History TabletopGame / Monopoly

** The variant ''"Monopoly -- Here and Now: The World (and U.S.) Edition(s)"'' plays this straight, though; every $100 in Monopoly money is worth 1 million "monos" (the "mono" being a FictionalCounterpart of the euro, down to the stylized letter representing the currency).

** Cards that tell you to go to St. Charles Place and Illinois Avenue can be this late in the game, as well as the "Go Back Three Spaces" if you're on the Chance between Kentucky Avenue and Indiana Avenue since it sends you back to New York Avenue.

** Similarly, suppose you land on the first Chance space on the board (between the light blue properties) and draw an "Advance to the '''nearest''' Station" card. Since tokens can only move forwards (going clockwise around the board), do you go to Pennsylvania Railroad/Marylebone Station (the second station on the board) or go ''nearly a full circle'' (getting $200 for passing Go in the process) to get back to Reading Railroad/King's Cross Station, since it's technically closer to you?[[note]]Most digital versions would make you go with the former.[[/note]]

In 1990, Creator/MervGriffin produced a twelve-episode ''Monopoly'' GameShow for Creator/{{ABC}} as a companion for ''Super Series/{{Jeopardy}}''. Michael Reilly, a former ''Jeopardy!'' contestant, served as the host. An unrelated game show, ''Monopoly Millionaires' Club'', aired for two seasons from 2015-2016 and was hosted by Creator/BillyGardell (one of the stars of ''Series/MikeAndMolly'') and Todd Newton (''Series/FamilyGameNight''). Winners of a second-chance drawing in the lottery game of the same name were flown to Las Vegas and had a chance to compete for up to $1 million in cash and prizes.

** In 2023, a new rule is added, stating that a housing shortage allows building hotels directly on properties in a complete set.

* ViolationOfCommonSense: Being sent to jail usually means you cannot progress on the board until you are set free, which means you can't attempt to buy unsold properties or get a chance at picking up a Chance or Community Chest card. Early in the game going to jail is bad for exactly this reason. However once most of the properties have been bought and players start building houses and/or hotels on them, going to jail means you can waste turns sitting in jail and avoiding the risk of landing on an opponent's properties. Of course the random nature of the game means you can't actually choose to go to or avoid jail, but you do have a little bit of control over how long you stay there.

** The further you are from Go the more expensive building and renting is, which makes the more expensive properties seem like a better investment. However, these things don't increase at an even rate. New York Avenue earns $1,000 while Illinois Avenue earns $1,100, and St. James Avenue earns $950 while Kentucky Avenue earns $1,050, but the cost to fully upgrade the Red set is $2,250 while the cost for the Orange set is only $1,500, a 50% increase in cost with only a 10% increase in rent. Landing probabilities aside, the Reds are a money sink compared to the Oranges. To a lesser extent the same applies to the Yellow set vs. the Green set.

* CrutchCharacter: The railroads are very useful early on, with a single railroad costing $200 commanding a larger rent than Marvin Gardens (cost $280) and two of them making each command a larger sum than Boardwalk/Mayfair. But since you can't build houses on them, even if you get all four, they're chump change compared to an improved Monopoly--even Mediterranean Avenue/Old Kent Road, the cheapest property in the game, commands a rent of $250 with a hotel, 1.25× what a railroad commands with the full set.

** Practically no one ever lands on Boardwalk or Park Place. Besides, you need a steady cash flow before you can even develop the blues. That being said, if they ''are'' developed at least somewhat, and a couple of players are unlucky enough to land on them, you can go from worst to first in a hurry; so it's not a bad idea to pocket them just in case, if only to keep anyone else from doing so.

* CrutchCharacter: The railroads are very useful early on, with a single railroad costing $200 commanding a larger rent than Marvin Gardens (cost $280) and two of them making each command a larger sum than Boardwalk. But since you can't build houses on them, even if you get all four, they're chump change compared to an improved Monopoly--even Mediterranean Avenue, the cheapest property in the game, commands a rent of $250 with a hotel, 1.25× what a railroad commands with the full set.

* RateLimitedPerpetualResource: In the Rules, the Bank never runs out of money. If there isn't enough on hand, players may script their own bank notes to cover accounts receivable. However, the most money any one player can rake in during a single turn is $1,000, and is usually closer to $400. The most money receivable from another player is $2,000, as the fee for Boardwalk with a hotel.

