Speaker 1: Oh boy, it's time for one of my favorite episodes,
Speaker 1: How Monopoly Works. This one was way more interesting than
Speaker 1: I ever understood. There's a lot more to Monopoly, and
Speaker 1: just as a little aside, if you think that the
Speaker 1: Monopoly man wore a monocle, you're wrong. You're thinking of
Speaker 1: mister Peanut. Plus also it makes sense that he would
Speaker 1: be warring a monocle. It's a bit of a crime
Speaker 1: that he wasn't. At any rate, here's the episode Monopoly.
Speaker 2: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from HowStuffWorks dot com.
Speaker 3: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark with
Speaker 3: Charles W. Chuck Bryant and Jerry Rowland, which makes the
Speaker 3: Stuff you Should Know.
Speaker 4: It's right, got on the top, Pat and my cane monicle,
Speaker 4: Monica to see it, Monica, I thought it was Now
Speaker 4: it's mister Peanut.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, not mister Monopoly. And I think mister Pringle
Speaker 3: has a monocle too, didn't it? Eh No, he just
Speaker 3: says An Nustairs. Yeah, mister Monopoly doesn't have a monocle. Huh.
Speaker 4: I don't think so.
Speaker 3: Huh. You'd think we'd know, we do not, But I
Speaker 3: do know this, mister Monopoly is a nickname for that man.
Speaker 4: That's right.
Speaker 3: His born name is given name by his parents is
Speaker 3: rich Uncle penny Bags. Three names, so uncle would be
Speaker 3: his middle name.
Speaker 4: Yeah. Well he even has a regular name too.
Speaker 3: Oh not that I saw.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it is Milbourne Pennybags.
Speaker 3: No.
Speaker 4: Yeah, there was a book published and this is one
Speaker 4: of those after the fact deals called the Monopoly Companion,
Speaker 4: and they named all the character characters on the board
Speaker 4: Melbourne Penny Bags. And then the jail guy is Jake
Speaker 4: the jail bird okay, and the police officer and go
Speaker 4: to jail.
Speaker 3: Is I'll bet a Tyris, isn't it, Officer Edgar Mallory.
Speaker 3: I knew. Really you just.
Speaker 4: Gets that, huh, Yeah, that's pretty bunny. We're talking about Monopoly,
Speaker 4: by the way.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, yeah, this is not about anything else but Monopoly.
Speaker 4: No. And I was just remarking to you, sir, how
Speaker 4: I've never seen one of our This had more supplemental
Speaker 4: information than most shows that we research.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I can explain why because this was written. There
Speaker 3: was a whole suite of game articles written, yeah, like
Speaker 3: just how to play certain games. So it kind of
Speaker 3: came out in this mentality of this is the game
Speaker 3: and here's how we explain how to play it, and
Speaker 3: this article is done. Whereas Monopoly, it's like this is
Speaker 3: more like McDonald's or Twinkies or something like that. It's
Speaker 3: like a cultural cog.
Speaker 4: Yeah. I mean there's so much extra junk history and
Speaker 4: I mean you talk about the different versions, it's ridiculous.
Speaker 3: Millburn penny bangs. Yeah.
Speaker 4: And like I said, that was a post that he
Speaker 4: wasn't originally called that. This is I think Monopoly probably
Speaker 4: wanted to sell a little little book or two. I'm
Speaker 4: sure they did, because if one thing we've learned about
Speaker 4: Parker Brothers and now Hasbro is they love selling different
Speaker 4: versions of this game.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they do. They like licensing it off a lot
Speaker 3: of money. They like making some changes here or there,
Speaker 3: releasing a brand new game, but it's all still the
Speaker 3: same game. And all of it came from a left
Speaker 3: wing Quaker intellectual at the turn of the last century,
Speaker 3: the Finns Keel.
Speaker 4: Yeah it was.
Speaker 3: I'm saying that right, Yeah, sure, Okay, I.
Speaker 4: Think it sounds right. And it's interesting to me that
Speaker 4: the game of Monopoly, which is all about capitalism and
Speaker 4: bankrupting or neighbor, yeah, was stolen. The game was stolen.
Speaker 3: From a leftist intellectual Quaker.
Speaker 4: In the original version of the game, it was to
Speaker 4: teach against the monopolies and how they're bad.
Speaker 3: Right, so let's talk about this monopoly. Actually, if you
Speaker 3: trace it back to about the like the literal beginning
Speaker 3: of the twentieth century, it's what's considered a folk game.
Speaker 3: There were a lot of people playing versions like this
Speaker 3: in cities all over the country. But again, they all
Speaker 3: shared some pretty common viewpoints. I guess you today you
Speaker 3: would kind of call him socialist. But for the most
Speaker 3: part they were followers of a guy named Henry George.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Georgis.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he came up with this thing called Georgism, which
Speaker 3: is based on some other philosophies. But the idea of
Speaker 3: it is that if you produce something through through your
Speaker 3: own labor, your own work, you own that that should
Speaker 3: not be taxed. Right, what should be taxes things that
Speaker 3: everybody owns. If somebody's taking something that belongs to everybody,
Speaker 3: say a parcel of land, yeah, technically the land belongs
Speaker 3: to everybody.
Speaker 4: Well, that was his notion was that you shouldn't even
Speaker 4: be a landowner, Like all concept of a land to
Speaker 4: him was ridiculous.
Speaker 3: And that's based on this idea, the law of the commons,
Speaker 3: which is around for centuries, if not millennia. And then
Speaker 3: once people started taking land, he's like, okay, well, if
Speaker 3: you're going to own land, it belongs to everybody, so
Speaker 3: that should be taxed, yea, and then that tax will
Speaker 3: be given back to the community for the greater good.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So that's Georgism, and that was kind of the philosophy
Speaker 3: that formed the basis of monopoly what was originally called
Speaker 3: the Landlord's Game, which was created by a lady named
Speaker 3: Lizzie Maggie A G y M A g I E
Speaker 3: M A g I E Yeah, almost Magpie without the
Speaker 3: P right, Yeah. And she basically that was on her card.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: And she she came up with this, like you said,
Speaker 3: to kind of teach, so you could go and be
Speaker 3: a rich landowner and bankrupt other people and exploit the
Speaker 3: poor who need your help, who need a decent place
Speaker 3: to stay, and you could see yourself like the evils
Speaker 3: of capitalism. But she actually came up with two sets
Speaker 3: of rules for the same game. One was where you
Speaker 3: got as rich as you could at the expense of
Speaker 3: everybody else. Yeah. The other was a basically the community benefited,
Speaker 3: and you can kind of see that today in like
Speaker 3: these weird things like community chess, like why would I
Speaker 3: want to, you know, pay into this pot. I don't
Speaker 3: care about the community, like now it's a bad thing.
Speaker 3: In her original version, it was a good thing, like
Speaker 3: the community one, and that was the basis of the
Speaker 3: whole thing.
Speaker 4: Yeah, which is really ironic, it is. Yeah, like you said,
Speaker 4: she created two versions, and she said, one of the
Speaker 4: quotes from her is it is a practical demonstration of
Speaker 4: the present system of land grabbing, with all its usual
Speaker 4: outcomes and consequences. So it, you know, it's kind of
Speaker 4: to teach people lessons, and she had it stolen from
Speaker 4: her she did.
Speaker 3: Luckily, Lizzy was smart enough to patent this game. It
Speaker 3: became just kind of a trendy thing. Again, like if
Speaker 3: you were into socialism at the time and you were
Speaker 3: on the East Coast, you probably hung out at a
Speaker 3: friend's house and played this game at some point in
Speaker 3: some incarnation or another.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it was really popular, like you said, like people
Speaker 4: made up some of their own rules, but it was
Speaker 4: I mean, if you look at the original Landlords game board,
Speaker 4: it looks a lot like the current monopoly, I mean
Speaker 4: similar at least.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And apparently a lot of the rules that make
Speaker 3: the game a lot more enjoyable today came from Lizzie's
Speaker 3: Quaker friends. Like, for example, the original plots of land
Speaker 3: were up for auction for a bid.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Quakers preferred silence, so they just put a fixed
Speaker 3: price on the piece of land so there wouldn't be
Speaker 3: a loud, obnoxious bidding war. They also instituted tokens, fun
Speaker 3: tokens before they're just boring pawns.
