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As heard on the Dave Fanning Show (Irish radio, 12/6/2007)
Freakonomics
link of the day
(11/9/2007)

How to Win at Monopoly® – a Surefire Strategy

by Tim Darling (email) - November, 2007.

I’m a big Monopoly fan and I recently saw a great website that did something I’ve always wanted to do: calculate how long it takes to return your investment in the various properties and houses/hotel purchases. Knowing this is really the key to developing a strategy to win the game. Without it, how do you know whether to focus on putting hotels on Boardwalk or buying all the Railroads? You can’t do everything – the key to winning is making the right trades and decisions at the different stages of the game. This is just my interpretation of the numbers, but I propose a winning strategy below and then back it up with the data.

The return on investment data used on this page comes from Truman Collins’ webpage: Probabilities in the Game of Monopoly. The odds of landing on any given square were calculated by creating a model of the game (with all of Chance cards, Go To Jail, etc. included) and running billions of computer simulations. My contribution was to summarize the data, make a visual chart to easily interpret it, and synthesize those interpretations into a few simple rules that make up a winning strategy.

Monopoly is a game of luck, strategy, and people skills. No strategy will guarantee you a win; that’s one of the reasons Monopoly is so interesting. In any given game, a newcomer can beat a lifetime champion. Still, there are a few strategic tips that came out of the computer simulations that will help you best play the odds: you may not win any given game, but in the long run, you’ll come out ahead. The "people skills" element isn’t captured here. But as a general rule, think about what your opponents want and see if you can engineer a trade with them that’s a win/win for you both. That type of negotiating is as vital in Monopoly as it is in real life.

Notation: Side 1 of the board is the first side you move through after passing Go: Mediterranean/Baltic/Oriental, etc. Sides 2-4 follow in order.

How to win at Monopoly – a simple strategy:
  • Always buy Railroads; never buy Utilities (at full price)*
    • For every other property type, only buy them to complete a monopoly or to prevent opponents from completing one. Often this may mean buying as many properties as you can early in the game, but watch your cash reserves.
  • At the beginning of the game, focus on acquiring a complete C-G [Color Group: all 2 or 3 properties of the same color] in Sides 1+2, even if it means trading away properties on Sides 2+3. After acquiring one of these C-Gs, build 3 houses as quickly as possible: no more houses, no less!
  • Once your first C-G starts to generate some cash, focus on completing a C-G and building 3 houses in Sides 3+4.
    • Note: 3 houses is the "sweet spot" in the game as shown in Table 1 below. That’s where you’re making the best use of your money.
  • Single properties are the least good investment if you don’t build on them.
  • The only exception to the above rules are when you need to acquire stray properties to prevent your opponents from completing their Color-Groups to accomplish the above strategy.

  • Jail can be good. Stay in Jail as long as you can if an opponent owns a monopoly – at that point in the game, moving around the board will likely lose you money. Until that happens, though, pay the $50 and leave Jail as soon as possible: you need to be in the property acquisition race and collecting your $200 salary.
    • One interesting exception: Do you need St. James or Tennessee Aves to complete your C-G? Then stay in Jail and try to get out by rolling doubles: doing so will increase your chances of landing on those squares by about 25%.
The 5 best starting positions are – in order:
  1. All 4 railroads
    • One reason why this is the best starting point: the revenue flow from railroads is much more constant over time whereas some of the other properties may have the same ROI but they come with bigger payouts over longer time spans. Owning 3-4 railroads is a cash cow: it will bring a continuous flow of money that can fund your monopolies.
  2. 3 houses on each of the orange Color-Group (St James/Tennessee/New York)
  3. 3 houses on each of the light blue C-G (Oriental/Vermont/Connecticut)
  4. 3 houses on each of the light purple C-G (St Charles/States/Virginia)
  5. A hotel on each of the dark purple C-G (Mediterranean /Baltic)
    • This option gives by far the worst return of the 5 starting positions; in fact, until you get 4 houses, this C-G is the worst investment in the game!
    • However, his option does have 2 advantages: it is the cheapest of the 5 and it only has 2 properties so owning the entire C-G may be easier, especially in large games.
* I’m assuming all properties sell for close to their listed price. This is usually true, but sometimes properties can be auctioned off or traded much more cheaply or expensively; this will change how worthwhile they are to acquire.

An example of what this strategy means

Early in the game, before people starting building houses, consider a case where you have all of the orange C-Gs except St. James Place (i.e. you have Tennessee/New York) and you have Boardwalk. Conversely, an opponent owns all of the blue C-G except Boardwalk (i.e. they have Park Place) and they have St. James Place. Clearly, you both want some kind of trade so you can each complete your respective C-G. Only problem is that Boardwalk costs $400 while St. James Place costs $180. And hotels on Boardwalk are much worse to land on than hotels on St. James Place. So you might not want to give up Boardwalk too easily.

But if you follow the strategy above, in this case, I would trade Boardwalk to get St. James Place. Sure, you don’t want your opponent to have the chance to build houses and hotels on Boardwalk, but they’ll never be able to do it unless they have houses on cheaper properties generating cash. Meanwhile, you’ll be able to throw 3 houses on each of the orange C-G which, as Table 1 below shows, is an investment that will pay for itself faster than any other purchase. The 3rd set of houses will pay for itself every 9.5 rolls of your opponents’ dice. When you start taking their money that quickly, they’ll never be able to build the funds needed to begin developing their own properties, especially the expensive ones.

Where the strategy comes from

Table 1 below is key to understanding how to win at Monopoly. It answers the critical question: how long will I have to wait to get my $400 back if I buy Boardwalk? And: how long will I have to wait to get my $100 back if I put hotels on Mediterranean and Baltic Aves?, etc. for each possibility on the board. The average number of rolls of each opponents’ dice needed for you to get your money back is given in the table as the breakeven time.

For example, if you have 1 house on each of the StJ/Tenn/NY properties and 3 houses on each of the Park/Boardwalk properties, which would you be better off spending money building on? According to the table, building another set of houses on StJ/Tenn/NY is best: 25.63 < 35.56.

Red means the least amount of time. I put a box around the options that require the least time. These are the options you want to shoot for. Basically, you get your money back quickest when you put the 3rd set of houses on any set of properties. For the Side 1+2 C-Gs, you can also add 4 houses or a hotel and still be making good use of your money.

Owning all 4 railroads is one of the best options. Owning only 1-2 railroads is not so good; but buying railroads is a good way to at least prevent your opponents from owning all 4. Owning single properties without a complete C-G is one of the worst uses of your money; again, unless you do it to prevent an opponent from completing a full C-G set.

 
Table 1 – Temperature map showing how quickly you get your incremental investment back;
this is based on computer simulations that include the effects of all Chance and Community Chest cards 		 

Finally, while Table 1 is a valuable insight, the properties in the boxed area are different prices. 3 houses on Boardwalk provides a great return on investment, but you won’t have enough money to get to this point and be able to buy them early in the game, so why even consider it? What’s the best first move? Table 2 shows the total cost needed to get to any given state. Early in the game, you should shoot for the red and yellow options in the boxed area in Table 2. Later in the game, the blue options in the boxed area may be best.

