Monopoly is a board game published by Parker Brothers, a subsidiary of Hasbro. The game is named after the economic concept of monopoly, the domination of a market by a single entity.
Monopoly is the most commercially-successful board game in United States history, with 485 million players worldwide.
According to Hasbro, since Charles Darrow patented the game in 1935, approximately 750 million people have played the game, making it "the most played (commercial) board game in the world." The 1999 Guinness Book of Records cited Hasbro's previous statistic of 500 million people having played Monopoly . Games Magazine has inducted Monopoly into its Hall of Fame. The mascot for the game is a mustachioed man wearing a monocle and morning dress named Rich Uncle Pennybags (often referred to as Mr. Monopoly ).
History
For more details on this topic, see History of the board game Monopoly.The history of Monopoly can be traced back to 1904, when a Quaker woman named Elizabeth (Lizzie) J. Magie Phillips created a game through which she hoped to be able to explain the single tax theory of Henry George (it was intended to illustrate the negative aspects of concentrating land in private monopolies). Her game, The Landlord's Game , was commercially published a few years later. Other interested game players redeveloped the game and some made their own sets. Phillips herself patented a revised edition of the game in 1904, and similar games of this nature were published commercially. By 1935 a board game named Monopoly was created much like the version of Monopoly sold by Parker Brothers and its parent companies throughout the rest of the 20th century and into the 21st. The Parker Brothers' version was created by Charles Todd but sold to them by Charles Darrow. Several people, mostly in the U.S. Midwest and near the U.S. East Coast, contributed to the game's design and evolution.
In 1941 the British Secret Service had John Waddington Ltd., the licensed manufacturer of the game outside the U.S., create a special edition for World War II prisoners of war held by the Nazis. Hidden inside these games were maps, compasses, real money, and other objects useful for escaping. They were distributed to prisoners by secret service created fake charity groups.
By the 1970s, the game's early history had been lost (at least one historian has argued that it was purposely suppressed), and the idea that it had been created solely by Charles Darrow had become popular folklore. This was stated in the 1974 book The Monopoly Book: Strategy and Tactics of the World's Most Popular Game , by Maxine Brady, and even in the instructions of the game itself. As Professor Ralph Anspach fought Parker Brothers and its then parent company, General Mills, over the trademarks of the Monopoly board game, much of the early history of the game was "rediscovered".
Because of the lengthy court process, and appeals, the legal status of Parker Brothers' trademarks on the game was not settled until the late 1970s. Anspach won the case on appeals in 1979, as the 9th District Court determined that the trademark "Monopoly" was generic, and therefore unenforceable. However, on Hasbro's pressure, the US Congress immediately passed a statute amending the Trademark Act to protect longstanding marks against 'generic' claims. Thus the game's name remains a registered trademark of Parker Brothers, as do its specific design elements. Parker Brothers' current corporate parent, Hasbro, again acknowledges only the role of Charles Darrow in the creation of the game. Anspach published a book about his research, called The Billion Dollar Monopoly Swindle (and republished as Monopolygate ), in which he makes his case about the purposeful suppression of the game's early history and development.
This is the original version sold by Charles Darrow, and later by Parker Brothers. The board consists of forty spaces containing twenty-eight properties (twenty-two colored Streets, four Railroads, and two Utilities), three Chance spaces, three Community Chest spaces, a Luxury Tax space, an Income Tax space, and the four corner squares: GO, Jail, Free Parking, and Go to Jail. In the U.S. versions shown below, the properties are named after locations in (or near) Atlantic City, New Jersey. However, as of September 2008, the layout of the board has been modified to more closely match the foreign-released versions, as shown in the two board layouts below. The notable changes are the colors of Mediterranean and Baltic Avenues changing from purple to brown, and the adaptation of the flat $200 Income Tax (formerly the player's choice of 10% of their total holdings OR $200) and increased $100 Luxury Tax (upped from $75) amounts. Similar color/amount changes are used in the U.S. Edition of the "Here and Now: World Edition" game, and are also used in the most recent version of the McDonald's Monopoly promotion.