Speaker 4: Yeah, like household objects, which you know, that's why the
Speaker 4: thimble is in there, and originally the iron. Yeah, we'll
Speaker 4: get to those in a minute, but I know, it's
Speaker 4: pretty exciting.
Speaker 3: And then so this thing's being played and Lizzie Maggie
Speaker 3: holds the patent, but she's not exactly like cracking down
Speaker 3: on any kind of infringement really.
Speaker 4: No, Well, she pitched it to Parker Brothers and they
Speaker 4: said no.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so she just kind of went on doing her
Speaker 3: own thing.
Speaker 4: So there's another lady actually that figures into this, a
Speaker 4: lady named Ruth Hoskins, and she was one of the
Speaker 4: ones who caught on in the Philadelphia Atlantic City area
Speaker 4: with her Quaker friends, two of them in particular, Jesse
Speaker 4: and Eugene Rayford, and they are the ones who changed
Speaker 4: some of the rules to make it look more like
Speaker 4: the monopoly we know. They taught it to a friend
Speaker 4: named Todd, and Todd brought it to his friend named
Speaker 4: Charles Darrow. And that's where the story takes a kind
Speaker 4: of a CD turn.
Speaker 3: Well, actually, that's where the Parker Brothers official version begins. Ironically, Yeah,
Speaker 3: things turned CD. The Brothers is like, hey, this is
Speaker 3: where our story begins.
Speaker 4: Yeah, the inventor of Monopoly, Charles.
Speaker 3: Darrow, right, so he was like a radiator salesman during
Speaker 3: the depression.
Speaker 4: This is the thirties, right, Yeah, I mean it was ironically, again,
Speaker 4: during the depression, this game really caught hold.
Speaker 3: Well, I supposedly that's what caught the Parker Brothers' attention
Speaker 3: was that this guy came to him, came to them
Speaker 3: to sell him this game which he had stolen. Yeah.
Speaker 4: Apparently he didn't innovate it at all. He kind of
Speaker 4: just copied it and packaged it right, and said, hey,
Speaker 4: what do you think of this?
Speaker 3: And the Parker Brothers said, we don't think too much
Speaker 3: of it. Like, how does the game end? We don't
Speaker 3: know what's going on here, so it's just you just
Speaker 3: go your own way. So Charles Darrow went off and
Speaker 3: started selling it at this Wannamaker's department store in Philadelphia.
Speaker 4: Yeah, without pattenting it, right.
Speaker 3: And the Parker brothers said, you know what, it's the depression.
Speaker 3: Can you believe it. We're not going to have any
Speaker 3: kind of economic woes like this for another seventy eighty years.
Speaker 3: And this guy's selling these things like hotcakes. You know what, sir,
Speaker 3: We will buy your idea from you. And Charles Darrow
Speaker 3: apparently said, well that's great. Yeah, give me the money
Speaker 3: first and then I'll tell you the second part of
Speaker 3: the story. Yeah, And they gave him a bag of
Speaker 3: money with a dollar sign on it, much like the
Speaker 3: ones that rich uncle Pennybags likes, and he said, okay,
Speaker 3: we also need to buy the patent off from this
Speaker 3: lady named Lizzie Maggie.
Speaker 4: Yeah, which they did. The game was still stolen, I say,
Speaker 4: even though they eventually did pay her money. But part
Speaker 4: of the deal was they said they agreed to buy
Speaker 4: her patent and said, you know what, we're gonna We'll
Speaker 4: sell a few of your other game ideas too. None
Speaker 4: of those ever went anywhere, and he was sort of
Speaker 4: lost to history except for people who do a little
Speaker 4: bit of digging.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and we actually have a guy named Ralph to
Speaker 3: thank for doing that digging initially, and we'll talk about
Speaker 3: him later.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, that's right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, because he's the one who came up with the
Speaker 3: unofficial history and like really tracked it down.
Speaker 4: Well, there's a lot of teases in this one far.
Speaker 3: So the Parker brothers now in the game and it
Speaker 3: becomes a huge hit virtually off the bat. In the
Speaker 3: thirties is when they bought it and started really printing it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and the game is based on Atlantic City. Those
Speaker 4: are the properties, and that's because that was the area
Speaker 4: where it became popular. But this excellent New York Times
Speaker 4: article you sent what was the name of it, Monopoly
Speaker 4: Goes Corporate.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was written by what's what's the lady's name,
Speaker 3: Mary Pillan. She is a monopoly expert.
Speaker 4: There's a lot of those out there, I've learned.
Speaker 3: She well, she wrote a lot of the articles you'll find.
Speaker 3: Oh really, yeah, she's good.
Speaker 4: Well, she pointed out that it's interesting that it mirrored
Speaker 4: sort of the uh. The cartography of the day in
Speaker 4: Atlantic City, like Boardwalk, was clearly like a rich area
Speaker 4: the Baltic and Mediterranean. The cheapest properties were in African
Speaker 4: American neighborhoods. There was a reading railroad that transferred people
Speaker 4: between Philly and Atlantic City. And little known fact for
Speaker 4: our friends in the gay community, New York Avenue was
Speaker 4: one of the earliest gay scenes in the country. Yeah,
Speaker 4: so buy that one up and support support the LBGT community.
Speaker 4: That's if you're playing monopoly. Yeah, that's what I would do.
Speaker 3: And maybe just you know, don't charge anybody in the Alanta. Yeah,
Speaker 3: just be like this is the party place.
Speaker 4: That's exactly.
Speaker 3: And Marvin Gardens apparently is misspelled.
Speaker 4: Yeah, the E instead of an eye or E instead
Speaker 4: of an E.
Speaker 3: Yeah, on the board it's an I, right, it's supposed
Speaker 3: to be an E.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: There's a lot of Monopoly facts dropping all around us right.
Speaker 4: Now, I know it's raining thimbles.
Speaker 3: Before we go any further, though, you want to do
Speaker 3: a message break, Yes, okay, we'll be right pack everyone.
Speaker 4: All right, So we were just talking about Atlantic City.
Speaker 4: I guess it's we can go ahead and point out
Speaker 4: now that there are hundreds of versions of Monopoly out
Speaker 4: there now, one for your hometown, probably one for your
Speaker 4: favorite sports team. I have. Personally, my version is a
Speaker 4: Star Wars Monopoly nice, which is pretty fun.
Speaker 3: Nice. Yeah, I guess has Bro's like, you got some money,
Speaker 3: sure you can license this, make your own Monopoly game.
Speaker 3: Go ahead.
Speaker 4: There's a Simpsons Monopoly. I haven't played it though.
Speaker 3: And now, in addition to the licensed versions that you
Speaker 3: can find like everywhere, yeah, they also have like official
Speaker 3: versions too, Like there's a US version. Yeah, there's a
Speaker 3: UK version, there's a there's a new version that's called
Speaker 3: Monopoly here and now what does that even mean? Super corporate? Oh?
Speaker 4: Is this the corporate one?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Okay, it's like everything is multiplied by I think
Speaker 3: a thousand, so the dollar amounts are way higher.
Speaker 4: Is this one where they replaced the the railroads are
Speaker 4: replaced by airports? Yeah, it's this one where they replaced
Speaker 4: corporations for all the properties. So yes, like McDonald's and
Speaker 4: Sony and yeah, god, who would want to play that?
Speaker 3: Some people? Do?
Speaker 4: You know?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Yeah?
Speaker 4: I mean I'm not a purist because I had the
Speaker 4: Star Wars version, but I just it's no fun to me.
Speaker 4: To play as Paramount Pictures and to buy the McDonald's property.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's just me. So there are a bunch of
Speaker 3: different versions, but the one we're going to talk about,
Speaker 3: we'll just talk about the normal version with the two
Speaker 3: thousand and eight rules.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and there's actually coming soon later this year. There
Speaker 4: you can go online at my Monopoly and you can
Speaker 4: design your own board, is that right, and do like
Speaker 4: your own neighborhood. Wow, And then they will make it
Speaker 4: for you. And I think it's like one hundred and
Speaker 4: fifty bucks or something.
Speaker 3: Wow. Money bags you can get.
Speaker 4: Oh, I'm not gonna do it. You can't do the
Speaker 4: East Lake.