Thus we get the best starting positions given at the very top of the page (the top 3 are circled in Table 2). You can get all of those 3 options for less than $1500 and, on average, you will recover your last investment in them over and over again every 13 rolls of your opponents’ dice – or better. So if you’re playing against 4 other people, this means about every 3 turns. In 6 turns, you’ll have doubled your last investment, and be well on your way to building a monopoly.

 
Table 2 – Temperature map showing how much each property costs with houses and hotels 		 

Note: The data from Table 1 assumes that players spend only one turn in jail: either by paying $50, using a Get Out of Jail Free card, or rolling a double on the first time. An often suggested strategy is to get out of jail on the 1st turn early in the game so you can keep buying properties; later in the game, stay in jail for 3 turns if you can, because moving around the board usually loses you money as people starting building houses and hotels. So if people spend more time in jail, the values in Table 1 will increase because the more time they spend there, the less time they’ll spend landing on your properties. Nonetheless, it doesn’t affect the strategy since the relative values stay the same. The StJ/Tenn/NY C-G’s 3rd set of houses still pays for themselves faster than Boardwalks’ does: both just take about 10% more time if your opponents spend 3 turns in jail instead of 1.

The chart shows how long it takes to recover the incremental cost, not the total cost up to that point. In other words, it takes an average of 9.5 rolls to recover the $300 cost of building the 3rd set of houses on StJ/Tenn/NY C-G. By that time, you probably still won’t have recovered all of the costs required to get to that point – buying the properties and the first 2 sets of houses. Nonetheless, your money-making machine will be running at its highest ROI level at that point and that will help you recover your entire earlier investment most efficiently. What happens if you invest in the StJ/Tenn/NY C-G and never get to the point where you have 3 houses? Was it still the best option? Maybe not, but the difference is marginal. Sure, the last property in the StJ/Tenn/NY will take longer to recover its cost than in Kent/Ind/Ill, but the difference is less than 5%. By the time you get to 3 houses, StJ/Tenn/NY is almost 20% better.

Other Monopoly / Related Links


Your Comments

The most important part of winning a game of monopoly , in my opinion, is WHEN you improve. If you have Marvin,Ventnor ,and Atlantic and enough money to improve but you are a realistic dice roll from some opponent hotels, you might to to wait until you pass them to avoid instantly selling your improvements back for half. Also improving properties directly behind your opponent forces you to wait longer to recieve your payout.

-- Lewkis, Nov 5, 2007
tight, but could you move the RRs so that there underneath the other props? man alive, I wanna play some monopoly.

-- mcopoly, Nov 6, 2007
I'm guessing these are statistically obtained numbers, but the practical numbers may be a little bit better than normal for the railroads and the orange set in particular. Here's why. First, Jail is a very popular spot. You can just visit (1/36 spots on the board). You can get there by drawing a card. You can get directed there by landing on the Go to Jail spot (another 1/36th chance). And finally you can get there by rolling doubles 3x. Once you leave jail, the orange set are 6, 8 and 9 spots away on your first roll. Statistically you're likely to roll one of those with two dice 1/3rd of the time. Only by rolling a 10 or 11 does the jail visitor skip your orange set, just over 10% of the time. Any roll less than 6 puts the player at risk of landing on Orange on a subsequent roll. Snakeeyes out of jail makes it more likely-- about 38% to land on orange on the next roll. A 3 out of jail puts the player at a 34% chance of landing on an orange set. A 4 out of jail puts the player at a 35% chance of landing on your property. If you follow the other advice (buy all four railroads) you'll make out with a 5, even though it's statistically one of the worst rolls you can get from a jail visitor (the likelihood of landing on an orange from Pennsylvania RR is 18%). The worst case (outside of rolling a 10-12) is threading the needle with a 7 (then the likelihood they land on orange is with snakeeyes, or 6%). This ignores, of course, the 12 roll, then gets a "move back 3 spaces" chance card (or St. Charles Place, which puts them back within prime landing distance). And speaking of cards, the railroads have a bonus from the chance cards of "advance to nearest railroad", and "take a ride on the reading" cards. The double-rent stipulation on the first set of cards is particularly nice. The red color group is also a favorite of mine, particularly because every once in a while you get the bonus "Advance to Illinois Ave." chance card.

-- Khan, Nov 6, 2007
Not event wrong. The best way to win Monopoly is not to play.

-- Dave McCallister, Nov 6, 2007
It would be a nice idea to post the version of the board you used. The property names are different on all international/disney/... versionsn, but the relative value of the properties (and all money flows) is almost equal.

-- i18n, Nov 6, 2007
i was brought up on the original monopoly (london version) but i'll assume the ratios are the same and only the street names have been changed. i buy everything i can get, except utilities and railways. i'll get 3 houses onto my CGs as fast as possible, and use single properties for trade. rarely fails, even with 3 against one.

-- craig, Nov 6, 2007
I'm sure there's some psychological luck going on here, but I've often found the Orange, Yellow and Green C-G's to consistantly return me the best profits, so I'll usually trade down to get these properties or pay a higher price from someone who has them.

-- Shannon, Nov 6, 2007
i've been to a few monopoly championships.. and got pretty decent ranking. national 6th imho, monopoly is all about having good relationship with your opponents.. be nice.. learn to give little things to build your reputation. eg. when they stepped onto your cheap and undeveloped deeds, let them pass without paying rent. or let them keep the change... be generous. it will be much easier to trade with them later on.. dont be too competitive.. if your opponents think that you are a threat... they wont trade with you.. and you have no chance of winning.. my 2 cent

-- xumx, Nov 6, 2007
Nice choice of palette in the graph

-- toneii, Nov 6, 2007
I played email alot as a kid and I believe the orange set (vine street) gives the best chance of winning. Second to that the purple set (Northumberland Avenue)/ The factor about these being on the same side as jail is important. I always buy railway stations but utilities are a waste. Cash flow is very important. There is a big advantage in being the first to acquire a set and develop on it. I would not stick at three houses if you have enough cash to build more - because the object of the game is not to get the best theoretical long term return, but to knock other players out by causing them a big cash flow problem when they land on your set.

-- David, Nov 6, 2007
you can't collect money when you are in jail though.

-- Jaxk, Nov 6, 2007
I believe the best thing to do is get the orange set, followed by the red, then yellow, then light purple. The key to winning though, especially if you are playing with more than 2 people, is being willing to trade. Sometimes you might have to give up a lot to get a little... but if you play it right the "little" can turn into something big. For example if you trade three properties to get one, but the one you get gives you the orange CG, then its a worthwhile trade in my book. Too many players don't understand how to trade and trade effectively... sometimes you get shortchanged on a deal, but you can use what you acquired to make a better deal with someone else.

-- Nate, Nov 6, 2007
The strategy and the numbers presented are useful but the game itself demands a more realistic and adaptable strategy. First and foremost you cannot ignore any side of the board and you cannot afford to let any property that you land on go unbought(except for maybe the utilities). Every property has enough value to be bought if you land on it simply because the outcome of the game is uncertain due to the dice component. Passing up a property is a poor move because there is no certainty of picking up any particular property at any point in the game. Another way to explain what I'm trying to say is that at any point in the game you want as much money in play (i.e. on the board) as possible because you don't know what you're going to roll. I've got a strategy that works and I imagine would crush the poster of this article: buy every property you land on and as soon as you have a monopoly build as much as you can immediately.

