)

<Sigh>, How much research did you do ? I thought that the Georgist link was well known. Check this reference [1], or better yet check the whole site for interesting Monopoly history. -- Derek Ross

Derek Ross is quite correct, the game Monopoly was created on prior art by a 'georgism advocate'... see that link. I think this article is almost ready to be broken into sub articles, the origin of Monopoly is a full story all by itself. This article as written now looks fairly complete, but if it gets much bigger it could be unwieldy. Good Job though, this is one of the more thorough treatments of the game I've seen.Pedant 18:58, 14 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Brown properties?

The "Relative values of each color group" section refers to "brown properties." Since the author also refers to "orange properties." I know he is not confusing the brown with the orange. I don't see any brown properties on the board. From the context, it looks like they mean the dark purple properties (Mediterranean Avenue, Baltic Avenue). Does this seem reasonable? I want to fix it, but I don't want to screw it up. :-S Any other opinions? —Frecklefoot 16:49, 26 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I also believe the dark purple properties were what was being talked about, but I don't know that for a fact. Just throwing in my opinion in case nobody else knows and it comes to that. :) Bryan 01:29, 27 Feb 2004 (UTC)
Hi, I'm the author of that bit! OK, in the UK version of the game there are two very cheap brown-colo(u)red properties immediately after Go called Whitechapel Road and Old Kent Road - in the US version it does indeed look like they're dark purple, Mediterranean and Baltic. Ooops! I'll make the edit - thanks for pointing it out! Toby W 09:32, 27 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Why was the British board taken out? The standard British edition has existed for a very long time and is familar to millions. Mintguy (T) 09:45, 27 Feb 2004 (UTC)

The US version was the original, but I agree, the UK version is familiar to most people outside the US. See discussion above under "Too American". Toby W 09:47, 27 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I've restored the British board using the new wiki tables markup, I hope i haven't made any mistakes. Ashas already been pointed out the British board is probably more familiar to people outside ofthe US, where it was the "standard edition". Mintguy (T) 10:27, 27 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Too many boards!

Ludraman added the Dublin version of the game board. I'm sorry, but this is overkill! Didn't we decide to just include the UK edition and the North American version? There are dozens of localized versions of the game—we can't include them all. In fact, we have a whole article on them. While I think having these versions of the game is valuable, putting them in the main article if just too much. I propose we move them to the localized article or create links from there to the table representing the localized version of each board (better—that way that article won't get too bloated). Comments? —Frecklefoot 15:32, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC)

The Atlantic City board is the original sold in the US, and the London board was sold internationally from 1936, so they should be in, but if you put the Dublin board in you have to have every other city in the world (and Star Wars etc..). There is a page for these other boards [localized versions of the Monopoly game]] Mintguy (T)
There is an article called Chessboard that is all about the board that chess is played on, how about Monopoly board as a repository for all of these? Also, all of the same information is presented on the table in Localized versions of the Monopoly game, so we should only really need one full-sized board to show people where everything goes. I was the guy that created the first Monopoly board table, and I feel like I've created a monster now that it's replicating. :) Bryan 15:49, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I think that that both the original boards should be in this article, particularly given the history surrounding the London board. But the localised page needs to be refined so that we can fit in all the different games without having a huge table. Why can't we just list the streets in the appropriate colour font, in the correct order following GO->. Mintguy (T) 15:56, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I see the point you all are making. Critiscism accepted. Ludraman 19:00, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC)
I'm not convinced about the value of a "monopoly board" page over and above the existing Localized versions of the Monopoly game. Bryan, you might be creating a monster again with that! :o) (It's not like Chessboard because there aren't dozens of different chessboard variants.) I say stick with the localized page, and take Mintguy's suggestions for compacting the tables into a better format, using short lists and coloured fonts. Toby W 16:04, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I like Mintguy's suggestion of having a blank board with just the colors. Each space could be labelled with a letter or number and each localization could include a description of what is apropriate for each spot. E.g. A = Bambooga Street. Keep the two on this article and the "blank" one on the localized page with legends for each version? —Frecklefoot 16:09, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Yes, good plan. Toby W
except the american colors and british colours are different color. 2 boards is plenty in this article, and one is too few, IMO.Pedant

SO COOL!

Can I just say that having the tables/boards with the colors is the COOLEST. THING. EVER. jengod 20:26, Mar 16, 2004 (UTC)

*blush* This is the kind of comment that makes all the hassle and heartbreak worthwhile. :) Bryan 08:45, 17 Mar 2004 (UTC)
I was amazed such a thing could be created using just table tag. Tomos 17:13, 18 Mar 2004 (UTC)
I'd like to create Biology science map using table tag, like that, but althow syntax is simple, I can't do it myself, so I ask someone help me. I can scan picture and set as example. if someone can help me, use my talk--Albedo 17:38, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

Japanese Wikipedia now has a copy of the board layout. And we came to wonder if there is any copyright issue here. I mean, can a third party sell this board as GFDL permits? Or should we consider this a quote or fair use?

From reading the article, I figured the earliest version came into market around 1935. Am I correct in assuming that's what's shown as an example? Tomos 17:13, 18 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Earlier versions were reasonably common as Georgist or socialist teaching aids from the early 1900s. People started to call it Monopoly (rather than The Landlord's Game). Before Parker Brothers took it over, the boards were more likely to be home-made and localised for the area but there were quite a few small-scale commercial versions as well. Parker Brothers had to go to quite a lot of trouble to buy the rights to all of them. Charles Darrow was first introduced to it by an Atlantic City Quaker group in 1932 and the only changes he made to what he was shown were accidental -- that's why the Parker Brothers version has Atlantic City streets. -- Derek Ross

The origins of Monopoly makes a great tale but it's complicated. We need to tell it more fully. -- Derek Ross

yes, but maybe in a sub article?Pedant 19:04, 14 Aug 2004 (UTC) make that just 'yes'... the 'but' makes it sound like I disagree, I don't Pedant 05:48, 16 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Weird board

I have two British Monopoly boards and they both have GO at the bottom right, not the top left. Seeing the board "flipped" like it is in the article, is very strange. Bonalaw 11:29, 14 Aug 2004 (UTC)

At first I thought, "What are you on about? the property names face outwards, it doesn't matter which way round it is." but now I see what you mean. The word Monopoly in the centre should be printed the other way up (or rather the board flipped). But now I think about it again, isn't it normally written diagonally? Which would be hard to replicate using tables. Mintguy (T) 11:41, 14 Aug 2004 (UTC)
I'd never actually thought of it like that. My boards have MONOPOLY and the copyright notice printed horizontally (from Marylebone Station to Liverpool St) and that's the only indication of which way round the board goes. But I'm pretty sure that all the illustrations I've seen (apart from the ones in the article) treat GO as the bottom-right square as well. Bonalaw 14:41, 14 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Bonalaw, does it seem significant enough to you to warrant a change in the table? I think having both boards the same way round makes it easier to see the similarities and differences, and that seems the purpose of the illustration ...Pedant 19:12, 14 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Actually, I wonder whether the US board should be that way round as well. I'll have to look into this... Bonalaw 19:27, 14 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Could someone recreate the Atlantic City version of the board? Having it rotated 180° from the London version makes it difficult to compare the two. --דוד ♣ D Monack 23:02, 4 January 2006 (UTC)


In fact I would like to stress that Landlord was a politically motivated game by a quakeress. -- Anon

Er... and why would you want to stress that ? -- Derek Ross | Talk

Error in tactics section?