Speaker 3: I was talking to whoever went and got it?
Speaker 4: Oh sure, yeah, rich uncle, rich penny bags.
Speaker 3: That's what you should have said, rich uncle penny bag.
Speaker 3: Penny bags just sounds not that wealthy. Well, actually, I
Speaker 3: have a bag of pennies on me right now.
Speaker 4: He Forbes has their silly fictional fifteen list of fictional
Speaker 4: characters wealth, and he in twenty thirteen was number thirteen.
Speaker 3: Jeez is Stars declined, some.
Speaker 4: Huh, guess who the first.
Speaker 3: The richest fictional character is the Incredible Hulk.
Speaker 4: No, he was not rich. Scrooge McDuck.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, well dude, he had that gold.
Speaker 4: Vault apparently sixty five billion. Number two was Smaug, which
Speaker 4: I thought was kind of silly.
Speaker 3: Smaug from like.
Speaker 4: One of the rings. It's a dragon, I think I had,
Speaker 4: like it was a bunch of gold. Carlisle Cullen number three,
Speaker 4: Tony Stark four, Charles Foster Kane number five.
Speaker 3: Who is number three?
Speaker 4: Carlile Cullen from Twilight?
Speaker 3: Who is that?
Speaker 4: He was the dad vampire dad of the Vampire family
Speaker 4: and he's been alive forever, so I guess he just
Speaker 4: keeps accumulating. Well yeah, Bruce Wayne, Richie Rich, Christian.
Speaker 3: Gray, Richie Rich. I forgot about him.
Speaker 4: He's number seven.
Speaker 3: He had a robot made and a crazy like a
Speaker 3: weird scientist friend, didn't.
Speaker 4: He Sure like a Richie Rich robot of himself.
Speaker 3: I think he had that too, But no, it was made.
Speaker 3: Was a robot, wasn't it?
Speaker 4: That was the Jetsons.
Speaker 3: No, he had a too.
Speaker 4: I thought Monty Burns at number ten was pretty good.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, that's going, although I would guess mister Monopoly
Speaker 3: would be wealthier than Monty Burns.
Speaker 4: But yeah, thirteen and they put it out each year
Speaker 4: and it's dumb. Can we just admit that.
Speaker 3: I was thrilled by it? Okay, we just spent three
Speaker 3: minutes on it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, well that's true.
Speaker 3: Okay, so Chuckers, Yeah, you want to talk about the
Speaker 3: rules of the game again, two thousand and eight rules
Speaker 3: if you are a Monopoly purist, and like, I'm sorry,
Speaker 3: that's just what we're going with.
Speaker 4: Yeah, well, let's talk about the game board itself. Just
Speaker 4: so if you haven't played it, I'm surprised because I
Speaker 4: think like a billion people have played the game. But
Speaker 4: if you haven't, when you get your Monopoly game, you're
Speaker 4: going to open it up and you're going to have
Speaker 4: a board with all these different properties and a square.
Speaker 4: You have two dice twelve they call them tokens. That's
Speaker 4: not the right amount either, is it.
Speaker 3: No, there's eight. Yeah. I don't understand where they got
Speaker 3: twelve from unless they're counting ones that maybe were retired
Speaker 3: or something like that. But when you open the bottom,
Speaker 3: there's only eight there. Yeah, there's a can we go over, Sure,
Speaker 3: there's a wheelbarrow, a Scottie dog, Yeah, top hat, a
Speaker 3: cat which replaced the iron in twenty thirteen. Yeah, there
Speaker 3: was a big two do because Parker Bros. Has Bros. Like,
Speaker 3: we haven't made a lot of money off of this
Speaker 3: for a couple months, so let's just do something.
Speaker 4: Well, they let people vote at least, which is kind
Speaker 4: of cool, right.
Speaker 3: But it was also did you see the other ones
Speaker 3: that they were voting for, like a robot? Yeah, Richie
Speaker 3: Rich's made a guitar, a guitar. They didn't make the
Speaker 3: cut though, No, they got voted out and the cat
Speaker 3: got voted in. Yeah, the iron got booted.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I only got eight percent of the vote. There's
Speaker 4: the classic shoe of course, or boot, which is modeled
Speaker 4: after a nineteen thirties working shoe, and I think they've
Speaker 4: kept it the same.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's one of the original ones. The Scottie Dog
Speaker 3: was not one of the originals that came in the fifties.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and I think that was supposed to be the
Speaker 4: companion of Millbourn money pinny.
Speaker 3: Is that right?
Speaker 4: Benny bags, Penny bags should be cash bags, fat stacks,
Speaker 4: hatstacks bag. There was a cannon which has since been retired. Yeah,
Speaker 4: and the military, well, the cannon and the battleship. Yeah,
Speaker 4: they were from a failed game called Conflict and they
Speaker 4: were like, well, we got all these pieces. Oh yeah,
Speaker 4: let's just throw them a monopoly for now.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 4: It's pretty smart.
Speaker 3: But they faced the cannon out because it's just too
Speaker 3: overtly violent.
Speaker 4: It just says with any without any fanfare or vote
Speaker 4: or campaign. So probably, yeah, that'd be my guess. If
Speaker 4: it's hush hush, yeah, it's probably because of violence.
Speaker 3: There's a conspiracy afoot. There's the race car. Yeah, every
Speaker 3: little kid's favorite, which apparently had a number three on
Speaker 3: the side for a little while.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I didn't know that. Yeah, they Earnhardt.
Speaker 3: I guess so.
Speaker 4: Uh or purse has been retired. Yeah, the rocking horse
Speaker 4: was retired. Yep, the lantern was retired.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, I'm doing my best Ben Bull in pressing.
Speaker 3: Did you do did you get wheelbarrow in there yet?
Speaker 3: I think I know, yes I did. It was the
Speaker 3: first one I said, could we say top hat?
Speaker 4: Yeah? That was always my favorite.
Speaker 3: Actually I don't remember what my favorite was.
Speaker 4: It fit on my pinky and I used to draw
Speaker 4: faces of oh yeah, the horse and rider, which is retired,
Speaker 4: which I didn't know. That's one of the best pieces
Speaker 4: to me.
Speaker 3: What you didn't know was retired?
Speaker 4: Now yeah, it's kind of sad. Yeah, and now they're
Speaker 4: and the sack of money was retired as well.
Speaker 3: The sack of money and a purse, those are a
Speaker 3: little similar.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm the cat. Come on, yeah, cat people.
Speaker 3: I'm sure they're like, yeah, yeah, that's exactly right. I
Speaker 3: guarantee that's why they got cat voted in.
Speaker 4: And I am a cat person, you know.
Speaker 3: And even you think it's stupid exactly. So those are
Speaker 3: the tokens. Some of those tokens that we mentioned you're
Speaker 3: going to find in the two thousand and eight set.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and that is your piece, that is what represents
Speaker 4: you in the game. Yes, again for the three people
Speaker 4: who have never played Monopoly.
Speaker 3: Right, yeah, because supposedly, at least as far as Hasbro calculates,
Speaker 3: over one billion people have played Monopoly, and frankly, I'm
Speaker 3: surprised is that low?
Speaker 4: It sounds like an old number.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Okay, So you've got the box open, you got
Speaker 3: the board, you got two dice, you got the tokens,
Speaker 3: thirty two houses, yeah, in twelve hotels, yeah, sixteen chance cards,
Speaker 3: sixteen community Chess cards, Yeah, a title D card for
Speaker 3: each property. It's got the information on it, like how
Speaker 3: much it cost to purchase, sure, how much rent is
Speaker 3: depending on how many houses or hotels you have on it. Yeah,
Speaker 3: what the mortgage value's worth, that's right. And then you've
Speaker 3: got your play money, your monopoly money. Yeah.
Speaker 4: Man, I think that's where it grabs kids because and
Speaker 4: they even pointed out in this article that's it's kind
Speaker 4: of the first time a lot of kids have money
Speaker 4: to play with.
Speaker 3: Yeah, especially the the five hundred dollars bill ones.
Speaker 4: Oh man, that gold bill.
Speaker 3: I always thought it was orange. Is it gold? Uh? Yeah, okay, one,
Speaker 3: it's definitely golden rod like yellow. But I remember the
Speaker 3: five hundred it was. Yeah, I guess gold is the
Speaker 3: way to go.