-- Dave, Nov 6, 2007
The last time I checked the rules you could collect money while in jail, as in the official rules some people play hoseu rules differently.

-- Rose, Nov 6, 2007
xmux, very nice points. I've always followed that rule (without laying it on so thick that you're opponents see through it). The mix of the "art" of the human aspect of playing games and the "science" of probabilities of the games is what makes gaming so great... no matter the game. As a rule of thumb, I tend to go for the second property group on each side of the board. The ROI seems better since the houses/hotels on the second groups cost the same as the houses/hotels on the first group. Bonus fun: here's a lil' poll that let's you vote on your favorite board game... I'm lobbying for Monopoly, of course. http://www.tomfulery.com/blog/2007/10/25/new-poll/ Help it win

-- The Squizz, Nov 6, 2007
Orange and then red are the best investments. Illinois is the most landed on property in the game, but orange pays off slightly faster. Those two are hit so often because (as other people have mentioned) Jail is the most common place to start your turn. For some really detailed tables, see http://www.tkcs-collins.com/truman/monopoly/monopoly.shtml

-- J, Nov 6, 2007
Very few people play according to the actual rules. If you choose not to buy a property, it goes up for auction. You can end up buying it at a pittance, or forcing your opponents to overbid for it. And you can definitely collect rents in jail.

-- Dan Weber, Nov 6, 2007
What an incredible waste of time. Luck of the dice roll is by far the biggest factor in winning at Monopoly. Land on the properties first and buy them. Luck. I bet you think you have mastered how to beat casinos at their games too.

-- Binglebore, Nov 6, 2007
Yup. I confirm the results listed here. I've played well over 200 games of monopoly and the Stj, Ten, NY set is by far the most powerful set in the game. If you have a group of weak players who trade them up easily to the player who will eventually own that C-G I gurantee that 90% of the time that individual will win. If the Stj,Ten,Ny set is completed late in the game, then the odds of that person winning will drop significantly (if that was the only set that person was gunning for) It really depends on how you play monopoly though, too many house rules...

-- roboto, Nov 6, 2007
Binglebore: Statistics.. ask the famous MIT poker and blackjack crews who used to go to Vegas several times a year and wipe them clean. Its not about cheating, its about learning the statistics of the game to improve your changes of winning. Any poker player worth their salt looks at the cards in their hand and using statistics calculate the chances that they have a winning hand. Bingo, Keno, Poker, Blackjack, Lotto, Chess and Monopoly.. its all about statistics.

-- Terry, Nov 6, 2007
no one ever wins at monopoly someone just gets mad and kicks the board and walks away

-- david, Nov 6, 2007
Boardwalk or bust.

-- madge, Nov 6, 2007
Congrats on the nice work. Of course, this is stuff I figured out a looooong time ago when playing monopoly was less obvious, but it's nice to see it fully analyzed with probabilities and whatnot fully charted out.

-- Tweek, Nov 6, 2007
Winning at Monopoly is like wining in life. All you have to do is be the banker. Trust me, I know.

-- David Rockafeller, Nov 6, 2007
I haven't read the entire article yet, but it seems to ignore the fact that there are other players. When the author encourages you to trade with others in order to complete a color-group... the other player will probably want, in return, a property that completes a color-group for THEM. This can have dramatic consequences for your expected costs per-roll. So, you have to weigh the value of your potentially-completed-group against the value of theirs... as well as how much houses will cost them for their CG versus yours... and, finally, how much money they have. If they're swimming in cash, you don't want to trade because they're going to pop three houses on those properties by the next turn. However, if they're mortgaged and have little spare cash, then you can execute the trade and have time before worrying about their CG turning into "land mines".

-- Joe, Nov 6, 2007
Come on people. Yes you can play many variations and styles and exceptions etc etc. This is the basic version of the game. The way its "supposed" to be play sans house rules or special ways. Try to put it to practice before judging or bashing it. If I'm winning more often then before and more frequently then I'm losing I say then its a good strategy. I'm all for people offering constructive critiques (I personally agree with David and Xumx, thats how I usually play hehe)but I will at least give his theory a try as he brings up some interesting points. @ Binglebore. Ask anyone who plays in the casino and you will get the same response. Its all about strategy. That is why you go home 500 dollars in the hole and they are winning 1,000,000 pots. Yes dice are random which is why dice isn't computed solely in this equation. You play by percentages and probability. Statistically (according to the author) if you play with this strategy you have a greater chance of winning. Just like if you hit on a 12 in blackjack. Yes you can get a 10 or face card every time and bust, (theoretically) but statistically you should ALWAYS hit on 12. Same with craps, roulette, poker, etc. Yes in the end you are at the mercy of the dice roll but if thats what your focus is then just play to play and not play to win. At least he put some effort in something that interests him rather then troll online to talk crap about people. Geez. Interesting post Tim. I will definitely give it whirl. After I get back from the casino ;)

-- CROD, Nov 6, 2007
@Terry: Whilst I agree with your post for the most part, the last time I checked chess did not use a die. There is no form of "chance" involved.

-- Alex, Nov 6, 2007
I always found that in a four player or more game, I could sweeten a trade enough to get a color group by offering diplomatic immunity to the person I was trading to if they ever landed on that property again. It lowers the risk of the trade going sour for them while still maintaining the possibility of revenue from the other players and properties of the same color group.

-- Benjamin, Nov 6, 2007
I always trade my ultilities for railroads =P. Its awesome. Nobody ever wants to trade though =/. It isn't as bad as risk, i can't remember the last game where one of my friends didn't flip the board and i didn't spaz out. From hereon out - we take pictures after every round >:(. God i'm a poor sport... My dirty monopoly sin - i play so you get money if you land on free parking =P.

-- MikedaSnipe, Nov 6, 2007
There seems to be a common misconception about rent. You cannot waive somebody's rent, whether it be $2 or $1000, nor can you grant them immunity during a trade. If you land on my property, and you owe me $200, and we were to have an agreement that you got free rent, the result is the same as if I were to loan you that $200, and then you were to immediately repay it. I make no profit, you make no loss. Therefore, free-rent is a loan between players, which is prohibited by the rules. Only the bank may loan money, and only by mortgaging owned property.

-- TeqnoHaxor, Nov 6, 2007
i19n, what do you mean, post which board you used? The names assigned clearly show that it is the classic original US board.

-- bobert, Nov 6, 2007
I think Binglebore misses the point. Negotiation and timing are really the key to winning and the secret to Monopoly's enduring appeal. Like poker, a skilled player can turn crap cards into winning hands by playing the players, not the cards.

-- fouber, Nov 6, 2007
i figured out this strategy from playing the PC game =p

-- Gangstalicious, Nov 7, 2007
@Alex If you are playing a human, Chess always has an element of chance involved. (But no dice.)