In the tactics session it says that 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. But I've read somewhere in the game rules that you can't build for example 3 houses on a property until you have 2 on each of the other properties in the colour group. So, isn't that 'illegal'?

It refers to leaving the other group undeveloped, not the other property in a single group. Might as well add the one word in, for clarity's sake. Bonalaw 14:43, 14 Aug 2004 (UTC)
There. It now says "leaving the other group undeveloped". Bonalaw 14:47, 14 Aug 2004 (UTC)

hi monopoly people

There's a really awkward sentence in the second paragraph under the history section:

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.

Anyone wann fix it? I don't know who wrote it or what his/her exact intent was, so I don't wann mess it up. I will give it shot if no one else does. Keep it rearl, Kzzl 17:25, 14 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Most played?

I'm suspicious of the "most played board game" title -- even if the number (500 million) is accurate. Go has been around for maybe 4000 years, and it's much more popular in east Asian countries.

For example, last I checked, China's population was around 1 billion; if 1/4 of them have played a game of Go during their lifetime, that's 250 million right there, and that's not even counting every other country on earth, or the first 3900 years or so that Go has been played. Samarkand's webpage says that there are more than 100 million Go players (in the world, today, presumably).

I haven't seen an estimate of "total number of people who have played Go, throughout history", but if Monopoly is around 500 million, Go has to be close to, or beyond, that.

I absolutely agree. Go might be being played right now by 50 million. I'd recommend a change along the lines of "most played trademarked game" what source is this 'most played'/500 million people data?Pedant 19:28, 14 Aug 2004 (UTC)
I recently had the same discussion with User:Emsworth with respect to chess, so I will copy over the discussion below. -- Solipsist 20:12, 14 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Surely, monopoly cannot be the best-selling board game in the world, excelling chess — it might be. I don't disagree about downgrading Monopoly to 'one of' the best-selling board games, but if the Guinness Book of Records accepts it as the most played board game, it also stands a good chance of being the most sold game. Admittedly the average Monopoly game has four players whilst the average Chess game has just less than two players, but that just means that Monopoly has to outsell Chess by 2:1. Although chess has a much longer history, because of population growth and an increase in available free time, any comparison is going to boil down to which game is more popular in the western world today. Chess is often regarded as rather elitist, so I can quite believe there are more than 2x the number of Monopoly boards than chess in America today. -- Solipsist 20:08, 12 Aug 2004 (UTC)
I am almost certain that chess is the most played game in the world. It would be highly difficult, if not impossible, to determine the number of chess boards sold in the world. Perhaps Guinness only counts those games under the control of individual companies. If, however, you deem fit, I would not object to reinstating the phrase "best selling game." -- Emsworth 20:43, 12 Aug 2004 (UTC)
No, I'm not that bothered, except for the general stance of avoiding weasel words. I think the objection is probably valid. Guinness isn't a terrible source of facts, but it is not one I would like to stake my life on. It could easily turn out to be like the 'Best selling book', ignoring the Bible and any other example which might be hard to count. The 'most played game' is actually most likely to be the Mancala family of games - which is cheating a little, but is basically the same game with regional dialects and most boards are home improvised rather than sold. -- Solipsist 20:57, 12 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Essentially the claim comes from linked reference to the Guinness Book of World Records. As discussed above it is quite possible that their claim is not substantiated, but we should be fairly sure of the counter claim before dismissing it. Mancala is certainly the oldest and widest spread games, but given that it only marginally penetrates the largest population centres (India and China) and could be classed as many different games, it probably can't win the crown.
Given the exponential growth in world populations, there is a (possibly wrong) statistic that half the people who have ever lived are alive today. If that is accepted, then the long history of Go, Chess and Mancala is probably irrelevant, and the most played title is likely to go to the most played game today.
The 500 million figure must be substantiated by board sales and ~4players per board, which given 250m people in US + 300m in Europe suggests a pretty high penetration rate in the West. Certainly, I would be hard pressed to find anyone I know in the West who has not played Monopoly, but I'm often surprised to find people who haven't played Chess.
So the crux of the matter comes down to what fraction of the 1.2bn people in China play Go, or more likely that should be Mahjong which I think is actually the more popular game in China and also has 4 players per game. You have to factor in other questions, such as cultural differences in the amount of spare leisure time (what fraction of China lives in agrarian communities with zero free time - is it acceptable for women to play games).
For the record, I think that Go, Chess, and Mancalla are all more interesting (better) games than Monopoly and Mahjong is about the same. But on trying to estimate the numbers, it could be quite well balanced. -- Solipsist 20:12, 14 Aug 2004 (UTC)
I wouldn't put too much faith in the statistic that "half the people who ever lived are alive today". That's not just wrong, it's bonkers. Bonalaw 07:13, 15 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Not necessarily. It seems entirely logical to suggest that over the past 50,000 years or so only 12 billion humans have been born in that period, which would mean that the current population of 6 billion accounts for half of them. I don't know what the actual estimates are or what they're based on so it could still be wrong, but not bonkers wrong. Bryan 07:38, 15 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Its definately wrong. Here is well reasoned guestimate from Carl Haub [2]. It concludes that 5.8% of 'all the people who have every lived' are alive today. So we are in the right ball park and not bonkers wrong. However, also note that much of the total is accounted for by infant mortality, with an average life expectancy throughout most of history of 10-12years. Very few of those children will ever have learnt to play board games. Go and Chess would only be played by the wealthy elite throughout most of their history. So again, it boils down to what fraction of the population of the 20th century has played these games. -- Solipsist 08:27, 15 Aug 2004 (UTC)

What Is a Board Game I think that the whole 'most played'/bought issue turns on just what the Guiness people call a 'board game', I suspect it does NOT include chess and go or mancala... what's a 'board game'???Pedant 06:03, 16 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Good point, no way it beats chess. VV 06:06, 16 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Wow, look what a mess I started! First, the linked record is for the total number of people who have played the game -- not the number of active or regular players, and not the number of units sold. (So, for example, while I would not claim that a significant fraction of China, Japan, Korea, and so forth are active Go players, I do think it's likely that a significant fraction have played at least one game.)

If you want to change the claim to something like "one of the most played board games" or "the most played commercially-sold, trademarked game" I'd be fine with that.

I don't think Mancala is more played than Go. As noted before, it never really penetrated into many of the largest population centers. Also, it's (by Wikipedia's best estimates) simply not that old (or we have no record of it): "there is little verifiable evidence that the game is older than about 1300 years". Go is possibly 2500 years older than Mancala, and played in heavily populated areas (China, Japan).

I've always heard that Go is the second-oldest game played in its original form (well, more or less) -- second only to Backgammon. (But I don't think Backgammon takes the title, either, because the population of the middle east 3000 years ago simply wasn't that high, so the age effect has rapidly diminishing returns that far back.)

Maybe we should ask Guinness (1) what exactly they mean, and (2) how they got the number. It seems wrong to me to have a number in the Wikipedia that's (1) controversial (and sounds wrong to me), (2) sounds like an estimate (or a sales figure, which means they didn't count Chess, Go, ...), (3) without a source or any verification, and (4) presented as a fact.