Speaker 4: Yeah. See I was a cash hoarder, which is no
Speaker 4: way to win a monopoly.
Speaker 3: No. I thought it was I can't save.
Speaker 4: No, I just thought that just figures for me though, Like.
Speaker 3: You gotta spend money to make money.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I was like, look at all this cash, right
Speaker 4: that I will soon be paying to everyone else.
Speaker 3: You just keep wandering off from the table and try
Speaker 3: to buy stuff with it.
Speaker 4: Did not work.
Speaker 3: So Chuck, You've got the board laid out and if
Speaker 3: you count them, if you're that kind of person, yeah,
Speaker 3: you're gonna find that. There's forty squares, that's right. I believe,
Speaker 3: twenty two of which are no, twenty eight of which
Speaker 3: can be purchased.
Speaker 4: Yeah, twenty two are properties. You've got your your electric
Speaker 4: company and water works.
Speaker 3: Yeah, suckers bet. And then you've got the four railroads.
Speaker 4: Four railroads.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so that's twenty eight.
Speaker 4: That's right.
Speaker 3: There are others that you can't buy. So, for example,
Speaker 3: there's a luxury tax square.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you got to pay what one hundred dollars when
Speaker 4: you land on that.
Speaker 3: I believe, so just right out of just right out
Speaker 3: of your pocket. There's an income tax square.
Speaker 4: Yeah, no, good.
Speaker 3: There's the go square, which is where you start, and
Speaker 3: then when you come back around you collect two hundred dollars,
Speaker 3: which is in Monopoly called your salary.
Speaker 4: That's right. I never knew that.
Speaker 3: I didn't either.
Speaker 4: And there's a lot of rules in here, and I
Speaker 4: guess it's a good time to point out Monopoly is
Speaker 4: one of those games where house rules are highly encouraged
Speaker 4: and a lot of the fun of the game, and
Speaker 4: in fact, to make more money, Monopoly this year are
Speaker 4: incorporating the top house rules, as voted on by fans
Speaker 4: as official rules for this one version.
Speaker 3: In a seventy dollars hard backbook.
Speaker 4: I don't see why a lot of people were in
Speaker 4: sense they were like, no one plays by the real
Speaker 4: rules anyway, So why by they're packaging it and selling it?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 4: And they went, I think you just said.
Speaker 3: The word sell someone as they sell, there unlies the answer.
Speaker 3: So you've got, oh, there's and so there's forty squares,
Speaker 3: but there's actually forty one places you can go to
Speaker 3: on the board because jail is divided into two squares. Right,
Speaker 3: you got the jail with the jailbird. What's his name?
Speaker 4: Uh, I can't remember, Johnny Jailbird or something, Jake the Jailbird.
Speaker 3: Right, okay, which is where Jake the jailbird is. And
Speaker 3: then you've got the lower part of it. It's just visiting.
Speaker 4: Yeah, if you want to visit Jake, give them a
Speaker 4: bunch cake with a nail file in. It'd be very
Speaker 4: old school.
Speaker 3: Or a monopoly set with maybe a map with an
Speaker 3: escape route embedded in it.
Speaker 4: Hey, that sounds familiar.
Speaker 3: Yeah, POWs in World War Two were given such monopoly sets,
Speaker 3: which is strange to me. It's like where the Nazis
Speaker 3: allowing Monopoly sets to be delivered to POW's. Is that
Speaker 3: what I'm seeing here? Maybe here's the Burmese.
Speaker 4: You've seen the like The Great Escape, on those those
Speaker 4: the war prison camps in World War Two. It seemed
Speaker 4: like a lot of them. They let them like garden
Speaker 4: and they were kind of chummy with him. You saw
Speaker 4: Hogan's heroes.
Speaker 3: I saw Hogan's heroes. I didn't put a lot of
Speaker 3: stock into it. Yeah, but yeah, no, I just figured
Speaker 3: they played soccer. Maybe the Japanese or the Burmese, or
Speaker 3: the the Italians. I could see like saying like, yeah,
Speaker 3: he bring to Monopoly and who cares? But the Nazis,
Speaker 3: I would think, would. I just don't see that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm not saying it was a walk in the park,
Speaker 4: but I think from the depiction and like, like I said,
Speaker 4: like the Great Escape, it's not like Vietnam prison camp.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, you know, like they weren't playing.
Speaker 4: Soccer or Monopoly, right, they were playing Survive Another Day
Speaker 4: that game. Yeah, I'm not making light of that. By
Speaker 4: the way.
Speaker 3: Oh I didn't think you were.
Speaker 4: And I'm basing everything on war movies, so I'm probably wrong.
Speaker 3: I've seen uncommon Valor.
Speaker 4: That was a good movie.
Speaker 3: That was a great movie.
Speaker 4: It doesn't age well though, really.
Speaker 3: No. Remember that menu with the gun silhouettes on it.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, and when you're twelve you're like, oh my god.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's like I would buy that one and that one.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: All right, So where were we?
Speaker 3: We were talking about the board itself. Yes, and the different squares.
Speaker 4: Yes, there are the cards that you can draw as well,
Speaker 4: Community chest and chance squares. When you land on these,
Speaker 4: you draw a card from one of those two piles.
Speaker 4: And there are various things in there, like you want
Speaker 4: to fashion modeling contest, you get ten dollars.
Speaker 3: And there a dog show one in there too.
Speaker 4: I think there's probably a dog show. And there's also
Speaker 4: you know, you have street repairs.
Speaker 3: Or those are big time.
Speaker 4: General repairs, and that's based on your properties that you own.
Speaker 3: That's right. They percentage they can have you pretty hard. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 3: it's like in real life, that's right, you know. And
Speaker 3: that's funny because the monopoly what was her name, Lizzie Maggie.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: In an interview she gave with some leftist magazine at
Speaker 3: the time, she said she basically called the thing the
Speaker 3: game of life.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that was already taken out.
Speaker 3: I don't know, was it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that was that's around since the like mid eighteen hundred.
Speaker 3: Oh okay, it's old. I thought she was being prescient.
Speaker 4: Now she was being a glib.
Speaker 3: She was making a pop culture reference for the time.
Speaker 4: Yeah exactly.
Speaker 3: But did you know apparently there used to be a
Speaker 3: square on the Game of Life board for suicide. Really,
Speaker 3: it was the way that you could go.
Speaker 4: I never really played that. I think I played a
Speaker 4: couple of times.
Speaker 3: I never did either. I always thought it was kind
Speaker 3: of like you get the whole family in the car
Speaker 3: and it's like whatever.
Speaker 4: Yeah we did. I mean we weren't the biggest game
Speaker 4: players as families, but we did Monopoly some and Yachtzi
Speaker 4: was a big one.
Speaker 3: Yachtzi was great that I still enjoyed today.
Speaker 4: I love Yatzi.
Speaker 3: Sure.
Speaker 4: Yeah. We also played this game called Bull and it
Speaker 4: was like a stock trading game, oh yeah, with cards.
Speaker 4: And it's just now occurring to me that all these
Speaker 4: games are just teaching you about life. Yeah, it's like
Speaker 4: real Monopoly is nothing but real estate. The Game of
Speaker 4: Life is everything, right. This game Bowl was about the
Speaker 4: stock market.
Speaker 3: Yeah, sorry, it was about sarcastic. Sorry, yeah, because you.
Speaker 4: Had to say it like a jerk, right, Candy Land,
Speaker 4: we know what that's all about.
Speaker 3: Yeah, drugs, right, probably shoots and ladders tall you to
Speaker 3: stay away from snakes.
Speaker 4: Yeah. Operation taught you how to be a doctor.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, that's right, that's where I got my MD.
Speaker 4: And then of course Battleship taught you how to be
Speaker 4: a warmonger. That's so do risk can take great pride.
Speaker 3: Risk taught you to be the Antichrist.
Speaker 4: Yeah, risk, we should do what. There is an article
Speaker 4: on risk I saw.
Speaker 3: I looked it over. It didn't seem as interesting as
Speaker 3: this one, though. Yeah.
Speaker 4: I don't know if the history is as interesting for sure.
Speaker 3: And I mean, isn't that what's interesting about any game,
Speaker 3: the history of it? Yeah?