-- Jona, Nov 7, 2007
I've been fairly good at monopoly for some time. I've even played online quite a few times against other components. I agree with buying up as much property as you can in the initial part of a game. When I see people pass up anything I think to myself what the crap are you doing? I'll even mortgage my more expensive properties to populate my lower C-G's as quickly as possible. At least this way I still own the property and prevent others from getting this or can leverage in a trade and make them pay for the mortgage costs. The only downside to this strategy is if you have terrible luck and someone gets to a C-G before you. Then you pray that the dice roll doesn't land on them because its a quick way to go out if you are low on cash from snatching up so many properties, but I've found that most of the time it takes awhile before most people get 3 properties and can even buid houses so this strategy works 90% of the time for me.

-- Branden, Nov 7, 2007
I agree that the Orange group is the most valuable in the game, followed by the railroads, which are a nice trap. I have always believed that, even if you have to make a trade favorable to an opponent, you should obtain the entirety of Side 2 (first Orange, then Magenta). In all the years I've been married, my wife has yet to figure out that that's my strategy.

-- Josh, Nov 7, 2007
thanks, that was really useful, though it raises several questions...I'm on thoughts now...it has to bake into my brains

-- Nate, Nov 7, 2007
Hey All, I'm working on a full-length documentary about Monopoly and will be looking for die-hard Monopoly strategists as well as some casual gamers to interview. If you're interested in being a part of this, send me an email at kevin at tostieproductions dot com telling me a little bit about what Monopoly means to you. Kevin Tostado

-- Kevin Tostado, Nov 7, 2007
The original is not London, it is Atlantic City. The names make perfect sense to anyone born before 1980 ;) in the U.S..

-- Bob, Nov 7, 2007
All these concepts have been around at least three decades; check your libraries for strategy books on Monopoly and you'll see nothing's new here. I vividly recall these lessons from the great theorists of the 1970s.

-- Fresh, Nov 7, 2007
@Jona, Only if your opponent is making moves by rolling a dice. Unpredictable or unusual or surprising human behavior is not the same thing as pure chance.

-- Reed, Nov 7, 2007
Henry George is rolling in his grave.

-- aluxeterna, Nov 7, 2007
The game presupposes incompetent opponents. The strategy is to acquire one of the best monopolies and build 9 houses on it? Well la-dee-da, good luck with that. In my monopoly club that I play in nobody would ever trade you an orange if you still had enough cash for 9 houses sitting around. I guess if you have novice players your strategy might work. Here are how games with experienced players work out:
- everyone buys every property they land on, always.
- nobody ever trades away anything unless they get a monopoly out of it, unless maybe they get all the railroads
- multi-way trades are common. cash value paid for property means nothing; it's all about what each player ends up with. thus people will not trade park place to someone who has boardwalk and lots of cash; that player will have to give up his cash as part of the deal. likewise a player will not make a deal that gives him a monopoly but no money to build it. you need to strike a balance that gives everyone a fair shot; in large enough games even one player can kill the deal, since usually the properties are spread out. the true skill is going into a deal with little and coming out with a lot.
- once you have a monopoly, you build as many houses as you can, right away. inevitably the housing market is locked up almost immediately. houses tend to be auctioned off one-by-one for the duration of the game, until the very end.
- from then on, the dice rule.

-- Paul, Nov 7, 2007
HAHA thats pretty awsome all this work on monopoly. Yeah i've always liked orange myself. And i'm not sure what i18n is talking about becuase the london version was not the original. The game was sent to an english company in 1935 from the united states and the tiles had to be changed from american sites to english sites. little bit of history for everyone.

-- Adam, Nov 7, 2007
Roll of the dice is very important, especially as there are two. With two dice 7 is statistically the most often tossed result (6+1, 5+2, 4+3, 3+4, 2+5, 1+6) so Park Place has the least chance of being landed on as you can't throw a 7 from the Go To Jail square. This makes the Park Place/Boardwalk set the least likely to land on or make money from. StJ/Tenn/NY is the best set to own as everyone who is in jail has a high chance of landing on these when they come out!

-- Simon H gh, Nov 7, 2007
Paul nailed it. I would even further simplify - the skill comes from (1) recognizing the real value of post-trade positions, and (2) negotiation. Like in poker, et al, "statistics" provides a baseline knowledge that will separate very weak players from the rest. It does very little to distinguish anyone else from one another. (i.e. the stats are public knowledge, any decent player should know them)

-- Jay, Nov 7, 2007
I'm still trying to work out what the properties correspond to on the actual classic, original Monopoly board

-- Rob, Nov 8, 2007
Buy as much property as you can as quick as you can. This property can be converted back into money, but unless you land on an unowned space, you can't convert your money to property. Also property generates more money for you, where having your money does not (no interest rate is included in the game).

-- Josh, Nov 8, 2007
This fits my play style almost exactly, gleaned from numerous games over quite a few years. However, I added the last few years of playing, I usually don't buy the Dark Green Pacific Ave properties at all. They severely cut into the cash flow with their acquisition costs, house-building is the most expensive in the game, takes 3 to make a monopoly, and seem to be landed on relatively infrequently. Every time I tried to make a stand on these properties, I never could maintain enough houses and frequently lost, so I adapted my play style to largely ignore them too. The graphs seem to support this, marking them as the worst of the best monopolies in the game.

-- , Nov 8, 2007
"the last time I checked chess did not use a die" House rules, man!

-- Anderson, Nov 9, 2007
This article does not discuss creating housing shortages. If you can get two 3 property CGs (can happen in small games), buying four houses on both CGs gives you control of 24 out of 36 houses. Watch your opponents scramble futilely for the remaining 12 houses. If you can manage it, its an almost guaranteed win.

-- Wes Johnson, Nov 9, 2007
You can't just look at the dice odds. You have to realize there are a number of Chance cards that will move you around the board too.

-- Jimb Around, Nov 9, 2007
Jay, the properties described ARE from the "actual classic, original Monopoly board". I have my father's first copy of the game (it indicates copyrights in 1933 and 1935) -- later ones usually show later versions of the copyright.

-- Bill, Nov 9, 2007
Atlantic City actually wasn't in the first version of the game, just the first Parkers Brothers version... Wikipedia has a great article on the history of the game. The first version (from about 1903) didn't have named streets. The 2nd version had streets named for Chicago. Although they were both patented, neither of these had commercial distribution, but were widely copied by hand. Once such copy changed the names to Atlantic city, and it was a variant of that copy that was sold to and patented by Parker Brothers and became the version we all know. Parker Brothers eventually also bought the older patents and trademarks.

-- Stu, Nov 9, 2007
Simon, you forgot to take into account the Take a Walk on the Boardwalk Chance card. While Park Place is still an unlikely landing spot, Boardwalk is fairly likely and together the blue CG is a better investment than some other CG's -- significantly better than the greens, for example.

-- Aaron, Nov 10, 2007
Great additional info on origin of game can be found at http://inventors.about.com/library/weekly/aa121997.htm - It was definitely invented in US, but not by the guy who is usually credited.

-- Dan P, Nov 11, 2007
I used to use this strategy on online Monopoly and it really pissed people off, they would often leave the game lol

-- B Hymen, Nov 13, 2007
The strategies and probabilities correspond to my long term experience with this game. So no surprise there but it is nice to see a mathematical proof even if there one non addressed problem: the length of the game is limited and so the used longterm probabilities may not apply. So by the end of the day it comes back to luck (and that's the why it should be).