** The Dark Blue property group actually costs ''less'' to develop than any of the three groups before it ($2,000 to fully upgrade, compared to $2,250 for the Reds or Yellows, and $3,000 for the Greens), and charges (by far) the highest rents, but it's also the least-landed-on property group in the game for two reasons: it's only two properties big, and reaching it requires going past the Go To Jail space. In particular Park Place and Boardwalk are seven and nine spaces away for Go To Jail respectively, both fairly high odds from rolling two dice with 7 being the most likely roll, meaning it's impossible to land on Park Place with the most likely outcome of a roll.

** Depending on the board conditions, getting the Property Assessment, "Advance to Boardwalk" or "Advance to Illinois Ave." cards can instantly cripple you, or knock you out of the game completely. Drawing the "go back three spaces" Chance card between Kentucky Avenue and Indiana Avenue can also be ruinous if another player has houses or a hotel on New York Avenue.

* RateLimitedPerpetualResource: In the Rules, the Bank never runs out of money. If there isn't enough on hand, players may script their own bank notes to cover accounts receivable. However, the most money any one player can rake in during a single turn is $1000, and is usually closer to $400. The most money receivable from another player is $2000, as the fee for Boardwalk with a hotel.

** It's a waste of money to buy Utilities (at least at full price). Railroads are also a money drain unless you manage to snag all four - which, statistically, turns them into one of the biggest moneymakers (due in part to occupying four well-distributed squares on the board and the influence of cards).

->''"Sometimes we do awful things in our lives, even if we don't know it. Sometimes the only proof that we've made mistakes -- terrible mistakes the UNIVERSE ITSELF punishes us for -- is that we look around and find we're playing... Monopoly."''

''Monopoly'' is arguably the most popular board game ever made, selling approximately 250 million sets in the more than 90 years it has existed, and has been played by over 500 million people. It's not as impressive today when video games can sell 20 million copies in one month, and some online games can have upwards of a billion registered users, but for its time it was ''the'' hot game that everyone -- or almost everyone -- played, at least in the United States, anyway.

Properties make up the cornerstone of the game. If a player lands on an unsold property square, they may buy the property at its listed price. If they decline, the property is sold at auction to the highest bidder.[[note]]Neglecting to do this is not only one of the most unintentionally followed house rules, but extends the length of the game considerably.[[/note]] When a player lands on a property square owned by another player, he must pay the listed rent on the property card to whoever owns it (players face no charge for landing on their own properties). Should a player collect all the properties in a specific color group, they may build houses and hotels on those properties. Buildings dramatically increase the amount of rent players have to pay for landing on their spaces -- landing on Boardwalk when it has a Hotel often bankrupts the unfortunate soul who lands there. Between turns, players have the option to broker trades for money, properties, Get Out of Jail Free cards, or any combination thereof with other players.

Chance and Community Chest cards can award the player money, take it away, or whisk him off to another square (including Jail). Free Parking is officially [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin simply a "free" resting space]], where nothing bad or good happens (when the players own all the properties, it's one of the few no one is charged to land on), but its actual use varies wildly [[PopularGameVariant from house to house]]; it either serves as a "blank" square, awards a player cash from the bank, or does something in the middle of those two extremes. Passing or landing on the starting "Go" square during a turn will award a player $200. Oh, and the Jail square exists, too. If a player lands on Jail, they're safe for now (the board has "Just Visiting" printed just below the Jail cell) -- but if a player rolls doubles three times in a row, lands on the "Go to Jail" square, or draws a "Go to Jail" card from Chance or Community Chest, then you must go to Jail. Go directly to Jail. Do not pass Go. Do not collect $200. While in Jail, you still roll the dice but your token stays in Jail, and you must pay $50 or use a GetOutOfJailFreeCard to get out of Jail and move according to the roll, or if you roll doubles you get out for free (if you spend three turns in Jail without rolling doubles, you must pay $50 and move according to the final roll).

A lawsuit over the game ''Anti-Monopoly'' that lasted from 1976 to 1985 revealed inaccuracies about Parker Brothers' story behind the game's creation: Elizabeth Magie applied for the first patent on a game similar to ''Monopoly'' in 1904, at least 30 years before Charles Darrow applied for his patent on the game. (Magie created it so that she could easily demonstrate the ideas of [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgism Georgism]], i.e., the ideas of economist [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_George Henry George]], especially on [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_value_tax land value taxation]] and the "[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_dividend citizens' dividend]]" - [[TheArtifact hence why the bank offers you $200 when you pass through Go]].) When Darrow first approached game manufacturers about publishing the game, they rejected it by sending him a letter claiming "[[ItWillNeverCatchOn 52 fundamental errors]]" existed in the game. Undaunted, Darrow manufactured his own sets and sold them himself -- and he often sold out each run he made. Parker Brothers decided to publish ''Monopoly'' only after it had heard of the game's success.