Speaker 4: I think so.
Speaker 3: So let's talk about the rules, dude, Okay, let's start
Speaker 3: at the beginning. We'll start it.
Speaker 4: Go Go is where you start, and that's where you
Speaker 4: Like you said, you collect the two hundred every time
Speaker 4: you land on it or pass it. Sometimes house rules
Speaker 4: you get four hundred for actually landing on it, oh yeah,
Speaker 4: and only two hundred for passing it.
Speaker 3: We never Oh that makes sense. That's good good.
Speaker 4: But free parking is where we had house rules. That
Speaker 4: is a space on the corner of the board where
Speaker 4: you supposedly, per the official rules, don't do anything.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's nothing. It's just a space.
Speaker 4: But what we did was we donated all the collected
Speaker 4: taxes and fees and put it under free parking, and
Speaker 4: if you land on that, that was like a lottery win.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, and a lot of people play that way.
Speaker 3: I think I've heard of that one before.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it was, you know, we were a bunch of
Speaker 4: pepe never mind. I liked it because it allowed you
Speaker 4: more money, which is favorite thing cash, it's the lotto.
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly, we got ahead of ourselves. Let's just start
Speaker 3: at the real beginning. Okay, So everybody sits down at
Speaker 3: the table. Yeah, maybe somebody, Yeah, somebody gets a drink.
Speaker 3: Maybe you have to wait because somebody has to go
Speaker 3: to the bathroom. So you're all sitting there quietly. And
Speaker 3: then when everybody's finally at the table, yeah, you guys
Speaker 3: select a banker, huh, and the banker distributes the monopoly
Speaker 3: money fifteen hundred dollars to each player two five hundreds,
Speaker 3: two one hundred, two fifties six twenties and five tens,
Speaker 3: five fives, and five ones. That's thirteen hundred dollars.
Speaker 4: And the goal of the game that we're getting to
Speaker 4: here at thirty minutes in is to bankrupt all of
Speaker 4: your family and friends. That's the whole point, pretty much.
Speaker 4: Some people put a time limit because this game can
Speaker 4: go on forever, and other people say, no, it's got
Speaker 4: to You got to finish it by bankrupting everyone or
Speaker 4: until the last person is like, I give geez, I've
Speaker 4: got eight dollars.
Speaker 3: I hate this game.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's usually me, right, and he's usually has her
Speaker 4: foot on my throat.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4: We played two person Monopoly, which is just not fun.
Speaker 3: Yeah, because you know one of you is gonna lose.
Speaker 4: No, that's not why. It's just it's a game that's
Speaker 4: more fun with more people.
Speaker 3: I think. Yeah, I got it. Yeah, So okay, So
Speaker 3: everybody's got fifteen hord bucks. You roll the dice to
Speaker 3: see who goes first. Whoever rolls the highest goes first.
Speaker 4: Classic move.
Speaker 3: Then you roll both die and you start moving from
Speaker 3: the ghost square and you go clockwise around the board. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and when you land on a property this I didn't know, Yeah,
Speaker 3: which is kind of a basic rule, I guess, but
Speaker 3: I never played it this way. When you land on
Speaker 3: a property, yeah, you have the option to buy it.
Speaker 3: I knew that part. Yeah, but if you decline to
Speaker 3: buy it, then then the property goes up for auction.
Speaker 4: I've never not only have I never played it the way,
Speaker 4: I've never heard of anyone playing it that.
Speaker 3: Okay, so it's not just me, not just you, all right,
Speaker 3: So I guess the during an auction, not only the person,
Speaker 3: not only everybody else, but the banker and the person
Speaker 3: who declined to buy it can bid on.
Speaker 4: It, which didn't make sense unless you're trying to get
Speaker 4: it for lower because yah, can't you start the bidding
Speaker 4: it wherever?
Speaker 3: Yes, you can start the bidding anywhere you want, so
Speaker 3: you could consumably get it for lower. And if you're
Speaker 3: playing against somebody who declines to buy something and then
Speaker 3: starts bidding on it at a lower price, keep an
Speaker 3: eye on that person because that's a shark they're out
Speaker 3: to win. Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I hate that rule because to me, it's just like,
Speaker 4: what's the point in rolling and landing on something? I
Speaker 4: guess right at first refusal, but yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 4: I don't like it.
Speaker 3: No, And plus the Quakers were like, we specifically put
Speaker 3: a price on these things so there wouldn't be a
Speaker 3: lot of yelling. Yeah, we don't like yelling.
Speaker 4: They had another game to follow called the quiet roof
Speaker 4: raising Ceremony.
Speaker 3: Those are not Quakers. That was fun, that was the honest.
Speaker 3: They're different.
Speaker 4: Oh don't you think Quakers raise some roofs?
Speaker 3: Yeah, they do. Hate No party like a Quaker party.
Speaker 4: That's right, all right. So let's you buy all of
Speaker 4: the properties that you know they're they're divided into different colors,
Speaker 4: like there's three green around you know, green ones, orange ones,
Speaker 4: blue ones, light blue. If you buy all of the
Speaker 4: properties that are tied together by a single color, then
Speaker 4: you have what's called the monopoly, and that means you
Speaker 4: can then charge double rent, although we never do that.
Speaker 4: We just keep it single rent. And you now have
Speaker 4: the option to buy houses. And then once you have
Speaker 4: enough houses I think three, you can then buy a hotel.
Speaker 3: Right, and let's call improvements. You're improving your land. And posedly,
Speaker 3: once you start to do improvements, things change a little bit.
Speaker 3: Not only can you start making more money, but it's
Speaker 3: actually harder to mortgage your properties if you are if
Speaker 3: you find yourself in debt, right, because this is this
Speaker 3: is how crazy complicated it is. Like I don't think
Speaker 3: I was ever paying that much attention to monopoly that
Speaker 3: I ever mortgaged a piece of land. Oh really, I
Speaker 3: think it's like sorry to get into debt or whatever.
Speaker 3: It was, like I'm done, I'm done. But apparently so
Speaker 3: if you find yourself indebted, and let's say you have
Speaker 3: a monopoly and you want to mortgage, you can mortgage
Speaker 3: just one of the spots, right, yes, But to do so,
Speaker 3: let's say you have a hotel on that piece of
Speaker 3: land that you're mortgaging, you first have to sell the
Speaker 3: hotel back to the bank at half price. Yeah, and
Speaker 3: then you can mortgage the land. You're still I think,
Speaker 3: are you collecting rent on that land or doesn't go
Speaker 3: right to the bank.
Speaker 4: Now that's where you just turn the card over and
Speaker 4: it's just you still technically own it, right, but you
Speaker 4: can't collect any rents on it.
Speaker 3: But you can't collect rent and everything on the other
Speaker 3: two pieces of property or the other one, depending on
Speaker 3: which one you own. I don't know, really you can.
Speaker 3: I looked it up.
Speaker 4: So that doesn't bust up the monopoly.
Speaker 3: No it doesn't. Okay, so you still own the monopoly.
Speaker 3: It's just that that one is mortgaged, and then to
Speaker 3: get it back you have to pay the bank the
Speaker 3: mortgage plus ten percent. Right.
Speaker 4: And this is where you can get silly with your
Speaker 4: house rules if you want. Yeah, you know, like as
Speaker 4: far as mortgaging and stuff like that, because supposedly it's
Speaker 4: a rule too where you can't. The only thing that
Speaker 4: is not allowed is a personal loan. And I did
Speaker 4: all kinds of personal loaning because I was mister cash.
Speaker 3: What were your your interest rates?
Speaker 4: I don't remember.
Speaker 3: Did you break any usury laws? No?
Speaker 4: That was a kid, so it was probably just.
Speaker 3: Like just painting back whenever ten percent or something.
Speaker 4: I guess I'm not the right I'm not enough of
Speaker 4: a You're not the shark capitalin though.
Speaker 3: You're not the one who like declines to buy something
Speaker 3: so you can bid on at a lower price.
Speaker 4: I'm playing candy Land.
Speaker 3: I loved candy Land.
Speaker 4: Actually I never played that.
Speaker 3: It was a great game, was it because of the art?
Speaker 4: Was this crazy?