-- , Nov 13, 2007
Statistics aside (though knowing them helps), my best monopoly advice are: 1. Buy everything except utilities (since you rarely run out of money in the early game and you cannot choose where you land). This gives you a better negotiation position in step 2. 2. There is ususally just ONE major deal in a monopoly game. It can be two way, three way, four way or any way. Make sure you're in that deal. Try to make it a good deal, but even if someone else ends up with slightly better chances you're still better off than the players left in the cold. 3. Try to get your hands on the orange set (Boardwalk is really only good for bribing inexperienced players).

-- Ommo, Nov 15, 2007
Thank you for a very interesting conversation and insight into one of my favorite games.

-- Jeff Stak, Nov 15, 2007
I have never won in Monopoly before in my life. Thanks for finally giving me a chance! ( I suck at life )

-- Derek J. Vincent, Nov 16, 2007
What your analysis does not consider are the chance cards such as "advance token to boardwalk" and "take a stroll on indiana". That card makes the blue and red C_Gs more valuable that they would be otherwise.

-- Reed, Nov 16, 2007
Im a Monopoly champ been playing 4 1 year now and usually the game is all about the luck of the dice.....yes strategies are involved and good trading/people skills are required to win.......so sometimes you can win with just the first row of streets while others own more than you....i wonder if these tests included the chance cards that say;"make general repairs on all your properties...." The game is about having fun.... c ya

-- Monopoly, Nov 23, 2007
Boardwalk is, like, the best property! People always, like, want to, like, so land on Go! They, like, think "What's that property, like, next to Go? Oh, it's, like Boardwalk! And it has, like, a hotel on it! I don't, like, have that much cash!" And the player that, like, lands on Boardwalk, like, leaves the game!

-- Takeawalk Ontheboardwalk, Nov 24, 2007
I love to play Monopoly in person with family and friends. The problem I have is getting them to play. My mom doesn't like money because it causes a lot of problems in the World. I keep reminding her that it's only a game. I always have to do a lot of begging to get people to play with me. I always play by the set rules too so that it's equal and to everyones advantage. I'll admit, the games can go on for a long time. I should try the online version sometime.

-- Rockhound, Nov 28, 2007
i dont see why the railroads are so imortant, i mean even if you have all four you only get two-hundred pounds which you could get from passing go!

-- drew, Nov 28, 2007
I haven't played Monopoly in 50 years. I enjoyed reading all this, it brought back memories of my childhood and adolesence. Back then I had a great greediness for Boardwalk and Park Place. They were where you could toss opponents out of the game. But by 9 or thereabouts I realized they were end-game places. Trying for them early was like building the Fountainbleu Hotel and only being able to fund bathrooms to the 2nd floor (I was brought up in Miami and the Fountainbleu was the biggest thing going then). One had to start out the way most business folks have to, getting something one can control. Railroads were an ok start, utilities were worthless: at the time Monopoly was invented the relative value of the two is well reflected in the game. Get a decent mini-monopoly--now a CG. I had my favorites in the colors, but cannot remember them, block folks by owing something they wanted. But, oh boy, at the end of the game I'd get Boardwalk and Park Place, put hotels on them and just wait. Somebody or other was going to land on one of these; then I'd have all his stuff, and it was downhill for everybody else. I was possibly a nasty kid. Mr. Darling's calculations are lovely. Makes me want to play Monopoly again.

-- andrea, Nov 29, 2007
Housing shortages for the win!

-- monopolic, Dec 15, 2007
@Drew, The 4 railroads are advantageous early in the game because of their positioning around the board. A railroad is always in range of an opponents roll. Basically, each roll of the opponent has a chance of landing on a railroad. For games with many opponents this can easily equate to a steady cash flow. Later in the game it provides a steady secondary income to your C-G monopoly. While GO does provide you $200, it's after you get around the entire board. Once every 3+ turns. Wouldn't you like to have that chance of making $200 everytime your opponent picks up the dice.

-- Brandon, Dec 20, 2007
Yeah guys, I'll give you my 2 cents with my knowledge. At first I believed Monopoly was a game of luck but I believe it is similar to Poker in the way that luck only plays a single element in the game. Of course in a couple of games it seems like luck is the only thing playing a part. But if you play more than 1 game you'll realise that the better Monopoly player should win the majority of the times. The best properties in the game are easily: The orange colour group complimented with the railways. Although the light-blues/dark purple are excellent properties as you can put hotels on them easily and produce a steady income so you can finance your high CGs and also have some cash on hand to pay your expenses. The post annoying squares are the tax squares and the GCGs and DBCGs are not worth the investment unless you seriously want to bury someone. Peace dudes and have a good Xmas!

-- Arrian, Dec 24, 2007
I play Monopoly like a slum lord and focus on cheap housing. Hotels are rarely worth the investment, except for maybe on Illinois and Indiana. My strategy has always been to try to acquire Orange-Red and then jam them up with houses to prevent other players from being able to expand their own properties quickly. (If I can get light blue or purple and jam them up with cheap houses too, that's even better since it removes more houses from play). If I can get Orange-Red-RR or Orange-Red-Magenta, I'm usually able to wear my opponents down to nothing, even if they have the more expensive monopolies. Negotiating is key; you give a lot to get a little, but you realize the ultimate advantage in the little you're getting.

-- Secularsage, Dec 29, 2007
Well, people who say that you cant give immunity are wrong, there is nothing in the rule that specifically states that you cant do it. I get the loan theory but i dont believe it to be a loan. So to get around it, you could always turn a blind eye to that person, bc a person is not required to pay if the person doesnt not ask for the rent b4 the next person rolls not that thats good either but just a way around it. As for strategy, i dont have a particular strategy, more or less just buy everything I can and try to have bargaining tools, and try and not having the other person get all of a color group. Also knowing your opponent is helpful, the people i play with fear me especially when I get bw and pp so i try and get those as often as possible

-- jPopoly, Jan 1, 2008
This didn't take into account the damage done to opposing players. Sure, the oranges pay for themselves faster than the yellows, but the yellows drain your opponent's pocket's more-- crippling their ability to come back.

-- joe, Jan 1, 2008
immunity is bullshit. It's obviously against the rules.The game is monopoly, cartel. Consider the possibility of collusion, where two players ally up to defeat the board.I recently had to play against one such pair and it was just frustrating. Each of them held a decent developed property, and it was down to four of us. They were practically invincible by exploiting the loophole of trading. When they landed on a potentially game ending square(they would have gone bankrupt), they could always get a quick loan by selling a single worthless property to the other for ridiculous amounts of cash. In this way, they were able to develop faster because each only had to hold only half the required cash to stay afloat. Then there are the know it all kids who want to implement modern business concepts into the game. Player 1 sells last remaining colour needed for the group to player 2 for a dollar, then split the rental income. What the hells is that? All this is only made possible when you exploit loopholes in the rules. Immunity is one such loophole. Just because the rules don't specifically say it can't be done doesn't mean it can. That's as good as saying you can win the game by stealing money from the bank. The rules didn't say anything about THAT either, did it?

