Monopoly (board game)

This article is about the board game. For other uses of the term Monopoly, please see Monopoly (disambiguation).

A Monopoly board during a game, with Monopoly dollars and property cards set around it. Houses and hotels are on some of the properties on the board.

Monopoly® is a board game produced by Parker Brothers that involves purchasing properties to bankrupt other players. The original Monopoly board (1933) involved properties in the city of Atlantic City; a UK version was launched in 1935 with properties in the city of London. More recently localized versions have been issued, alongside others themed after other areas of pop culture, like movies, TV shows and video games. Other versions of monopoly include updated editions with popular locations, prices updated to match inflation, editions meant for younger audiences, and versions with credit cards instead of paper money. Monopoly has also been released digitally on a variety of different systems and platforms.

According to Hasbro, Parker Bros. parent company, Monopoly has been played by more people than any other published board game.

Gameplay

The object of the game is to create a monopoly, that is, to control an economic market, in this case the real estate market, by a dominant position in the field, and bankrupting all of the other players.

The board is laid out with spaces that represent properties or that require an action. The properties on the board represent richer and poorer parts of town, and there are also four railways and two utilities. Landing on these spaces presents the player with the opportunity to buy the asset, or pay rent if another player owns it. Each property is labelled with a color; owning all of the properties of a specific color is known as owning a monopoly. This increases their values, rent and allows a player to purchase houses and hotels on the properties that are part of the monopoly.

Action spaces include tax spaces, which require the player to pay a fee, chance and community chest spaces, which require the player to draw the corresponding card and perform the action listed, and the go to jail space, which sends the player to the jail space. Some spaces do not require the player to do anything when landed on, such as landing on the jail space without being sent to jail, the free parking space, and the 'go' space.

Players move by rolling a pair of dice. If the number rolled on the two dice are the same, known as doubles, the player gets an additional dice roll at the end of their turn. However, if they roll three doubles in a row, they are sent straight to jail. Whenever a player passes by the 'go' space, they collect 200 (amount from the traditional Monopoly game) Monopoly dollars.

Some players set house rules for Monopoly to customize their experience. These include rules involving putting properties up for auction, receiving money when landing on the free parking space, and other rules. Some digital versions of Monopoly have additional rules that can be used.