Speaker 3: It was beautiful stuff. And then nowadays you look at
Speaker 3: the candy Land board and you're like, poor kids. Yeah,
Speaker 3: they don't know what they're missing.
Speaker 4: I just got a Ticket to Ride game that I
Speaker 4: haven't played yet. Have you heard of that one?
Speaker 3: No?
Speaker 4: It was a German game that's like one game of
Speaker 4: the year. It's a train train game, like you established
Speaker 4: train routes between cities. Uh huh, but it's supposedly like
Speaker 4: it sounds like, really that's fun, but it's supposedly great.
Speaker 3: I just bled a tear. Did you at the thought
Speaker 3: of it?
Speaker 4: Yeah, it does sound pretty bad. Yeah, but no, it's
Speaker 4: it's one game of the year. Those Germans and watch
Speaker 4: people Ticket to Ride enthusiasts will be like, dude, it's
Speaker 4: the best ever.
Speaker 3: I'm sure we're gonna know. I've heard like German game
Speaker 3: night is like a thing now.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think they're a little more heady.
Speaker 3: Is that what it is?
Speaker 4: I think? So this seems like I read over the
Speaker 4: rules the other night just so I would know what
Speaker 4: to do. And uh, because you got to like the
Speaker 4: purchase over the game has to be the game explainer
Speaker 4: as well.
Speaker 3: Right, do you have to listen to craft work while
Speaker 3: you play? Yeah, well you don't have to, but it
Speaker 3: helps house rules.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so.
Speaker 3: I guess we've Oh and we said you you can
Speaker 3: do anything but give personal loans.
Speaker 4: Right, that's what the official rules stays.
Speaker 3: So like you can I can buy from you on
Speaker 3: the side or something like that, or you can hold
Speaker 3: something up for auction, whatever anybody's doing.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And we always played where you had to do
Speaker 4: that when it was your turn. That makes sense and
Speaker 4: that that would take your turn as well.
Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, but again, the whole point is is to
Speaker 3: be the person who owns the most stuff so that
Speaker 3: you can bankrupt all of your family and friends, right,
Speaker 3: And I mean those are the rules, but there's actually
Speaker 3: strategy to it, and people pay a lot of attention
Speaker 3: to this. You know, there's a Monopoly World Championship roughly
Speaker 3: every four years, although it's been the last one was
Speaker 3: in two thousand and nine. Yeah, so we're due.
Speaker 4: An American lawyer one right in two thousand and nine.
Speaker 3: And no, I think it was a Swede or anti man.
Speaker 4: Okay, maybe he was the North American.
Speaker 3: That's what he was, the North American champ. Yeah, and he.
Speaker 4: Represented the US and the World championships.
Speaker 3: It sounds so silly, weird, yeah, huh, well he uh
Speaker 3: he used the iron.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, I think the American used the thimble.
Speaker 3: Gotcha.
Speaker 4: Let's Terry just laughed. She was like, really, that's a
Speaker 4: that's the fact that people need.
Speaker 3: Well, we're trying to really appeal to the purists here too,
Speaker 3: which want everybody to be engaged. Yeah, all right, so
Speaker 3: let's do one more message break and then we'll come
Speaker 3: back and talk strategy. Okay, chucker, So again the point bankrupt.
Speaker 3: Everybody bankrupt, But there's like techniques that you can use
Speaker 3: to more efficiently bankrupt people, like the overall the best strategy,
Speaker 3: the basic strategy is to buy everything every chance you have.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean I looked up there's a lot of
Speaker 4: different people's strategies and opinions online. I did find this
Speaker 4: one from a guy and that was his strategy is
Speaker 4: buy everything. It doesn't matter what it is, right, even
Speaker 4: the suckers bet the electric company in the water works.
Speaker 3: Yeah, which I don't pay off.
Speaker 4: Really, he said, buy it all and never have more
Speaker 4: than one hundred dollars in cash is his rule.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 4: He says the number one people mistake people make is
Speaker 4: hoarding cash like I did.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you're making the number one mistake.
Speaker 4: That's right. And he says that buy everything and do
Speaker 4: whatever it takes to get a monopoly, even a bad one,
Speaker 4: Like he will trade to get a bad monopoly and
Speaker 4: give someone a good monopoly even as long as he
Speaker 4: gets the monopoly. Oh gotcha, And he says it's fine
Speaker 4: because then you know, you two will probably take out
Speaker 4: everyone else. The point is just to get a monopoly
Speaker 4: and improve it as fast as you can.
Speaker 3: So supposedly, though, a general rule of thumb among like
Speaker 3: hardcore monopoly players is that while you're improving your monopoly
Speaker 3: your properties, yeah, by adding houses or whatever, you want
Speaker 3: to stop at three houses, yes, because the jump from
Speaker 3: the third house to the hotel, yeah, is financially it
Speaker 3: doesn't pay off. Usually it's over improvement.
Speaker 4: Yeah, just like in your home, Like, don't build a
Speaker 4: eighty thousand dollars kitchen because you're not gonna get your
Speaker 4: money back on that. Right, So three houses, this guy
Speaker 4: doesn't subscribe to that. He buys everything.
Speaker 3: And puts hotels on it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, he says, as first as he gets as soon
Speaker 4: as he gets his first monopoly, he mortgages everything else
Speaker 4: to get cash back, right, and then uses that cash
Speaker 4: to improve.
Speaker 3: Wow, which I thought was a little risky. Yeah.
Speaker 4: A couple of bad roles. I mean, it's a game
Speaker 4: of strategy, but the end of the day, you're rolling dice,
Speaker 4: and so it is very much a game of chance.
Speaker 3: I'll but that guy feels like he's on the back
Speaker 3: of a pegasust though the whole game, like he's just thrilled.
Speaker 3: He claims to have been there on the edge.
Speaker 4: He claims to have won a game in twelve minutes
Speaker 4: one time, which I thought was shooting his own horn
Speaker 4: a bit. Yeah, sure, but real regular strategy. You're right,
Speaker 4: they say three houses is the max you should go.
Speaker 3: And then there's also some that you should avoid, even
Speaker 3: though they seemed like very tempting. We already said the
Speaker 3: electric company and the water company, the utilities. Yeah, they
Speaker 3: The most you can get for rent from landing on
Speaker 3: them was ten times a roll of the dice, which
Speaker 3: is one hundred and twenty bucks. But it also mas
Speaker 3: roll it could be as low as twenty dollars. Yeah,
Speaker 3: so I mean this guy would probably say, well, hey,
Speaker 3: it was worth it. I still own them, and I'm
Speaker 3: still making money if somebody lands on them. But a
Speaker 3: lot of again, the monopoly purists say just stay away
Speaker 3: from them. Yeah, and you also may want to stay
Speaker 3: away from the most expensive ones boardwalk in park place.
Speaker 4: Yeah, there are only two of them, and they just
Speaker 4: don't get landed on very much.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so think about it right out of the gate
Speaker 3: when you're thinking of probabilities. The fact that there's two
Speaker 3: of these properties, yeah, rather than three, means that you
Speaker 3: are another player is less likely to land on your
Speaker 3: monopoly because there's three or two instead of three. So
Speaker 3: that's one problem.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: The other problem is placement. Where they are. They're right
Speaker 3: after Go, right before, right before go.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so it's at the end of the board essentially.
Speaker 3: No, I'm sorry, they're right before jail. No, there, right
Speaker 3: before we go.
Speaker 4: There, right before we go.
Speaker 3: Okay, So that means that most players are going to well,
Speaker 3: they're going to pass them for sure whenever they hit that.
Speaker 4: Go directly to go exactly.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So that means that your your monopoly is going
Speaker 3: to be passed over. The likelihood of making your money
Speaker 3: back recouping it, especially if they're improved to the hilt
Speaker 3: like a really fancy hotel, means.
Speaker 4: That there's a lot of money.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you've probably sunk a lot of money unwisely into those.
Speaker 3: You want to go for some other ones.
Speaker 4: Yeah, supposedly, and there are people that have done those.