-- ohboy, Jan 7, 2008
Monopoly was/is a very special game to Philadelphians over 50. They spent a good deal of their summers in Atlantic City. We hung out on the best "properties" on the game board because they were really the right places to be at. Baltic and Oriental were near the inlet. Cheap rooms but no place to hang out.Most of the expensive Avenues had the big hotels (The Strand, The Traymore etc.) fronting on the boardwalk-from Steel Pier (The diving Horse)Pennsylvania Ave to Convention Hall. (Site of the 1st Democratic Convention after Kennedy's death and the Miss America pageant and the Ice Capades). Avenues of importance are in relation to proximity to the beach (and the Boardwalk). Farthest away Baltic, then Arctic, then Atlantic then Pacific. Atlantic becomes Ventnor Ave in Ventnor, a city adjacent to Atlantic City. And Marvin Gardens was an early suburban location in Margate which is right after Ventnor.The prices on the board made sense and playing monopoly in the winter in Philly was a virtual summer trip "down the shore".

[Editor note: Indeed, Arctic Ave was the original first property on the board; It renamed it to Mediterranean to reflect warmer thoughts a few months before Charles Darrow was introduced to the game. Marven Gardens is a community named after the adjacent towns, Margate and Ventnor; it was misspelled Marvin Gardens on the game board.]

-- Marty Cohen, Jan 10, 2008
I'm hoping someone knows the correct rule regarding houses and building shortages. If you want to buy houses and they aren't there I think the rule is that you can't buy hotels either. The 4 houses for each of your properties must be available even if you want to go to hotels right away. Anybody know? If thats true, then if you have hotels and need to sell them to pay for something, wouldn't it make sense that even though you need to go down to say, 1 house on each to raise enough money, that enough houses to give you 4 on each property would have to be available too? I know the building shortage is built into the game to make the game shorter but I have enough houses and hotels in my set so everyone can have as many as they want.

-- Scott Jaffe, Jan 15, 2008
I've been playing monopoly for a long time. Its great and I love the psychology of it. You can bet that the player not the dice makes all the difference. There are so many good techniques to improve your odds of winning. Yes if you play with experienced players the ones who really know the rules and how to play it can be a bit difficult, but most likely not every player will be. Always play by the written rules, I cant stand a bunch of fluffy house rules. It takes the strategy right out of it. Whats up with putting $500 in Free parking?! A few tips. RULE 1: ALWAYS BUY EVERY PROPERTY YOU LAND ON EVEN IF YOU HAVE TO MORTGAGE. And don't worry about how much cash you have, everyone always gets hung up on cash, you can use this knowledge to your advantage in negotiations by offering more cash than what a player bought the property for in certain situations. You will end up with all of it back anyway if you use this technique. RULE 2: NEVER DIVIDE UP YOUR $ AND PLACE IT INTO SEMI-NEAT STACKS. Always hold your $ in your hand and place a few 10s 5s 1s near the top and bottom. Dont reveal how much money you have to your opposition. RULE 3: ALWAYS MAKE RIDICULOUS OFFERS AT FIRST. Dont worry if they dont accept yet, you're just planting seeds for a good deal later in the game,(you'll just have to concede your position a little but the scales will still tip your way) Besides players like the attention you give them! And remember what wasn't a good deal for them then may be a good deal for them now. RULE 4: FORGET ABOUT BOARDWALK AND PARK PLACE. And forget about Pacific, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania. They are there for you to get later in the game when you have enough cash and clout to actually build them. Im not saying dont buy them when you land on them though, just dont make it a huge effort to start negotiating and building on them early on.(Unless they are your only monopoly) I love to trade away these properties. The general perception out there is that Boardwalk and Park Place are the "must have" properties. Capitalize on that misjudgement. RULE 5: OWN THE BLOCK. If you can concentrate on owning the entire block i.e. Mediterranian through St Charles. Your opponents will be unable to bypass you. The best they can hope for is to go to jail. RULE 6: GO TO JAIL. Going to Jail is a good thing when you dont need to be traveling around the board. One of my favorite rules of the game is that you can collect while in jail. Try to roll doubles to get out if you really dont want out right away. RULE 7: Wait for the right time to build. Dont build yourself into a financial negative situation especially when you are facing the gauntlet! Remember that if you have to sell your houses they are only worth half. Thats a HUGE loss. Be smart in your timing. If you get a monopoly early in the game and everyone else is playing catch up, build as quickly as you can. RULE 8: Play to win. If you put on your game face and you concentrate on strategy and your opponents strenghts and weaknesses you'll win a whole lot more. Be careful though because your friends, family and neighbors wont want to play with you anymore. Remember to have fun and let them win too. Share these techniques with them as well, but only after you beat em up a little bit.

-- richie rich, Jan 22, 2008
The best way to win a game is to get one set yourself through sheer luck, any set at all I tend to go for the higher priced ones also build them up one by one when you can aford it but then prevent anyone else from getting a group by any means possible: buy at least one from each set and then do not trade with the other players no matter how much they offer you. that way you will always win, however playing like this can mean that the game lasts for ages

-- Matthew Dent, Jan 23, 2008
i think you should buy everything you can and play it that way

-- katt, Jan 31, 2008
Well said, Matthew Dent. I agree. Get a monopoly and a property from every other set then never trade at all. If you are lucky enough to do so, you win. If you have this kind luck, as Binglebore stated, no skill needs to be involved at all. Binglebore is absolutely right, get lucky enough and it is over. This person really wasted a lot of his/her time doing this "study."

-- Pickles, Mar 29, 2008
Pickles, why not try reading the article before mocking it? It indeed says "Monopoly is a game of luck, strategy, and people skills. No strategy will guarantee you a win; that's one of the reasons Monopoly is so interesting. In any given game, a newcomer can beat a lifetime champion. Still, there are a few strategic tips that came out of the computer simulations that will help you best play the odds: you may not win any given game, but in the long run, you'll come out ahead." No game is purely luck. Any game requires a knowledge of the odds in each situation. Familiarizing yourself with the odds that it is STATISTICALLY more probable to land on some spaces than others and charting those odds against the potential payoff are as much an important part of the game as the luck of the dice. If you believe luck is all that is needed, I'd like to see you go up against any of the competition Monopoly players who attend several tournaments a year. If "luck" is all that is involved, you should be able statistically to win half the games against them. But I'm betting you would lose 9 out of 10 or 19 out of 20 games to a player with this knowledge and skill.

-- Bully, Apr 4, 2008
These tables are derived from Markov matrices and give exact probabilities. The chance and community chest cards are accounted for, as is the three doubles lands you in jail rule. Full details of the statistics of it are given here: http://www.tkcs-collins.com/truman/monopoly/monopoly.shtml That said, obviously the human psychology isn't taken into account, but this data can be used to determine how much any one deal is actually worth. If the guy is an arsehole and won't trade, then the game may be a stalemate (average income per turn is 170 assuming noone has a colour group, which is statistically likely if there are more than 3 players).