Doing a pub crawl based on the London board layout has become a popular drinking activity -- and a quick way to get drunk (with the distinct possibility of ending up on [[Literature/RedDwarf Mimas]]). [[Website/ThingsOfInterest qntm]] [[https://qntm.org/monopoly offers some pointers if you want to try this yourself]].

** If a player lands on an unowned property and does not want to purchase it, that property is put up for auction to all the players (even the one who declined to purchase it, which can be exploited by a smart player to get properties at a cost well under their face value) and sold to the biggest bidder. At least, that's what the official rules say -- one of the most common house rules is to skip this process entirely and have the turn end if the player does not purchase an unowned property.

* ADogNamedDog: The player tokens -- Cat, Car, Wheelbarrow, etc. are all named after what they are.

** Never upgrading houses to hotels. Each property can have up to four houses on it (which can then all be traded back to the bank for a hotel) -- but there are only 32 houses in a Monopoly set. If they are all on the board, ''no one'' can build houses until someone sells the houses back or trades them in for a hotel; nor can they skip houses and go straight to hotels, for that matter. It's AllThereInTheManual, and called a "Housing Shortage." In tournament play, however, if you want to break hotels down to houses to create a shortage, other players get the opportunity to buy houses before you can do so, an ObviousRulePatch implemented to make it more difficult for a player to "back into" a housing shortage. This is why ''not'' upgrading to hotels is the preferred strategy... until the 2023 rule change, which states that a housing shortage allows directly building hotels.

** The "Take a walk on the Boardwalk" card is normally a good Chance pull, as you can go straight to the most valuable property in the game and buy it -- unless someone else already owns it ''and'' Park Place, which turns the card into a disaster. The most infamous example occurred at the 1980 tourney in New York. [[https://www.facebook.com/BookOfOdds/posts/10151277769173947 Read it]] and weep.

** Similarly, suppose you land on the first Chance space on the board (between the light blue properties) and draw an "Advance to the nearest Station" card. Since tokens can only move forwards (going clockwise around the board), do you go to Pennsylvania Railroad/Marylebone Station (the second station on the board) or go ''nearly a full circle'' (getting $200 for passing Go in the process) to get back to Reading Railroad/King's Cross Station, since it's technically closer to you?[[note]]Most digital versions would make you go with the former.[[/note]]

** Similarly, suppose you land on the first Chance space on the board (between the light blue properties) and draw an "Advance to the nearest Station" card. Since tokens can only move forwards (going counter-clockwise around the board), do you go to Pennsylvania Railroad/Marylebone Station (the second station on the board) or go ''nearly a full circle'' (getting $200 for passing Go in the process) to get back to Reading Railroad/King's Cross Station, since it's technically closer to you?[[note]]Most digital versions would make you go with the former.[[/note]]

** Similarly, suppose you land on the first Chance space on the board (between the light blue properties) and draw an "Advance to the nearest Station" card. Since tokens can only advance (going counter-clockwise around the board), do you go to Pennsylvania Railroad/Marylebone Station (the second station on the board) or go ''nearly a full circle'' (getting $200 for passing Go in the process) to go back to Reading Railroad/King's Cross Station, since it's technically closer to you?[[note]]Most digital versions would make you go with the former.[[/note]]

** Similarly, suppose you land on the first Chance space on the board (between the light blue properties) and draw an "Advance to the nearest Station" card. Since tokens can only advance (going counter-clockwise around the board), do you go to Pennsylvania Railroad/Marylebone Station (the second station on the board) or go nearly a full circle (getting $200 for passing Go in the process) to go back to Reading Railroad/King's Cross Station, since it's technically closer to you?[[note]]Most digital versions would make you go with the former.[[/note]]

** Similarly, suppose you land on the first Chance space on the board (between the light blue spaces) and draw an "Advance to the nearest Station" card. Since tokens can only advance (going counter-clockwise around the board), do you go to Pennsylvania Railroad/Marylebone Station (the second station on the board) or go nearly a full circle (getting $200 for passing Go in the process) to go back to Reading Railroad/King's Cross Station, since it's technically closer to you?[[note]]Most digital versions would make you go with the former.[[/note]]

* ExactWords: Used by the sneakiest of players whenever possible. For example, you play with the house rule where landing on Go gives you double salary and someone draws a "Advance to Go, collect $200" card. Cue argument between {{Rules Lawyer}}s on whether the player should collect $200 ("The card says $200!"), $400 ("Yeah, well the board says $200 too, and I don't hear you complaining about that!") or $600 ("The $200 is on top of the $400 for landing on Go! Hey, it doesn't say that the $200 comes specifically from landing on Go!")
** It's a rule in the game that if another player lands on your property, you ask them to pay you rent and they must comply. This can go either way; forgetting to ask for rent may be a costly mistake for you since the other player no longer is compelled to pay... but one can also deliberately ''not'' ask for rent if it's clear that [[PyrrhicVictory doing so will end up bankrupting you both]].