Speaker 4: This one guy. If you really want to get into monopoly, Uh,
Speaker 4: this dude, I don't even know his name, but just
Speaker 4: look up probabilities in the game of Monopoly. And Scientific
Speaker 4: American in the mid nineties at an article that talked
Speaker 4: about probabilities of landing on different spaces, but they excluded
Speaker 4: community chest and chance and being sent to jail. So
Speaker 4: this guy said, I took all of that and included everything,
Speaker 4: and he has statistical charts long term probabilities for ending
Speaker 4: up on each square, expected income per opponent roll, yeah,
Speaker 4: average income per role, expected number of opponent roll, to
Speaker 4: recoup incremental costs, to recoup mortgages.
Speaker 3: So it's the name of his website. By the way,
Speaker 3: is Monopoly was fun dot com?
Speaker 4: It totally should be. But if you just want to
Speaker 4: do some basic probabilities, the orange properties are landed on
Speaker 4: more than anyone else.
Speaker 3: Yes, and why chuck.
Speaker 4: Because they are after jail.
Speaker 3: Six, eight and nine spaces after jail.
Speaker 4: Yeah. So if you get sent to jail, which is
Speaker 4: gonna happen at some point, and we actually didn't talk
Speaker 4: about jail, we'll talk about that, Okay, then you Yeah,
Speaker 4: chances are you're gonna hit one of those orange squares
Speaker 4: on your way out of jail.
Speaker 3: Yeah, because you're rolling with two dice, so you're much
Speaker 3: more likely to roll like a six, eight or a
Speaker 3: nine then you are like a two or three or
Speaker 3: a one. Yeah, it's not even possible to roll a one.
Speaker 3: Try it. You can't.
Speaker 4: You can't unless you eat one of the dice.
Speaker 3: And in which case, unless it's a house rule, everybody's
Speaker 3: gonna yell at you and have to wait around until
Speaker 3: you poop it out to keep playing.
Speaker 4: Actually, our rule was you had to roll the child
Speaker 4: in the one the child who ate the dice.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, just shake them up.
Speaker 4: Yep.
Speaker 3: All right.
Speaker 4: So jail is on the corner of the board and
Speaker 4: you can there are a few different ways you can
Speaker 4: go there. You can draw a go to jail card.
Speaker 4: You can throw three doubles in a row and go
Speaker 4: to jail, yeah, which I never understood, because that's a
Speaker 4: good thing.
Speaker 3: I guess, but it's also the sign of the devil.
Speaker 3: So that's why you have to go to jail for
Speaker 3: a little while to be cleansed.
Speaker 4: Or there is a square mark to go to jail
Speaker 4: and you can land on that and go to jail.
Speaker 4: You can also get out in three ways. You can
Speaker 4: have that get out of jail free card. If you
Speaker 4: draw that, you can hold on to it. We could
Speaker 4: sell it, although I think that's a house rule. You
Speaker 4: can sell it to a friend or enemy.
Speaker 3: Whoever had the most cash, right exactly.
Speaker 4: And then you basically the other ways to roll to
Speaker 4: either pay your way out with fifty bucks or to
Speaker 4: roll your way out. The way we played it was
Speaker 4: each turn you had one chance to roll your way
Speaker 4: out of jail.
Speaker 3: So you are rolling doubles, rolling doubles, right, yeah, and
Speaker 3: then if you under official rules, if you don't roll
Speaker 3: doubles for three consecutive turns, like you get three consecutive
Speaker 3: chances to roll doubles, and if you don't on any
Speaker 3: of those turns, then you have to pay fifty bucks
Speaker 3: to get out of jail.
Speaker 4: We just played where you just got out and you didn't.
Speaker 3: Have to pay. Well, then you guys weren't following the rules.
Speaker 4: I told you the house rules. The house rules.
Speaker 3: So there's actually a strategy to jail. Yeah, if you
Speaker 3: go to jail early on in the game, you want
Speaker 3: to pay your fifty bucks to get out immediately. Yeah,
Speaker 3: just pay the fifty bucks because then you can keep
Speaker 3: going around the board and there's more stuff available to buy.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: But later in the game you want to just kind
Speaker 3: of hang out in jail.
Speaker 4: Yeah, like Josh has bought all the Orange spaces. Yeah,
Speaker 4: and you've got hotels on each one.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: So I'm thinking it might be good to sit in
Speaker 4: jail for a few rounds.
Speaker 3: Yeah, because you can still collect rent on your properties,
Speaker 3: but the fact that you're in jail keeps you off
Speaker 3: of my properties.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and all another Bryant rule we played where when
Speaker 4: you were in jail you could not collect any rents.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean that makes sense, but according to official rules,
Speaker 3: that's right. You just make as much money as you
Speaker 3: want there.
Speaker 4: And apparently in jail you can officially you can also
Speaker 4: buy and sell properties, yeah, and improve your and collect
Speaker 4: rent and build hotels and houses, which I thought, I
Speaker 4: don't know. You're in jail, you can lose that.
Speaker 3: Right, It seems like it in real jail, that's the
Speaker 3: way it is.
Speaker 4: No, it's not. You can own a house and be
Speaker 4: in jail. I guess that's true, And technically you could
Speaker 4: probably charge rent to someone you could sublet it, like
Speaker 4: I'm gonna be gone for three to six.
Speaker 3: No, it's true, but what happens when the dishrush breaks?
Speaker 3: Try to get light out of jail to go fix it.
Speaker 3: They're not gonna let you do that. It's very funny,
Speaker 3: but it's true too.
Speaker 4: Probability experts also say you get a good return on
Speaker 4: buying all of the railroads because they're pretty cheap. There's
Speaker 4: one on each side, and once you have each, once
Speaker 4: you own all of them, they're two hundred dollars in rent.
Speaker 4: So that's not too bad, not too shabby. But to me,
Speaker 4: a monopoly is the reason monopoly is are valuable is
Speaker 4: because they're in a row, whereas the railroads are spaced
Speaker 4: out right. And our friend, the strategist who thinks he
Speaker 4: invented the game, says, but what you have to remember
Speaker 4: is none of these strategies matter because you're playing. It's
Speaker 4: a game of people and personalities. So he said, you
Speaker 4: got to sit back and watch the different personalities emerge
Speaker 4: and then manipulate that like the cash hoarder versus the shark.
Speaker 4: And he's like, you're really playing against people.
Speaker 3: Man, that's interesting, I.
Speaker 4: Thought, so.
Speaker 3: Okay, so let's talk about another friend, an economist friend.
Speaker 3: His name is Ralph Antspoch. Yes, and he back in
Speaker 3: the seventies had a game called anti Monopoly. Yeah.
Speaker 4: He was an econ professor at San Francisco State and
Speaker 4: like it made his own real game. Like he didn't
Speaker 4: just like draw it up on paper, like, he started
Speaker 4: a little small business right and manufactured it.
Speaker 3: Apparently sold about two hundred thousand copies of it, like
Speaker 3: right out of the gate. Yeah, could just hit a
Speaker 3: nerve again. It was called anti monopoly, and the whole
Speaker 3: point of it was to break up monopolies rather than
Speaker 3: build monopolies.
Speaker 4: Yeah. At the beginning of the game is essentially the
Speaker 4: end of a regular game, Like everyone starts off with monopolies,
Speaker 4: and instead of real estate and utilities an anti monopoly,
Speaker 4: they had their individual businesses that have been brought under
Speaker 4: a single ownership. And you take the role of federal
Speaker 4: caseworker and bring indictments against monopolized businesses.
Speaker 3: That's right.
Speaker 4: In order to return the board to a free market system.
Speaker 3: You have to wear sensible shoes.
Speaker 4: It sounds awesome.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Well, and he came up with this because he
Speaker 3: was trying to apparently explain to his son what was
Speaker 3: wrong and bad about monopolies, and I suspect capitalism to
Speaker 3: a certain extent. And he came up with this game instead,
Speaker 3: Like I said, sold a substantial amount two hundred thousand
Speaker 3: copies of a game, especially back in the seventies that
Speaker 3: was pretty good as a startup. Yeah, you know, and
Speaker 3: it caught Parker Brothers attention enough that they sent him
Speaker 3: a season desist letter, took him to court, got a
Speaker 3: court order for him to hand over his like thirty
Speaker 3: seven thousand copies that he had in his warehouse, and
Speaker 3: they Parker Brothers went and unceremoniously buried him in a
Speaker 3: landfill in Minnesota. Yeah, so Ralph didn't cott into this
Speaker 3: very much. He didn't like that. He doesn't like to
Speaker 3: be pushed around. I get the impression.