-- Geoff, Apr 6, 2008
I'm producing and directing a documentary about Monopoly called "Under the Boardwalk" and looking for anyone who has some interesting stories to share about the game of Monopoly. If you're interested, send me an email at kevin@monopolydocumentary.com.

-- Kevin Tostado, Apr 11, 2008
Immunitys are allowed in monopoly, i have a video game version of it for playstation and it allows u to trade immunities

-- ---------------, Apr 27, 2008
Very interesting text, I always tried to buy the railroad first and always had success with this strategy. Today your text kind of confirm why! I'm a big fan of good old classic board game and I like to share my strategies (favorites are: Risk, Clue, Ticket To Ride and Monopoly). Take a look at my blog http://game-board.blogspot.com

-- Yanick, May 8, 2008
I like the strategies describing in documentation of these playings. For the fun time of monopolies opponents must be having ideas for all properties buying! So strategy described is allowing for my advantage. So good! Thanks you.

-- Sigmond, May 27, 2008
If you're interested in putting Monopoly strategies to the test (and quickly), I have created a Monopoly simulator, called MonoSim: http://www.tony5.com/mono (It will simulate up to a thousand full games of Monopoly, played among CPU players with differing strategies, in seconds). My own personal thoughts and strategies... I buy every single property that I land on, even if I have to mortgage other properties to buy it. The only exception is if other players are low on cash and you know they can't afford it, then you can let it go to auction and [hopefully] win the auction at a lower price than the printed price. Or in rare cases where it's late in the game, there are opponent-owned houses/hotels up, and you are very low on funds. Some players trash utilities. The utilities aren't great but they are at least a safe spot to land on if you own them, and they can make a decent amount of money if you own both. Properties can always be used in trades if you can't develop them. Buying a property either starts a monopoly if all others in that C-G are unowned, continues building a monopoly if you own the others, completes a monopoly, or blocks other players from completing a Monopoly. Any way you look at it, those are all good things for you. If you "spread yourself too thin" you can always trade single properties to other players to complete your own Monopolies. Having fewer properties makes you a much less attractive potential trading partner. Also, buying properties takes place early in the game for the most part, when rents are low and your cash on hand is high. Also your income is fairly steady as you pass GO. While the Orange C-G is definitely quite valuable, I can't count the number of times that a player has went immediately went bankrupt after landing on Boardwalk with 3+ houses on it. Like the article touches on, the different C-G's are better at different times in the game. Focusing on certain C-G's that have better ROI is a good idea, but if you can't get them (because the dice just won't let you), then focusing on ANY Monopoly is better than none!

-- Tony J., June 9, 2008
A couple people have mentioned that you cannot make deals with another player when trading to "grant immunity" to that player, should they land on the traded property in the future. While this may be prohibited by tournament or house rules, the official rules of Monopoly do not state that you cannot grant immunity in trade deals. In fact, the official rules state: "If the owner fails to ask for his rent before the second player following throws the dice, the rent is not collectible." So this means that you can promise another player that you will "fail to ask for rent" from them. (However, I usually prefer playing in games where this is not allowed or is discouraged). @ Scott Jaffe, you must build four houses on each property of a color group before you can buy hotels: "When a player has four houses on each property of a complete color-group, they may buy a hotel from the Bank and erect it on any property of the color- group." So if there is a shortage of houses you cannot immediately skip to hotels. When selling hotels back, you must break down one house at a time (so each hotel down to 4 houses, then 3 houses, etc.), or you must sell all hotels completely at once, down to zero houses on each property, if there is a shortage of houses. "All houses on one colour-group may be sold at once, or they may be sold one house at a time (one hotel equals five houses)..."

-- Tony J., June 11, 2008
SCOTT: You asked a good question about housing shortages. So...a quick rules analysis. First, when it comes to building houses and hotels, houses must physically be available in the bank to build. If all the available houses in the set have been soaked up by other players, you are out of luck! This makes controlling the supply of housing particularly important. And it may make building hotels a poor choice if there are other players eager to develop their properties. It would also suggest that it would, at certain times, be wise to buy up the rest of the available houses to the "4 level" just to keep them away from other opponents, even though the return on investment will be slower. Yes, you have to build evenly going up as you suggested, though you don't have to buy enough at any one time to complete the level on a property group. it means you can't add a third house on a property before there are two houses on all the others in a group. NOW when it comes to buying Hotels, you must first have bought all the houses on a group to the "4 level", and it can't be just a cash amount. The houses must physically be there to buy, or you cannot do it. This is the whole power of housing shortage. Late in the game, controlling the number of houses in the bank by having them on YOUR properties is critical so that other players cannot develop their properties to the hotel level. Don't sell them back to the bank to add hotels unless you are sure that you can outbid them to get the houses back. FINALLY...SELLING HOTELS BACK. The rules have a different twist on this. Here is the official rule: SELLING PROPERTY Unimproved properties, railroads and utilities (but not buildings) may be sold to any player as a private transaction for any amount the owner can get. However, no property can be sold to another player if buildings are standing on any properties of that colour-group. Any buildings so located must be sold back to the Bank before the owner can sell any property of that colour-group. Houses and Hotels may be sold back to the Bank at any time for one-half the price paid for them. All houses on one colour-group may be sold at once, or they may be sold one house at a time (one hotel equals five houses), evenly, in reverse of the manner in which they were erected. Note the second paragraph, as it is the most important one. First, all of the houses may be sold as a group or one at a time, evenly. you cannot sell all the houses on one property and leave houses on another. You can choose where to leave 3 properties on a group when the rest of the properties have been reduced to 2. Second, the housing shortage doesn't necessarily apply to selling Hotels back to the bank. That is, unless the desire is to reduce back to the "4 level" of houses. ALL the hotels can be sold back for half the price of 5 houses per property; but if you want to have, say, 3 houses on each property and the bank has none, then you are out of luck and must take half the value of 5 houses per property on the whole mess. This unfortunate reality is another reason that you should probably think long and hard about building those hotels unless you are ahead in cash by a significant margin and in no danger of being forced to take them down by opponents with well- developed groups. I hope this helps clarify an area of the rules that is often grossly misused. A common aberration of this rule is to sidestep the "Housing Shortage" and simply pay to the bank the price of 5 houses per property and erect hotels. The rules clearly prohibit this. It is necessary to have houses available in order to build them. No slips of paper on the board to allow houses when the bank "runs out". One ploy that significantly alters the probabilities is either missing houses or sets that have been combined to add additional houses to the standard allocation of 32 Houses and 12 Hotels. It is not intended that there be enough Houses and Hotels to populate every property. Another illegal practice is to add additional Hotels to properties or 5 houses in lieu of hotels. This, again , is not allowed in the rules and would be a stupid house rule to accept. Bottom line, be sure you are playing with a regulation set or you severely impact your probabilities of winning by excellent strategy based on the real probabilities of things happening in a given game.