* RidiculousFutureInflation: Inverted, as the prices are still the same as they were in 1932. Boardwalk (Mayfair in the British version), the most expensive property, can be yours for a mere $400 (£400). This also applies to all the weird Monopoly variants mentioned in RecycledPremise.

* RollAndMove: You roll two dice to determine how far you'll move on the circular game board. There's an "ExtraTurn of you roll doubles" rule, though you go directly to jail if you roll doubles for the third time in one turn. Most of the spaces are properties: you get to buy it if unowned, otherwise you're paying rent to its owner. There are also spaces like Chance, which make you draw a random card with some effect, and the "tax" spaces that make you pay money to the bank.

** Statistically, in a long-run scenario, the light purple, orange, and red sets have the highest chances of being landed on. Someone just coming out of jail (''the'' most-visited square, as there are four separate ways to end up there) has a high chance of landing on at least one of these properties.[[note]]Long run probability models have proven the orange are the most frequently landed-on squares, though Illinois Avenue is also pretty far up there due to its Chance card.[[/note]]

Parker Brothers claims the 1930s as the creation date of its signature board game ''Monopoly'' (and says Charles Darrow, who patented it in 1935, invented the game). Players receive $1,500 in starting cash, then roll UsefulNotes/{{dice}} to move their tokens around the board (if a player rolls doubles, they get to take another turn), where they may land on property squares, Chance or Community Chest squares, and other squares such as Income Tax, Free Parking and Go To Jail. The goal is to bankrupt all the other players by buying, improving, and collecting rent on various properties.

* AnnouncerChatter: The version on the current generation's consoles has UnclePennybags narrating every action in the game. Not too bad, but his lines can get really repetitive and he tends to drone on a lot. Said chattering also includes a few bits of LampshadeHanging over some things, such as the probability of landing on one set of properties. Fun fact: you can hit the [[UsefulNotes/XBox Y button]] to cut him off.

* DigitalTabletopGameAdaptation: The game has had many video game adaptations over the years. The consoles the game has been released for include the UsefulNotes/SegaMasterSystem, UsefulNotes/NintendoEntertainmentSystem, UsefulNotes/GameBoy, UsefulNotes/GameBoyColor, UsefulNotes/GameBoyAdvance, UsefulNotes/SuperNintendoEntertainmentSystem, UsefulNotes/SegaGenesis, UsefulNotes/Nintendo64, UsefulNotes/PlayStation4, UsefulNotes/XboxOne, and UsefulNotes/NintendoSwitch.

* ExpansionPack: Three different versions of a stock exchange gameplay mechanic, an electronic device that keeps track of what goes on in the game, two skill-based minigames, and as of 2009, a bonus die with a 1 in 2 chance of turning any roll into a GameBreaker. [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly_%28game%29#Add-ons The Other Wiki goes into more detail on all of that.]]

** Luxury Tax originally used the Income Tax diamond, while Community Chest used a simpler symbol. Their more famous icons were introduced in 1946. The earlier symbols continued to be used in international versions until 1996.

* BindleStick: In the [[Pinball/{{Monopoly}} pinball game]], Mr. Monopoly carries a bindle stick in Chance cards where you move to a certain space.

** Darrow's original 1933 Monopoly game board was circular, rather than square-shaped, to differentiate it from his fellow Quakers' Monopoly games. It was likely changed to a square to appease retailers when Darrow started making more copies. The illustrations were all different as well.

Because of the generic nature of the game, there is a ''Monopoly'' variant for virtually every concept you can imagine: cities, universities, sports teams, fictional properties, you name it, including ''[[Music/TheGratefulDead Grateful Deadopoly]],'' ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'', a 'Vegas' version with [[ConspicuousConsumption a green felt board, wood paneling, and gold and silver pieces]], and a "Gayopoly" with a triangular board and real-life {{gay bar}}s and coffee shops from all over the US as properties. See ThemedStockBoardGame. ''Monopoly'' has also spawned other variations, such as ''TabletopGame/MonopolyDeal''. While some of these were made by Parker Brothers (and later still, their parent company Creator/{{Hasbro}}); most of these variants would be made under the purview of other companies, with the name and concept usually used under license from Hasbro.