Speaker 4: No, I mean, a guy who makes anti monopoly is
Speaker 4: not going to cave in the courts initially.
Speaker 3: And he did so, like very much, at his own
Speaker 3: financial detriment. He had a very expensive team of lawyers
Speaker 3: at first, and spent quite a bit of money fighting
Speaker 3: Parker Brothers for the right to use anti monopoly, and
Speaker 3: it wasn't really going anywhere, and he was losing a
Speaker 3: lot of money, so he started to do legwork himself,
Speaker 3: found a lawyer friend who worked on the Cheap Forum,
Speaker 3: and that's when things started taking off.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, he basically uncovered the lie that it
Speaker 4: was invented by Charles Darrow. Yeah, he found out that
Speaker 4: the game was essentially in the public domain or should
Speaker 4: have been, and went all the way to the Supreme.
Speaker 3: And yeah, he won at the Supreme Court. This e
Speaker 3: come professor who came up with a game called anti
Speaker 3: Monopoly won in the Supreme Court, won the right to
Speaker 3: name his game anti Monopoly.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, he deposed the two Quakers that were
Speaker 4: friends of Hoskins. They were old at that point. They
Speaker 4: took the stand. He deposed the CEO of Parker Brothers,
Speaker 4: and he took the stand and it had to admit
Speaker 4: under oath like, yeah, we did kind of steal it
Speaker 4: nice the idea from that lady after all.
Speaker 3: And so, as Ralph says, the whole point to him
Speaker 3: was for this true story, the true origins of monopoly
Speaker 3: and how it came about, the whole point of it originally. Yeah,
Speaker 3: could still be told openly that what he said couldn't
Speaker 3: be bought at any price. In his opinion, that's right,
Speaker 3: So way to go, Ralph.
Speaker 4: Yeah, he wrote a book awkwardly titled The Billion Dollar Monopoly.
Speaker 4: In swindle Colin during a David and Goliath battle, Anti
Speaker 4: Monopoly uncovers the secret history of monopoly. That's a little clunky,
Speaker 4: a little clunky, but it's still around. In nineteen eighty four,
Speaker 4: there was a new version called Anti Monopoly two where
Speaker 4: you could actually be a monopolist or a competitor, So
Speaker 4: you got to choose, which I thought was interesting. And
Speaker 4: if you chose the competitor, you charge lower rents and
Speaker 4: you can improve property at anytime. But if you're a monopolist,
Speaker 4: you have to own at least two properties before in
Speaker 4: a group, before building houses, and charge a lot higher rents.
Speaker 4: So I think you're like playing against the two systems
Speaker 4: within the same game.
Speaker 3: That's really interesting.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm gonna I might grab one of these and
Speaker 4: see what it's like.
Speaker 3: Yeah, maybe tell everybody's German. Uh, you got anything else?
Speaker 4: I got nothing else.
Speaker 3: I do the longest monopoly game of all time seventy days.
Speaker 4: I played a game of risk that seemed like it
Speaker 4: lasted that long once it may have. It didn't last
Speaker 4: so long, but it lasted a weekend, okay, and Monopoly.
Speaker 4: I don't have the patience for that. I'll just give up.
Speaker 4: I'll take my cat fake cash and go home.
Speaker 3: Yeah you'r horride of it. Yeah you're like, oh, just
Speaker 3: saved all this money.
Speaker 4: That's right, and I own the utilities.
Speaker 3: If you want to learn more about Monopoly, including how
Speaker 3: to play, if you don't like house rules, but you
Speaker 3: also don't feel like looking at the official rule book,
Speaker 3: you can just go on to house stuff Works. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and check out the rules that is in this article.
Speaker 3: To cite Monopoly in the search bar at housetuffworks dot
Speaker 3: com and sin I said, search bar, it's time for
Speaker 3: what listener mail? Yes, okay, I'm.
Speaker 4: Gonna call this help for a fam in need.
Speaker 3: Oh that's nice.
Speaker 4: Hey, guys, want some help please. My wife and I
Speaker 4: are expecting our first kid this summer, and thirteen days
Speaker 4: ago we also found out that my wife has stage
Speaker 4: four breast cancer, so we are spending our third trimester
Speaker 4: getting chemo.
Speaker 3: My goodness, I know.
Speaker 4: We're gonna kick cancer in the but we have no doubt.
Speaker 4: But we're scared and overwhelmed, obviously, we're doing chemo now.
Speaker 4: Then we'll have the baby get more chemo than bilateral
Speaker 4: mastectomy than radiation. We have great doctors and great fans
Speaker 4: and family, so even in the face of this, we
Speaker 4: feel very lucky. And by the way, I got to
Speaker 4: follow up more recently that says, uh, there is no
Speaker 4: gestational diabetes and the cancer is already shrinking.
Speaker 3: Oh it's great.
Speaker 4: So things are going great so far.
Speaker 3: Thanks for keeping us in suspense.
Speaker 4: I know I was going to wait till the end.
Speaker 4: And he asked for a couple of favors. He said,
Speaker 4: First of all, if you want to follow and promote
Speaker 4: my tumblr to keep people updated, it is h T
Speaker 4: T P colon slash slash gala freakidiki g A L
Speaker 4: l I f R e e k y d e
Speaker 4: e k y dot tumblr dot com. Okay, he says,
Speaker 4: we're huge nerds and doctor who fans.
Speaker 3: So that was lost on me some doctor who referenced
Speaker 3: I guess apparently, so does that have to do with
Speaker 3: the phone booth?
Speaker 4: Maybe that's the only thing you know about doctor here. Secondly,
Speaker 4: I'm biking one hundred and fifty miles to raise money
Speaker 4: and could you plug that and you can go to
Speaker 4: goo dot gl slash two w j z x Q.
Speaker 3: These people don't like normal words. Well that's one of
Speaker 3: those shortened URLs. Oh, I see, it's a goo gotcha.
Speaker 4: And then third, how about a shout out? I think
Speaker 4: that's what we're doing here. My wife is a little shy,
Speaker 4: so just to use her nickname, the mayor.
Speaker 3: That's hilarious. She wears a sash during chemo and childbirth.
Speaker 4: I guess, so, I mean I call Emily the boss,
Speaker 4: So I guess it's the mayor. Yeah, but the.
Speaker 3: Mayor is like the boss of several bosses. I would guess. Yeah.
Speaker 4: We used to call my friend Justin who you know,
Speaker 4: the Mayor of Atlanta, because everywhere you went, somebody knew him.
Speaker 3: He's a sociable fella.
Speaker 4: But now we just call him the manager of Atlanta
Speaker 4: because everywhere you go he has some improvement to that place.
Speaker 4: Oh okay, like the lighting's not quite right, or the
Speaker 4: door should be over there, the kitchen is not located
Speaker 4: properly those Brits. Yeah. And then fourth, my wife works
Speaker 4: in public policy, specifically helping women and families get themselves
Speaker 4: out of poverty and advocating for low income workers. So
Speaker 4: there you have it. An awesome an incredible woman who
Speaker 4: dedicates her considerable talents helping others, is pregnant and has
Speaker 4: breast cancer.
Speaker 3: Kind of hard to say, no, right, I'm not above
Speaker 3: guilt tripping.
Speaker 4: So Bob from Swethmore, Pennsylvania, there you go. People should
Speaker 4: go and check out that stuff and support your bike ride.
Speaker 4: And I hope things have continued to progress well for
Speaker 4: your wife and child.
Speaker 3: And keep us updated. Yeah, and you keep me updated
Speaker 3: at the very least. If not everybody listening, I will. Okay,
Speaker 3: thanks a lot, Bob and the mayor. Good luck to
Speaker 3: you both. And let's see if you want to get
Speaker 3: in touch with us, whether you're a mayor a provincial
Speaker 3: governor who knows. Yeah, you can get in touch with
Speaker 3: us on Twitter at SYSK podcast. You can join us
Speaker 3: on Facebook dot com slash stuff you Should Know. You
Speaker 3: can send us an email to Stuff Podcast at HowStuffWorks
Speaker 3: dot com and join us at our home on the web,
Speaker 3: Stuff you Should Know dot com.
Speaker 2: For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit
Speaker 2: HowStuffWorks dot com