The Monopoly Game

The Monopoly Game is based on the streets of Atlantic City. Atlantic City is sometimes called "Monopoly City."

The Monopoly Game was originally the product of Parker Brothers. The Hasbro Toy Co. now owns the rights to the game.

The Monopoly Game is named after the economic concept of monopoly: the domination of a market by a single provider.

Monopoly is one of the world's most popular board games. It is estimated that more than 1 billion people have played the game of Monopoly since 1935.

The game of Monopoly is sold in 114 countries, and produced in 43 languages.

The Monopoly games mascot, Rich Uncle Pennybags, is intended to be a representation of the late financier, J. P. Morgan. However the monopoly game mascot is now called Mr. Monopoly.

Parker Brothers suggests that the game can be played in 45 minutes, but most games take longer. Some record game lengths:
In a tree house - 286 hours
In a bath tub - 99 hours
Underground - 100 hours
Upside Down - 66 hours
Longest game on record - 70 days

In 2011, Bally's casino in Atlantic City constructed a life size monopoly board on the boardwalk in front of their casino.

In 1975 four students in California played Monopoly for forty-four consecutive days underwater.

Parker Brothers once sent an armored car with one million dollars of Monopoly play money to a marathon game in Pittsburg that had run out of funds.

A monopoly game uses 32 houses and 12 hotels. Over 6 billion little green houses, and 2 billion red hotels, have been produced since the game was introduced in 1935.

The game can be played by from two to six people. Each player is represented by a small metal token that is moved around the board according to the roll of two dice. Monopoly's metal tokens originated when Charls Darrow's niece suggested using charms from a charm bracelet as tokens. Tokens include a battleship, an iron, a race car, a Scottie dog, a shoe, a thimble, a top hat and a wheelbarrow.

In February 2013, based on a fan vote on Facebook, Hasbro replaced the iron token with a cat.

The character locked behind the bars is called Jake the Jailbird. Officer Edgar Mallory sent him to jail.

In 1983 the Italian National Champion, Emlio Malloni, learned to play the monopoly game alone by taking on the role of five players.

A Monopoly World Championship is held every four years.

Richard Marinaccio, from Norway, is the current World Monopoly Game Champion, having won the Championship Tournament held in Las Vegas in 2009.

The World Monopoly Tournament held in Atlantic City in 1973 featured a Monopoly board 18 feet long on each side; large enough for you to stand on. Bikini-clad females were used as the moveable tokens.

A set made by Alfred Dunhill, that included gold houses and silver hotels, sold for $25,000.

The most expensive version of the game was produced by celebrated San Francisco jeweler Sidney Mobell. Valued at $2 million, the set features a 23-carat gold board and diamond-studded dice.

In 1978, the Neiman Marcus Christmas catalog offered a chocolate version of the game for $600.

In other countries that do not have a boardwalk, they changed the name of boardwalk as shown below:
U.S.: Boardwalk
U.K.: Mayfair
France: Rue de la Paix
Germany: Schlossalle
Spain: Paseo de Gracia
Soth Africa: Efoff Street
The Neherlands: Kalverstrat

The capitalistic Monopoly Game had been banned in Russia until 1988, when the first Russian-language edition was published. One of its tokens was a Russian bear.

To see descriptions of over 200 monopoly board games, follow this link: Monopoly Game Editions .