I wouldn't worry about it too much and go with "one of the most played board games". I personally find the order of magnitude calculations good fun, but I doubt we are going to do an accurate enough job to prove the point either way. I only wanted to point out that the claim couldn't be easily dismissed by pointing to a longer history of the other contenders. I'd agree with everything you say on Guinness, and also suggest the original source is likely to be Parker Brothers who would have taken the claim to Guinness for rubber stamping. -- Solipsist 10:57, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I stopped trusting Guinness when I read, from one of thier books, that the Sahara is the words biggest desert; Antarctica is about 50% larger than the Sahara. Daniel 23:48, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)

The context for the most-played claim must be "most-played amongst commercial copyrighted games". Without doubt Chess and Go have been played by more people than has Monopoly, but those are games which are public domain. The second paragraph of the main article, ie Hasbro's claim, should be amended. In fact, I'm going to do it. Darcyj 14:49, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

Of course, the Anspach case has made it clear that Monopoly is a public domain game as well whatever Hasbro, its largest distributor would like us to believe. -- Derek Ross | Talk 01:06, 20 February 2006 (UTC)
Well A version of the Monopoly game is public domain. I think Hasbro's legal department would come after you if you tried to reprint THEIR Monopoly game and claimed public domain. Even the article says that the board layout, space names, artwork and rules are all under copyright, held by Hasbro. Anspach has another Monopoly game that he prints, but gives credit to Magie, which I think is utter hogwash, since it's NOT her "Landlord's Game". Somewhere in between Finance and Todd/Darrow, Monopoly came to be as we know it, but it's not Magie's game, nor is it a game belonging to any of the other "single inventors" either. --JohnDBuell 02:20, 20 February 2006 (UTC)
Of course. -- Derek Ross | Talk 04:30, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

I hate this game. It's Boring.Sorry Monopoly Lovers!--Cute 1 4 u 01:38, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

London Version choice of Locations?

Acording to the Book "Do Not Pass Go" about the choice of the London Monopoly squares, it says it was Victor Watson who went to london with the secretary Marjorie Phillips not Norman. The book says Norman only tested the game.

Ah... mea culpa. The sources I used were unclear about this. I'll fix it. Mintguy (T) 19:22, 19 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Its a good book too..lol I'm not a huge monopoly player but i enjoyed it..Rob

Strategy vs. chance

What is the basis for the claims made in the summary table? I believe that the element of strategy is high, and the chance element is medium, but any such judgment is either POV or original research. — David Remahl 10:57, 20 Sep 2004 (UTC)

These choices for the Game Infoboxes seem pretty arbitrary to me. Monopoly has the same amount of strategy depth as Magic: The Gathering? I have a hearty disagreement with that. I would keep Monopoly at Medium, considering the strategy level relative to Chess or Magic or Go. I recall an article about the World Monopoly Championship (or something to that effect) saying that there are basically two winning strategies (Oranges and Railroads) and the rest is luck. Also, I would bump Rules Complexity up to Medium. Tic-tac-toe, Dots and Boxes, and the version of Mancala popular in America have Low complexity of rules. Monopoly is more complicated than those, but not as much as Magic or Dungeons and Dragons. Also, while we're on the subject, I think all three of those infobox entries should be labeled with Low, Medium, or High. You wouldn't say that Monopoly has an "easy level of rules complexity"... you would say it has a "low level." Am I right? We're trying to make relatively objective (as much as we are able) quantitive judgments. To judge the qualitative ease of a game is pretty relative to the player, correct?

On the complexity of the rules, I agree with you on both content and style. It should be "medium". The other two entries (strategy="medium" and luck="high") I think are correct as they are. Since there are two of us that agree, I'll change the main article.  :-) --Fritzlein 17:41, 23 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Game Pieces

The page mentions a cannon as one of the game pieces. I always thought it was a spinning wheel? Can anyone provide a source on the identity of this game piece?

The piece is a cannon, not a spinning wheel. I realize this is one of those "I know I read it somewhere, but can't remember where" things, but it is true. The computer version does have a cannon, and it moves by shooting the opposite way to "push" the piece around the board. I know I've also seen the piece referred to as a "cannon" in various Monopoly books. I have three or four of these books, but I've recently moved and haven't found them yet. --Rt66lt, August 13, 2005

The Monopoly Companion by Philip Orbanes shows the original patent by Darrow. There's no names, but the picture is obviously a cannon. --Rt66lt, August 13, 2005

I believe the cannon, horse and rider and the battleship were all leftovers from a failed Risk-like game, but don't quote me on that. GarrettTalk 06:16, 14 August 2005 (UTC)

Condensation

Apparently this article is over the 32kb mark. I was thinking of maybe moving the tables to an artice called "Monopoly game board layout" or something like that. Does that sound good or no? --Gutterball1219 01:20, 23 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I'd rather bin the board layout's altogether, but that still won't help too much with th 32kb problem. I think condensing and eliminating a lot of the rules and "pseudo-strategy" sections would be better. -- Netoholic @ 01:36, 2004 Oct 23 (UTC)
I strongly disagree with the idea of deleting valid material simply to fit an arbitrary article size target. Splitting off the material into a rules and/or strategy-focused article is a reasonable approach, leaving a stub section here in the main article with a "For more detail, see [blah]" note under the header. Bryan 06:33, 23 Oct 2004 (UTC)
I would argue, that the current two boards should stay on this page. The plethora of layouts are one of the things people argue about on Monopoly, see for example the questions surrounding 'Short Line'. There is already a page with other board layouts, see localized versions of the Monopoly game. If anything needs moving to a related page it is the sections on the 'house rules', 'strategy', and even 'rules' which make a coherent group on their own.

Original Patent Drawing by Lizzie Magie

You're welcome :) --[[User:Brian0918|brian0918 talk]] 06:56, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Nice one. A little more information and a link to the source would be good. I take it the 'National Archive' is in the US. -- Solipsist 07:46, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Done. I'm not sure if the source link accessible by everyone, but it states on the site that it was created by a US Govt Dept and that there are no usage restrictions. --[[User:Brian0918|brian0918 talk]] 07:55, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Request for references

Hi, I am working to encourage implementation of the goals of the Wikipedia:Verifiability policy. Part of that is to make sure articles cite their sources. This is particularly important for featured articles, since they are a prominent part of Wikipedia. Further reading is not the same thing as proper references. Further reading could list works about the topic that were not ever consulted by the page authors. If some of the works listed in the further reading section were used to add or check material in the article, please list them in a references section instead. The Fact and Reference Check Project has more information. Thank you, and please leave me a message when a few references have been added to the article. - Taxman 19:06, Apr 22, 2005 (UTC)

Endless games

I'm surprised to see that someone is sying that games don't always terminate. Although I can see that this might be the case when some of the "house rules" are introduced, I've never found this to be a problem when the game is played strictly according to the printed rules. -- Derek Ross | Talk 07:25, Jun 26, 2005 (UTC)

Bellevue Place instead of Park Place?

The article says that the first blue, that is, dark-blue, property is called "Bellevue Place". But in the current Monopoly games, U.S. version, the property is called "Park Place" in English and "Plaza del Parque" in the translated U.S. Spanish version. The name "Park Place" comes from a street in southwestern Atlantic City called "Park Place", on a park called "Brighton Park".

First thing I wanna ask is why did they write on the article that the property is called "Bellevue Place", and not "Park Place". Second thing is, if it ever existed, then where does the name "Bellevue Place" come from? Apparently, at least nowadays, there is no street in Atlantic City called "Bellevue Place". Is that a mistake by the users who edited the article? 2004-12-29T22:45Z 23:25, 10 July 2005 (UTC)

The boards are the wrong way round!

