Monopoly Rules – You’re Doing it Wrong

By Cynthia Herbert :: 9:57 AM

Have you been seeing the Tweets and Facebook posts this morning about the sudden revelation that we’ve all been playing the game Monopoly wrong our entire lives? Turns out that they’re right – most of us aren’t playing the popular property buying and selling board game as the game’s maker, Parker Brothers, intended us to.

Seven years ago, this discovery was brought to light in an online magazine called Critical Miss. The article, “The Campaign For Real Monopoly” outlines instructions from the game that deal with how unowned property is dealt with when a player lands on it.

Directions from Hasbro (the current publisher of Monopoly), on the handling of unowned property are as follows:

“Whenever you land on an unowned property you may buy that property from the Bank at its printed price. You receive the Title Deed card showing ownership; place it face up in front of you.

If you do not wish to buy the property, the Banker sells it at auction to the highest bidder. The buyer pays the Bank the amount of the bid in cash and receives the Title Deed card for that property. Any player, including the one who declined the option to buy it at the printed price, may bid. Bidding may start at any price.”

How many of us have been playing by this rule? If you read the Tweets this morning, not too many.

By automatically placing unowned properties up for bid at auction, game play can be sped up tremendously. Players have a better chance of collecting their matched sets of streets and properties, thus enabling houses and hotels to be placed, and moving the game into the final, more lively phase.

[Photo credit: Etsy]