Standard (American Edition) Monopoly game board layout as of September 2008Pacific Avenue
$300Standard (American Edition) Monopoly game board layout prior to September 2008
Pacific Avenue
$300
A player who reaches the Jail space by a direct roll of the dice is said to be "Just Visiting", and continues normal play on the next turn.Marvin Gardens, a yellow property on the board shown, is actually a misspelling of the original location name, Marven Gardens . Marven Gardens is not a street, but a housing area outside Atlantic City. The housing area is said to be derived from Mar gate City and Ven tnor City in New Jersey. The misspelling was introduced by Charles Todd and passed on when his home-made Monopoly board was copied by Charles Darrow and thence to Parker Brothers. It was not until 1995 that Parker Brothers acknowledged this mistake and formally apologized to the residents of Marven Gardens for the misspelling. Another change made by Todd and duplicated by Darrow, and later Parker Brothers, was the use of South Carolina Avenue. North Carolina Avenue was substituted for this street on the board.
Atlantic City's Illinois Avenue was renamed Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. in the 1980s. St. Charles Place no longer exists, as the Showboat Casino Hotel was developed where it once ran.
Short Line is believed to refer to the Shore Fast Line, a streetcar line that served Atlantic City. The B&O Railroad did not serve Atlantic City. A booklet included with the reprinted 1935 edition states that the four railroads that served Atlantic City in the mid 1930s were the Jersey Central, the Seashore Lines, the Reading Railroad, and the Pennsylvania Railroad. The actual "Electric Company" and "Water Works" serving the city are respectively Atlantic City Electric Company (a subsidiary of Pepco Holdings) and the Atlantic City Municipal Utilities Authority.
The other versions of the game have different property names, and the prices may be denominated in another currency, but the game mechanics are almost identical.
The original income tax choice from the U.S. version is replaced by a flat rate in the UK version, and the $75 Luxury Tax space is replaced with the £100 Super Tax space. The same is true of current German boards, with a €200 for the Income Tax space on the board, and a €100 Add-on tax in place of the Luxury Tax. An Austrian version, released by Parker Brothers/Hasbro in 2001, does allow for the 10% or $200 for Income Tax and has a $100 Luxury Tax. The choice of London main line stations is that of the four stations within the London and North Eastern Railway group. Starting with the September 2008 release, the U.S. Edition now also uses the flat $200 Income Tax value and the upped $100 Luxury Tax amount.
In the 1930s, John Waddington Ltd. (Waddingtons) was a firm of printers from Leeds that had begun to branch out into packaging and the production of playing cards. Waddingtons had sent the card game Lexicon to Parker Brothers hoping to interest them in publishing the game in the United States. In a similar fashion, Parker Brothers sent over a copy of Monopoly to Waddingtons early in 1935 before the game had been put into production in the United States.
The managing director of Waddingtons, Victor Watson, gave the game to his son Norman (who was head of the card games division) to test over the weekend. Norman was impressed by the game and persuaded his father to call Parker Brothers on Monday morning - transatlantic calls then being almost unheard of. This call resulted in Waddingtons obtaining a license to produce and market the game outside of the United States. Watson felt that in order for the game to be a success in the United Kingdom the American locations would have to be replaced, so Victor and his secretary, Marjory Phillips, went to London to scout out locations. The Angel, Islington is not a street in London but an area of North London named after a coaching inn that stood on the Great North Road. By the 1930s the inn had become a Lyons Corner House (it is now a Co-operative Bank). Some accounts say that Marjory and Victor met at the Angel to discuss the selection and celebrated the fact by including it on the Monopoly board. In 2003, a plaque commemorating the naming was unveiled at the site by Victor Watson's grandson who is also named Victor.
The standard British board, produced by Waddingtons, was for many years the version most familiar to people in countries in the Commonwealth (except Canada, where the U.S. edition with Atlantic City-area names was reprinted), although local variants of the board are now
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