Yes it's sad, but they are. In all renditions of Monopoly, the word MONOPOLY is printed in such a way as to make "up" be either GO to the bottom-right, or, when printed diagonally, GO as the bottom corner. Computer renditions of the game also follow this standard. But OUR boards are upside down!

I know it's a lot of work to flip them, but it needs to be done to be correct. I assume it can be modified with one of those HTML>Wiki table converters, so I'll have a look at that unless someone else beats me to it. GarrettTalk 01:42, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

This has been raised before, in the "Weird Board" section. Presumably nothing was done then. When I looked at the British board in the article, it seemed quite odd to see it that way around.
Switching them around looks like a big job. Maybe you could do one and me the other? I've begun with the London version, which I'll do on my User page until I get it right and move it here.
Incidentally, I like the way that the street names are linked to the relevant articles. In April I went to London specifically to walk around the board, and I took photographs of things like streetscapes and street signs, so I've been using the board as a sort of "central station" to get to the articles to add photographs where I can. The Euston Road article is really impressive - it has a table showing landmarks from one end to the other, a masterful piece of work. Pete 02:10, 10 August 2005 (UTC)
What I'm doing is rebuilding it in HTML. I'm hoping I can convert a fully proportional version using those converter things, rather than work with the rectangular one we have at present. So you might as well stop until I see if it works, as with the WYSIWYG editor I can change place names effortlessly.
Wow, that Euston Road page is cool! I never knew that sort of page existed. Cool. :) GarrettTalk 03:04, 10 August 2005 (UTC)
I've changed the London one. If nothing else, it was something to get the old brain cells working!
I've given up on the HTML version, I forgot how limited wiki tables were. But that looks fine, and I guess it won't be that hard to flip the other one now... GarrettTalk 04:03, 10 August 2005 (UTC)
I was the one that first created it way back when, working from a board with a diagonal "Monopoly". I probably put it in this orientation simply because it seems natural to start at the upper right, that's how reading and writing in English goes. Oops. :) Bryan 02:35, 10 August 2005 (UTC)
LOL! That's OK. As I mentioned above I might end up having a better-shaped rebuild anyway. GarrettTalk 03:04, 10 August 2005 (UTC)
Bryan, I can see how you would have done it that way, and I certainly take my hat off to you for doing it in the first place. It just looks odd that way around. And if we ever feel like changing orientation, we now can flip easily back and forth between them! And thanks for picking up the GO arrow pointing in the wrong direction. i just did a cut'n'paste and forgot about that detail!Pete 03:34, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

Yes indeed, how shalt I construct an Uncyclopedia / Uncyclopoly] parody using thine crappy code? Thine board is misroated! --Nerd42 04:12, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Which railroad is most landed on?

Does anyone know, on average, which railroad is most landed on? I haven't searched a lot of websites for this info, so hoping someone has a good guess. - KK in Calif.

Good question! I assume it's King's Cross since many of the "Advance to" cards point either directly to it or to somewhere nearby. This is probably covered in the lengthy probability reports in the links section, but that's my guess for now. GarrettTalk 05:36, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

I believe that would be the B&O Railroad (for UK and other versions, that is the railroad on the top side, with the Go to Jail and Free Parking spaces). The least landed on is the Short Line (for UK and other versions, that is the railroad on the right side, with the Luxury Tax space). -Chicobo329

1935 rules/board/reprint?

Since the 1935 board WAS reprinted in the US a couple of years ago, I'm surprised there's not a sentence or two about the slight changes in the board and rules compared to the current edition (e.g. income tax was originally $300, not $200, a special "banker's board" for keeping money denominations in seperate piles came only with later editions, slight differences in colors as printed on the board, etc.) Would this be worthwhile to add to the article (I own one of the reprints). --JohnDBuell | Talk 05:23, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

Mortgage Values

Could someone post the mortgage values along with the other financial information about each property?

All properties have a mortgage value that is exactly half of what it cost. For example, the utilities cost $150 and mortgaging them will get $75. To unmortgage a property, you pay the mortgage value plus 10%. For example, unmortgaging Baltic and Mediterrian Avenues (the Dark Browns on the UK board I believe) will cost you $33, which is the mortgage price of $30 plus $3 from the 10%.--Chicobo329 18:44, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

Lists of official/unofficial versions is getting out of hand!

Isn't there a list page for official/unofficial versions of Monopoly that a lot of those can be moved to? And I'm guilty of adding a couple, myself. --JohnDBuell 07:29, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

Soviet Version: real?

Is there provenance for that one? Midgley 20:44, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

Double Rent is not House Rule

Under "House Rules" it lists "Double Rent," but I'm pretty sure this is an official rule.

I think that you are correct, but I don't have time to check the rules now. Someone please check the rules and make the change. Val42 21:05, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
According to Hasbro's website, Double Rent is an official rule (http://www.hasbro.com/common/instruct/monins.pdf) and I'll correct this.

When a player owns all three (or two) properties in a color group, they can charge double rent on that color group Reywas92 21:08, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

Right - the trick is that that is valid for an 'undeveloped' property. Once you put houses on it, you charge at the one house/two house/etc rate, not DOUBLE that! --JohnDBuell 21:18, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

Review changes

The differences between the version of this article when it was featured and the current version are quite considerable. As best as I can tell, a large amount of text has somehow gotten lost. We need to review this diff, and untangle it, and fix whatever needs to be fixed(if anything). I can't do this right now, so I'm dropping this note on the talk page to remind myself, and hopefully get some help. Thanks! JesseW, the juggling janitor 08:22, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

A lot of the information is very pertinent, especially as people discover more about the background and history of Monopoly and the games that preceded it. However, the lists are REALLY getting out of hand. It seems like everybody that owns a custom board, licensed or not, wants to add it. I think it's worthwhile to mention spin-offs like the City in the Box, but I think the list of localized boards needs to be updated/expanded. I've been considering the creation of a List of licensed Monopoly game boards (or something like it) where people can add THEIR OWN photographs (under GFDL, of course) of the boards in their collections. Thoughts? --JohnDBuell 17:54, 1 January 2006 (UTC)
I also started tinkering in my userpage namespace, and determined that if we fork off the lists and the history section, we could get this main page back down under 40KB. --JohnDBuell 00:53, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

The lost text is basically because one particular author seemed to object to any suggestion that Monopoly existed before Charles Darrow and remodelled the text to remove or downplay the early history of the game. -- Derek Ross | Talk 00:20, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

heavily disputed

I'm against linking to the talk page from a featured article. Couldn't we summarize these objections (at least those which are sourced) in an appropriate article. 69.22.42.35 03:39, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

If anyone can find an external source, online or not, that has a similar debate over the Guinness figure of 500 million, or Hasbro's quoted 2005 figure of 750 million, feel free to change the link. I re-read that section of this talk page and couldn't find anything that looked like an external link. I agree that it shouldn't be there, it's just a matter of finding an appropriate source. --JohnDBuell 05:02, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

There also appears to be a contradiction regarding the value of the most expensive set ever produced. The 'Records' ssection states it to be a $25,000 set, while the 'equipment' section states $100,000. CA 81.6.223.146 18:24, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Good catch. The FAO Schwarz set trumps the other easily, and certainly came later. The Monopoly Companion book was first printed in the 1980s and reprinted in the 1990s, before the FAO Schwarz set came out. --JohnDBuell 20:54, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Version and variation lists

I have unilaterally cut these lists down, and tried to reemphasize the subpages that have larger lists. I've managed to shave 2KB off of the article's size by doing this, and as I noted, long lists like that are a good way to land this article onto FARC, which I don't want to see happen. --JohnDBuell 12:03, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Bankruptcy

It's possible to go bankrupt as a result of bankrupting another player. If you are on near bankruptcy yourself, and bankrupt another player, you might not be able to pay off the interest on that player's properties, and thus go bankrupt too. I've never actually seen it happen, but it has been close.--RLent 17:25, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Anti-monopoly lawsuit

The previous version of this article claimed that the anti-monopoly lawsuit "went all the way to the United States Supreme Court" and that the Supreme Court found in favor of anti-Monopoly, which is not accurate. A quick Lexis search for "anti-monopoly" reveals that the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals found in favor of Anti-Monopoly, Inc. in Anti-Monopoly, Inc. v. General Mills Fun Group, 684 F.2d 1316 (9th Cir. 1982), and the Supreme Court denied cert (that is, they decided not to hear the case and let the lower court's decision stand). See CPG Prods. Corp. v. Anti-Monopoly, Inc., 459 U.S. 1227 (1983) (denying cert). I have removed the reference to the Supreme Court and substituted an accurate description. Elliotreed 05:48, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

Then what does Anspach have published on his website under http://www.antimonopoly.com/excerpt_court_ruling_original.htm ? You may need to be as specific in the article as you are on this section of the talk page. --JohnDBuell 19:48, 4 March 2006 (UTC)
Nevermind, I tried to fix the text to relate all of this. It may be worth noting that Anspach's own site tries to spin the case as "going all the way to the Supreme Court." He also is still apparently clashing with Hasbro. --JohnDBuell 20:00, 4 March 2006 (UTC)
I checked Lexis for the thing Anspach posted on his site, and it's Anti-Monopoly, Inc. v. General Mills Fun Group, 684 F.2d 1316 (9th Cir. 1982), the Ninth Circuit opinion, not a Supreme Court opinion. Anspach is clearly trying to mislead people into thinking this was a bigger deal than it was; the Supreme Court never heard the case or rendered a decision. The Supreme Court was only involved insofar as Hasbro petitioned for cert and the Supreme Court denied it. --Elliotreed 16:52, 5 March 2006 (UTC)
It's pretty easy to grasp from the general tone of his website that he's in just as much of a hype game over his POV (and ultimately for sales of his book and games!) as anyone else involved in making -opoly sets. Absolute classic case of needing to meet NPOV requirements on a topic. Because of this spin, do you have any other references (online or off) for the texts of these court decisions? --JohnDBuell 17:27, 5 March 2006 (UTC)
In large public libraries in the United States, it can be found in the huge set of volumes of Federal court decisions. The reference, 684 F.2d 1316, means that it's in volume 684 of the 2nd Federal series, at page (or section?) 1316... I believe, as it's been a while since I actually looked something up this way. I did at one point look up this very case, after reading about it on the Internet and being curious about the details, but didn't make a copy. *Dan T.* 19:02, 5 March 2006 (UTC)
I'll try to remember this the next time I'm at a public or college library, and see if we can convert this to a {{cite book}}. --JohnDBuell 20:48, 5 March 2006 (UTC)
As a note, I've removed a reference to Anspach still being required to license the name, as this seems to be in conflict with information presented earlier in the article and on the Anti-Monopoly page. 69.140.122.147 03:41, 9 July 2006 (UTC)
The paragraph you removed the text from does indicate that the trademark was allowed to be re-registered by Kenner Parker Toys and subsequently acquired by Hasbro due to acts passed in Congress in the 1980s. As such, the text has been restored as being correct. --JohnDBuell 04:18, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Pop culture references?

Would anyone be interested in starting a new sub-page of pop culture references? The game has been mentioned in the comic strips Calvin and Hobbes, FoxTrot and even Madam and Eve. I even noticed it played a part in at least the television episode Agatha Christie's Poirot: The Lost Mine - I don't know if it was in the original short story, I haven't read it, yet. But I also noticed a goof - the London version came out in 1936 (and they even used a "Patent Applied For" board, amazing!) but one of the characters (in the aforementioned television episode) signs his name into a hotel register giving a date of 1935. Oops. :) --JohnDBuell 21:07, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

I think that the only problem is that mentions of Monopoly are so ubiquitous that such a list would very quickly become very large. We might have to restrict it by keeping to notable mention of Monopoly only. But feel free. -- Derek Ross | Talk 05:22, 13 March 2006 (UTC)
I agree entirely, which is why I was suggesting to use the existing mini-list as a start off point, but fork the whole thing off onto a new subpage. I did something very similar with The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and that's been pretty successful. It really keeps the main page from getting too unwieldy. --JohnDBuell 05:39, 13 March 2006 (UTC)
That would work. -- Derek Ross | Talk 06:25, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

Number of properties?

In the description of the board, the article says there are 28 properties. Are the railroads and utilities actually considered properties? There are actually 22 properties you can build on. I guess it depends on how you define “properties.” Are they the spaces you can build on, or are they the spaces you can own? Anyone else have a view on this? — Michael J 20:39, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

Personal preference I guess. I'm reminded of the episode of Poirot where he and Captain Hastings are playing a then-brand-new London edition of Monopoly, and Poirot insists that hotels should be allowed to be built at the London railroad stations (which actually disregards the fact that they were actually meant to be full railroad lines in the original US version). You can buy, sell and negotiate on twenty-eight properties, but only develop houses and hotels on twenty-two of them. --JohnDBuell 01:55, 4 May 2006 (UTC)
According to the Wiktionary, property is merely "something owned". Since the Railroads and Utilities can be owned (as they have Title Deeds), then they should be counted with the 22 properties that can be "improved".

German Set

In the equipment section of the article, it states that 'These plastic tokens can be seen in the German Monopoly set pictured at the beginning of this article'. There is, however, no German set pictured anywhere in the article. Lollergirl 19:47, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

Look VERY closely at the image in the infobox at the VERY start of the article. It's a German set with currency in DM. --JohnDBuell 19:55, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

doh! i stand corrected. Lollergirl 22:34, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

Georgist POV

Just want to clarify what is Georgist and what is not in The Landlord's Game.

The landlord\tenant\rent relationship is not Georgist. Since Adam Smith first explained it, all economists whatever their political persuasion, agree that, in a free market, rent will rise until the average income tenant can only just afford it. This leads to impoverishment of the below-average income tenants (and is one of the big reasons for everyone to buy their own home if they possibly can). Monopoly still demonstrates this admirably.

The Georgist part of The Landlord's Game (which is missing from modern Monopoly) was to impose a Land value tax during the second phase of the game. I would imagine that the second phase was dropped because, while it makes for a great demonstration, it makes for a poor game since you don't get an out-and-out winner as you do in Monopoly. -- Derek Ross | Talk 18:49, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Here and Now Editions

Would someone like to break the Here and Now Editions text into a new subsection? I've just discovered that not only was there a UK edition last year, and an upcoming US edition, but there's also a German "Heute" ("Today") edition, and possibly others.... --JohnDBuell 12:19, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Williams College in Reading, Pa.

In the history section, the article states that Daniel W. Layman based the game Finance on a version of the game he learned at Williams College in Reading, Pennsylvania. Williams College, however, is in Williamstown, Massachusetts, about 300 miles from Reading. I've searched the internet to see if there's another Williams College in Reading but there doesn't appear to be. Also, many other internet sites make the same claim about Layman having created Finance while he was at Williams College in Reading. Is/was there a Williams College in Reading, or is this an unfactual statement that has been propagated widely? —Brim 20:11, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

What is probably more likely is that since the 1920s, the college has undergone a name change, merged, or been closed, though a quick look at college campuses in Reading didn't reveal a former 'Williams College'. The unaltered text from the Kennedy/Walzer book, Monopoly: The Story Behind the World's Best-Selling Game follows:
In the late 1920s, two Delta Kappa Epsilon and real-life brothers, Frederick and Louis Thun, recruited one Daniel W. Layman into the monopoly-playing fraternity at Williams College in Reading, Pennsylvania.
--JohnDBuell 20:47, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
A-ha! According to a member the Historical Society of Berks County (Pennsylvania):
Whoever penned that bit about Williams in Reading simply made a mistake. In the 1920's, there was only one college located in Reading... Schuylkill Seminary which evolved, through mergers with sibling Evangelical seminaries located in neighboring counties, into today's Albright College. I've seen the Thuns' "Wyomissing Monopoly Board." We ran a photo of that board on the cover of one of our Historical Review magazines quite a number of years ago.
--JohnDBuell 13:25, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Good, catch, guys! -- Derek Ross | Talk 14:40, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Just for the sake of comparison I looked up the EB article online about the game - they don't mention Reading, PA or Indianapolis at all, but they DO mention that neither the Thun brothers nor Daniel Layman secured a patent on their variations of the game, because of the Lizzie Magie patent! --JohnDBuell 23:49, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
Oooh this gets more interesting. The Kennedy book seems to be the only source that claims that the Thuns and Layman went to school together in Pennsylvania. Anspach's documents (summary in PDF form here state that Layman learned the game at Williams College, but not directly from the Thuns, and did take it back to Indianapolis. ideafinder.com also cites a DKE house at Williams College for Layman's inspiration, and that his version, Finance, WAS patented. Anyone for doing a major rewrite of the history section or spinning it off into a new article? --JohnDBuell 00:25, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Property square probabilities

I've added the {{contradict}} tag to this section because it appears to contradict itself; Park Place is cited as the least landed-upon, then later Mediterranean and Baltic Avenues are mentioned as the least landed-upon. Can someone clarify this? —Cuiviénen 02:55, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

I read over the "Probabilities in the Game of Monopoly" page (see below), and then it started to make sense. I see where it looked self-contradictory before, hopefully the rewrite will help. [3] --JohnDBuell 03:25, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Image

I changed it to an american version because we speak ENGLISH, NOT GERMAN. GangstaEB 02:14, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Bad idea for a number of reasons. One: that was NOT the original monopoly board, you'd have to have a photograph of a 1935 Parker Brothers edition (NOT the reprint), or earlier to make that claim. Two: The German board picture of a game in progress is released under GFDL, it's not protected by copyrights for promotional material as yours was, and there's always a preference to take GFDL images over copyright protected images whenever and whereever possible (there's also a debate about banning 'fair use' images on EN wikipedia altogether, but that's not a topic to debate here). On top of that, it's also a Featured Image, which is a VERY good idea for inclusion in a featured article. Three: The image proves that Monopoly is indeed an international phenomenon, which the article describes. --JohnDBuell 06:35, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Cards

Are the cards the same for the US and the British version. I.e. In the British version you get money for winning a crossword competition and and coming second in a Beauty contest. Jooler 13:42, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm assuming you mean the standard editions, because they get customized for each license used by Hasbro/Winning Movies/USAopoly etc. There's no crossword competition in the US cards, but the "Second Place in a Beauty Contest" goes back to the 1935 edition. --JohnDBuell 14:08, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Proposed Merger with Go (monopoly)

I'd have stuck the "mergefrom" template somewhere on the page, but nowhere seemed suitable. Go (Monopoly) has no content that isn't already here. Is there anything that can be done to that article to differentiate it from Monopoly? Since the trend at least among computer games has been to cut down on too-specific information (even when there is information to be had, such as lists of weapons and town shops and so on), it seems that this should apply to board games as well, at least if there's nothing unique to be done with the Go article. SnowFire 23:37, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Actually, if there are a series of those, we could do up a List of Standard Edition Monopoly game spaces or something like that. --JohnDBuell 00:31, 21 July 2006 (UTC)
Those that are worthy of being linked can have that in the main Monopoly board... which, now that I look, also has some suspicious stubby articles like "Go to Jail" and the like. Linking to the real places and entities seems fine (Boardwalk, the Railroads, Income Tax, etc.), I just don't know if there will ever be enough content to fill a "Go to Jail" article- it'll be stuck as a stub forever.
To clarify, a list:

SnowFire 01:24, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Chance cards and Community Chest cards could probably also be profitably merged.--Pharos 15:08, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Those pages need to cover more. No mention of British versions of the cards. - I didn't know they were different til I asked the question above Jooler 17:51, 21 July 2006 (UTC)
Not to mention some of the original cards from the original 1935 edition, which were later changed, are not on those lists either. Sounds like a good weekend project ;) --JohnDBuell 18:28, 21 July 2006 (UTC)
Actually after doing some expansion in both articles about the cards, they are no longer "stub" length, so I'm not sure about merging them. A proposed list of spaces article might wind up pretty long with these included. --JohnDBuell 18:44, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
Yes, but is the documention of what's printed on the backs of all these cards actually appropriate for an encyclopedia article?--Pharos 22:35, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
Valid point. I'd say the evolution of the content of the cards is, as well as the difference in the cards (a German board I have from the 60s or 70s uses direct translations of the UK Standard Edition cards). So perhaps merging into a list would be appropriate, along with cutting down the text from the two articles to insert them into said list. --JohnDBuell 22:48, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

For what it's worth, I think the Chance & Community Chest listings are reasonable, whether in two articles or one. There's certainly content to put in there, changes over time, their historical origin, and so on. That said, am I correct in seeing no particular objections to turning the three space articles listed above into redirects to the main article? They can always be remade if it turns out that there is content to place there. SnowFire 14:53, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Well, if nobody really wants to make a list of spaces and their real life counterparts, then I'd say go ahead. --JohnDBuell 15:45, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
Done. SnowFire 16:28, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

No more money

Reports have come out that they're phasing out paper money for VISA-type cards.

I doubt the change is permanent. It seems to only be available for variants of the French, German and UK "Here and Now" editions. --JohnDBuell 02:43, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
Nope, it is Here to stay in the U.S. version as well. Wonder how we can get a hold of a royalty-free picture of the card reader? YearginSM 14:35, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
By your link, Hasbro US is only "considering" the change. And the Visa debit reader STILL only appears in variants of the "Here and Now" edition. Hardly sounds like a permanent change to me. You'd have to get someone in Germany, France or the UK to photograph the cards/reader, but Visa/Hasbro will still own rights to the design. --JohnDBuell 15:19, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Dice roll probability table

This table has been rewritten to use the Wiki markup for tables, rather than HTML. Does anyone know how to get text to wrap back up to the right of the table, rather than underneath it? It would make the article appear to be less long in a browser than it is now. --JohnDBuell 18:39, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

Suspicious Monopoly Records

Quote:

According to the Monopoly Companion by Philip Orbanes:

  • The longest game ever played was 1,680 hours.
  • The longest game played in a bathtub was 99 hours.
  • The longest game played underwater was 1,080 hours.
  • The longest game played in a moving elevator was 384 hours.
  • The longest game played upside down (on a ceiling) was 36 hours.
  • The longest game played on the back of a fire truck was 101 hours.
  • The longest game played in a tree house was 240 hours.
  • The largest outdoor game played was played on a 938-by-765 foot game board.
  • The largest indoor game played was played on a 122-by-122 foot game board.
  • The smallest game played was played on a 1-inch-square game board and was played for 30 hours.

I would like to check how credible Monopoly Records are. (Nearly) all of the entries are suspicious. They appear to be promotional or marketing gimmicks to promote the game Monopoly, instead of objective, third-party and factual records. If so, they should be removed in accordance to wikipedia standards or policies.

After all, the main question is whether they are credible and real records? Any comment or input?
If there is not positive input or proofs or the like, I'm going to remove them.--Wai Wai (talk) 17:52, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

Yep, scrap 'em. The only remotely significant one is the longest game ever played. The rest are pointless. -- Derek Ross | Talk 18:04, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
It should be noted that each of those items CAN be confirmed in The Monopoly Companion, but the second edition of that book was published in 1999, and any listed records MAY have been surpassed in the last seven years. --JohnDBuell 23:24, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
I'm not saying delete them because they're non-verifiable or even because they're false, John. I'm saying delete them because they're not notable. I don't believe that they add anything to our reader's understanding of Monopoly, however true they may be. -- Derek Ross | Talk 05:16, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
Comment: Even if they are taken from an original source (ie verifiable), it should not be put if they are vanity (eg deletion should be made if these information is promotional, rather than true and honest records). Anyway the issue is fixed now (as it has been deleted).--Wai Wai (talk) 11:43, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
I got the impression that the user who added them grabbed a copy of the book and just added every record within, in good faith. Obviously I have no problem with the thought that only the one is truly notable, I must say I find the rest of them whimsical.... --JohnDBuell 11:50, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Notes section

I'd actually prefer to continue to call the section Notes, after seeing that there's no consensus under Wikipedia:Guide to layout. Some of the texts I've actually used to expand this article are listed in the Further Reading section, which actually takes the place of References for this article (since that's much the same thing). --JohnDBuell 04:54, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

There is. The "notes" part is for footnotes placed at the bottom of a page that comments on, and may cite a reference for, a part of the main text. However the "reference" part is to place any referenced materials (books, websites etc.) used in constructing the article at the bottom of a page. Since I see it mixes with both notes and references, it should be called "Notes and references". I will update the page to make this clear. Thanks for your comments. --Wai Wai (talk) 11:25, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
Oh nevermind, what I thought I saw was lack of consensus on titling the sections in singular or plural. Plural certainly applies in the case of this article, as there are multiple notes, and multiple printed references. --JohnDBuell 11:52, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Here and Now infobox

Does the article really need a separate infobox for the Here and Now Edition or is it just unnecessary clutter? JBarta (talk) 05:03, 8 April 2009 (UTC) Yes it does need a seperate userbox. 72.202.149.21 (talk) 21:45, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

That's not much of a rationale for keeping it. Infoboxes are normally one per page and at the top of the page. I think the Here and Now infobox can be eliminated for a few reasons...
  1. The typical usage is one per article (at the top) and the Infobox guidelines suggest this.
  2. A quick perusal of other games/articles shows such is the case... even among games with variations. If multiple infoboxes are ever used in articles, they are the exception rather than the rule.
  3. The Here and Now infobox is essentially a duplication of the main Monopoly infobox. The only real difference is the picture. It adds nothing useful to the article.
  4. It screws up the artcle layout and (IMO) looks out of place.
Absent a compelling explanation of how and why it improves the article, I'd suggest it should be removed. JBarta (talk) 03:31, 9 April 2009 (UTC)
Seeing no reason to keep it, I'll remove it. JBarta (talk) 20:26, 10 April 2009 (UTC)
Agreed. The only significant difference seems to be that it takes eight players rather than six, but it'd be more useful to actually draw attention to that in the article, rather than leaving readers to work it out from two distant infoboxes. The box art could always come back as a thumbnail, if we rearranged the section so that the board and cover weren't competing for the same horizontal space. --McGeddon (talk) 17:25, 11 April 2009 (UTC)
Adding the box cover art in a non-obtrusive way sounds like a fine idea. I added it. Seems to look OK. JBarta (talk) 18:25, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

This infobox gives users more info about the game. Also, I uploaded the box art, and you did not. There is nothing wrong with the IMO in the article. In a rare case, a large group could be looking here and thinking that the World Edition holds 8 players. Go buy it and Oops, it only has 6! What do you know? Just a little information can save someone $40. The Infobox Guidelines "suggest" this, not restrict it. The picture is useful to the article. Also, JBarta, you have been no help to this section.ZV1998 (talk) 00:52, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

My will to press the issue withers in the face of your compelling rationale. Keep the infobox. JBarta (talk) 02:17, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Enrich owners, impoverish tenants

Could this be added: it has "the object of demonstrating how rents enrich property owners and impoverish tenants"? It says that in "The Landlord's Game" article which was the precursor to Monopoly. Stars4change (talk) 06:23, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

That very phrase was originally part of this article but has been removed for some reason. -- Derek Ross | Talk 07:08, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Criticism of criticism

Between trades and the decisions of whether to build or mortgage, this statement is clearly untrue:

In addition, the game requires almost no strategy. The only decision a player has to make is whether or not to buy a property. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 131.182.172.229 (talk) 20:21, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Someone add info about Estanciero

Estanciero es a licensed copy of monopoly there is in argentina —Preceding unsigned comment added by 190.188.28.240 (talk) 20:13, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

Pink Squares

I have a Looney Tunes Monopoly, and my friend has a Nintendo Monopoly, and both of our game boards have a pink group after the Jail space. The diagrams on this page use light purple instead. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.57.176.41 (talk) 02:51, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

It's possible that this may be a difference in terminology. Depending who you ask, that group is referred to as the "pink", the "light purples", the "magentas", or the "maroons". Tostie14 (talk) 23:15, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

I always call it pink. Some people just like to give overly complicated names to various colours.(Huey45 (talk) 02:39, 27 March 2010 (UTC))

Most Landed--On Properties

The orange properties, and the light-purple(or pink) properties, are actually the most landed-on properties on the whole game board. This is because whenever a player leaves the the jail, they go right out onto that side of the board. Also, the most landed-on railroad is Pennsylvania Railroad for that same reason. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Renddslow (talk • contribs) 16:47, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Milk carton?

When was a milk carton introduced as a piece? I can't find a source for it. Is that just hash? Purplebackpack89 (Notes Taken) (Locker) 21:06, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Playing time

I've just bumped this down from the improbable "45 - 600 minutes" to "45 - 180 minutes" (taking the upper limit from BoardGameGeek). Couldn't find a useful source for the actual playing time. Does anyone have a copy of the game they could check the box of? --McGeddon (talk) 17:05, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

Other Versions

I have a version called the Here and Now: Limited Edition it has the top landmarks from Canada, why isn't that version in here? I have a version with scoobby doo. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.95.56.94 (talk) 03:51, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

I belive there is now a firefighters edition 83.81.63.107 (talk) 15:47, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

Sources unclear

This article has two citations listed merely as "Kennedy, p. 35" and "Kennedy, p. 23." Nowhere is it indicated who Kennedy is or what he/she authored. — Michael J 22:12, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Rod Kennedy is the author of the book published in association with the Atlantic City Historical Museum. Details now added.--Felix Folio Secundus (talk) 17:59, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

Unsourced Material

The article has been tagged for lack of sourcing since August 2010. If you can provide sourcing, please feel free to re-add the below material. Thanks. Doniago (talk) 16:58, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

Variants

It's listed that offering rent immunity is a variant. I don't think it should be listed, as under the rules it specifically outlines rent and states that if a player doesn't ASK for the rent within two players moves, then the rent is forfeit. One could assume that by simply not asking for the rent would grant one immunity from having to pay rent, and thus is not a variant as it's directly in the rules. DeMyztikX (talk) 05:30, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

The variant would I assume be rent immunity being considered binding. In the standard rules, I can buy Fleet Street off you and say I won't charge you rent when you land on it, then I can build hotels on the red group and go ahead and charge you the rent anyway. M0ffx (talk) 03:47, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

Discuss Changes

There have been a very large number of edits on this page. And I see that someone beat me to fixing the changes. My concern is that for example that the link to the BBC page for example did not contain the information that it was being used to source. If you wish to put major changes to the games origin it would be advisible to discuss it on this page first to ensure that it is not original research.Tetron76 (talk) 20:37, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

Tokens/Movers/Pawns/Pieces

So what should we call the tokens on the page? The Wikipedia page currently lists "pawns/pieces", but the rules refer to them as tokens. When I was in the UK at the UK MONOPOLY Championship last spring, they refer to them as "movers". Any consensus? GAME ON! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 219.90.153.200 (talk) 08:49, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

The racecar tokens is look like classic Formula One car

Phanuruch8555 (talk) 07:24, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

UK ENG or US ENG

I notice there is no continuity in the spellings in this article. There are UK and US spellings throughout. Color, Colour etc. From the history, the first language specific spelling seems to be "colour", but as this is an American game I am more inclined to think it should be in US ENG. As an Anglo-American I have no qualms about either. MrMarmite (talk) 09:12, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

Two comments

1. The "History" section is disjointed and flows poorly, like random paragraphs cut from a longer text.

2. In "Board - US versions", Should "adaptation" in "the adaptation of a flat $200 Income Tax" actually be "adoption"? I would change it myself, but I'm not 100% sure I understand what it was intended to mean....

86.181.168.183 (talk) 03:38, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

Further criticism

I used to work for a (computer) games company, and a game designer I worked with described more succinctly what the problem with monopoly is, by definition of it's title, premise, and monopoly in real life, once one person starts winning, it takes 4 hours for everyone to slowly lose, even when they gang up on the winning player. This wasn't his own words, it was part of his training, so this MUST be written somewhere. In other words, there is no "reward" system for losing players to try to catch up, and a comeback is, by the rules of chance, very rare. I could probably word this logically, thereby getting past the requirement to find a citation, but that would be worthy of an essay, which I can't be bothered to write, so if anyone can find a good citation, it would save me a long time of putting into indisputable terms which don't require a citation :-) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.97.48.95 (talk) 04:34, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

I would argue that the game designer who you worked with isn't familiar with how the game is truly played. More often than not, when everyone plays by ALL of the rules in the game and with NONE of the house rules, most games should be finished in well under 2 hours. And I have seen many a game where someone who was clearly in last place can come back and strategically trade their way up into better standings and even come back to win in some instances. Tostie14 (talk) 19:21, 1 February 2012 (UTC) Director of "Under the Boardwalk: The MONOPOLY Story"

Color Crisis

There's a slight problem with the layout images in the "Board" section. The U.S, U.K. and Here and Now World images all portray the spaces corresponding to Mediterranean and Baltic Avenues as brown rather than violet. The Here and Now U.S. doesn't have this problem; instead, it portrays Centennial Park, Red Rocks Amphitheater, and the Liberty Bell (i.e., on the traditional board, St. Charles's Place, States, and Virginia) as lavender rather than magenta. This might not seem like a huge problem, but I know at least one author who based her description of the Monopoly board on one of these images; I think it behooves this site to make sure that she isn't deceiving her public. -Agur bar Jacé (talk) 18:22, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

Do boards of different ages use variations in color? Could that be the reason? Which image(s) are you referring to? -- Trevj (talk) 11:57, 25 October 2011 (UTC)
In 2008, Hasbro standardized the board so that all new editions would have brown for the first two spaces instead of violet/purple to bring the US in line with the rest of the world. The Here & Now: US Edition was put out before that time which is why it was violet. Similarly, changes were made to eliminate the 10% option for Income Tax and changed Luxury/Super Tax to $100 from $75 in the US. Tostie14 (talk) 19:18, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

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Community Chest

Hi, I would like to suggest that somewhere in this article (and presumably also in Chance and Community Chest cards) the significance of the name "Community Chest" is explained. Though I remember the game well from childhood, I realised after happening on this article that I've gone my whole life without ever having the remotest idea what it means. At Community Chest it says "named after the American charity", which appears to refer to Community Chest (organization). Is that correct? I still don't really get the connection, especially because some of the cards are bad things, like "Go to jail", "Pay Hospital Fees" and "Pay School Fees". Why would they have anything to do with a charity? Does anyone know? I think we should be told! 86.181.170.34 (talk) 01:53, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

Several communities in the United States still have a Community Chest, but they're more commonly known as the United Way now. As to why some of the cards are penalties, the only thing I can think of is that it balances out the game play. If you had all of the negative effects in Chance, and all of the positive ones in Community Chest, you would be taking out one of the random factors. --JohnDBuell (talk) 14:04, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

Aim of the Game

The article doesn't seem to explain the aim of the game clearly. As a child I never understood what I was supposed to do, so I was always the first family member to go out and had to sit through the rest of the game. I used to call it The Bored Game Monotony.

However, in later life, I cottoned on to what the real property game's all about and I now own enough rental properties that I can live off their income. All owned outright.

--88.108.219.140 (talk) 16:52, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

The aim of a player of the game is to bankrupt the other players by charging them extortionate rents. The aim of a player of the real life property game is make a better return on real estate than can be obtained via other investments. If you are doing that, you are winning. Please feel free to clarify the article if it is not clear on the aim of the game. -- Derek Ross | Talk 18:22, 29 December 2011 (UTC)
Monopoly is about staying in the game by paying as little money as you can while making enough to not go bankrupt when you do have to pay. Basically, choosing the right time to buy or trade. Gatonom Nyan 21:56, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

Earlier reference to Darrow needed

Since the game is normally attributed to Charles Darrow, who is typically seen as the inventor of the game, it would be good if there were earlier references to him in the article. ACEOREVIVED (talk) 16:48, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

I agree. In fact, I came to this talk page just to say the same thing. Kdammers (talk) 07:55, 26 November 2012 (UTC)
Darrow is just the dude that got lucky enough to sucker George Parker into buying the game to sell nationally. The game existed thirty years before that. --JohnDBuell (talk) 14:06, 6 February 2013 (UTC)
He is also first mentioned in the second paragraph of the article, so I don't see what the fuss is about. --JohnDBuell (talk) 01:24, 7 February 2013 (UTC)
  1. ^ Brewer, E. C. (1991) Brewer's Dictionary of 20th-Century Phrase and Fable. London: Cassell; pp. 408-09
  2. ^ Brian McMahon (November 29, 2007). "How board game helped free POWs". Mental floss magazine. Retrieved 2007-12-07. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  3. ^ Ki Mae Heussner (September 18, 2009). "Get Out of Jail Free: Monopoly's Hidden Maps". ABC News. Retrieved 2009-09-18. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  4. ^ How a Fight Over a Board Game Monopolized an Economist's Life, Wall Street Journal, 20 October 2009
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