-- Don, July 9, 2008
this actually worked i owned 3 sides of the whole board so thanks you

-- tj, July 13, 2008
the secret is to try and buy the first 2 sides of the board at the beggining. not the side where the red and blue is 3-4. illinois is the most landed space as a tip. the most important color set is st james, tenesse, and NY. they bring in the most money, even though illinois gets landed on more often. the ny tenese st j just makes money faster. be careful with those trades, because the wrong one can lead to disaster. (like paying 1000$ for 1 or 2 cards) but! even that happening can still make you win the most worthless properties are the utilities. stay away from those. the 4 railroads are very usefull for cash income

-- uncle moneybags, July 19, 2008
Ok thanks for the tip. My Uncle is the BEST person at Monopoly I've ever met. I agree, the orange group and the railroads are the best. Though I always lose, I think these tip things will help. Oh, the dark purple(the first two) are really good buys in my book.

-- Alex, July 21, 2008
i think next time i play monopoly i will use that stratagey.I really think it will work! I belive in you the person who told me this stratigey.......... THANK YOU: JEANNETTE CRUZ P.S.i AM 13 years old

-- jeannette cruz, July 22, 2008
I liked reading the numbers and the strategy in this article. It mirrors well with my experience playing Monopoly for years. I will take the CG before Free Parking and just after and win just about any game I play. The railroads (or stations if you like) play a bigger role in the early part of the game, if you have 3 or 4 of them, than they do in the later part of the game. However, I have bankrupted people before by owning all 4 railroads. As for the utilities, they are great if you need to raise a little cash to buy more important properties. One of the things people do complain about is the length of time it takes to pay. These people are likely most familiar with playing with the house rule of putting "money in the middle" from the Chance, Community Chest, Income Tax and Luxury Tax. This adds huge amounts of money to the game that otherwise would not be in play and lengthening the game considerably, into the 4+hour length. Played by the written rules most games take less than 2 hours no matter how many people are playing. The strategy spoken of here is very similar to a strategy proposed by author Manxine Brady in a 1974 Monopoly strategy book called "The Monopoly Book." So, yes, Monopoly strategy books have been around for a number of years.

-- Randy, July 29, 2008
While your strategy seems nice, you don't have to own a large amount of properties while playing. I've recently built up a strategy while playing with few friends: Quickly pick up the light blue properties, they should be easy to obtain because most people think they will never amount to anything. Put hotels on each asap (fairly cheap). Obtain the orage cg, not as easy, but since you have been slowly getting cash from the light blue properties (550-600 each property) , you'll be able to negotiate with other players for the orange and buy for a slightly higher price. Equip with hotels. These two CGs are key to winning. I have won monopoly many many times using this strategy. Your opponents focus on putting hotels on their properties, but you take all of their earnings with your 2 CGs, therefore not allowing them to buy any!

-- Nicole, Aug 12, 2008
I was wondering when u said the best 5 starting positions y isn't buying red property good, cuz isn't illinois avenue a spot where a lot of players land on. So wudn't it be better 2 buy the red squares than 2 buy the the dark purple squares? I was just wondering bout this.

-- Daniel Kim, Aug 13, 2008
Author's Response: The red squares give a good return on investment, but are too expensive to use as a "starting position". At $2,000+ to get 3 houses on them, they're 5 times as expensive as the dark purple color group. Early in the game, getting an affordable position is key. After you have one of the 5 starting positions, getting 3 houses on the reds is a great second move.
Monopoly is a cool game and you are all nerds at monopoly, which ruins it for ME!

-- Rich Uncle Pennybags, Aug 20, 2008
VERY NICE GUIDE! It was such a nice thing of you to do! However, unfortunately, to the average person who has only played a few times such as I, had trouble understanding it. For instance, unless i misread you never pointed out what C-G meant, you said it meant colors or something, but the meaning was fuzzy. Thank you, and good luck.

-- Ryan, Aug 22, 2008
In my 46 years in the USA, I have enjoyed playing the original version of Monopoly. Through the years, my strategy, (through winning and losing) has closely resembled the strastegy explained in this arctice. I is aewesomto see ''my' backed up by actual numbers.

-- Chris, Aug 28, 2008
i think owning all railroads is a good choice, even though its just like landed on GO, there is only on GO so with 4 railroads it gives other players 4 more Go's but instead they have to pay you...

-- kyle, Aug 28, 2008
Hey All, The Monopoly Documentary that I'm producing has been filming for a few months now, including filming with Matt McNally, the defending US Monopoly Champion, Lee Bayrd, the world's 1st Monopoly Champion, and Phil Orbanes, author of two Monopoly books and Chief Judge at the US & World Monopoly Championships. You can check out some clips from the interviews and follow our progress as we continue to film at http://www.MonopolyDocumentary.com . Check it out!

-- Kevin Tostado, Sept 2, 2008
Thanks to the author of this article. I just thought I would add a link to a new up-and-coming free website to play online monopoly against other players or computers, if you're like me and can't find humans that want to play as often as you'd like http://yahoo.pogo.com/games/monopoly Cheers.

-- Robbie, Sept 4, 2008
Wow

-- Jonny, Sept 6, 2008
Nice strategy, basically sums up all my experiences with winning monopoly. As far as Boardwalk/PP, when I do get them I rarely put more than 3 houses on each. In a game with 4 people you will rarely need to develop these past 3 houses...you don't get anything extra for bankrupting players for a bigger amount, so why spend more money than you need? (Unless its to cause housing shortage, or you are 1v1 at the end) In 4 player games or bigger, the most valuable monopolies are the ones you can hit with a chance card. I recently played a game where everything was split up, except for PP/BW, and I had nothing to trade, so I was going to get frozen out of the big deal. Park Place went to auction and I ended up paying 600$ for it. I did this because chancing to boardwalk was basically my ONLY shot at staying in the game. Im happy to report that I did in fact hit the chance card I needed, and ended up winning.

-- ted danzen, Sept 18, 2008
Really, there needs to be a bank function or game model for unregulated CDS's and overpriced MBS's. Maybe players can be allowed to lend 30x their current portfolio value and count the interest they expect to earn on leveraged investments (i.e. loans to other players) as an asset when they bid on auctioned properties. We need a sub- prime rule mod! Anyone looking to hire a Treasury Secretary?

-- H. Paulson, Oct 11, 2008
i payed alot of money 4 boardwalk and even wasted the money buying houses and hotels 4 it. now no one has even landed on it,and i feel like i wasted my money

-- dkfire, Oct 23, 2008
for me i see that the orange, red and yellow CG are the best rent makers. control of all or just the red and yellow cg can keep the owner alive for a long time, even if the opponent holds the green and dark blue cg. -based on 2 human players in PC version with house rules -> extra starting cash, extra luxury tax. After roughly 2 hours all properties had hotels

-- anoy no349458, Nov 5, 2008
IMHO, while its nice to get all 4 RR's early on; mmost experienced players are onto this gambit and thus no one will allow it to happen save for luck of the dice. I concentrate on side 1 lt blue group first as the house cost is so low that one may build quickly with a good return...Orange group next of course but, like RR's, many are aware of orange and red group strategy making trading difficult.

-- Dave E, Nov 25, 2008
If you can get all houses (if you can get railroads even better) down the first side of the board and then get mayfair and the other purple (soz i forgot wht it called) then the chance of winning is greatly increased (you may need to build houses on the brown set to get maximum profit with min waste of cash) hope it helps!

-- jake, Nov 29, 2008
Hi, do you think monopoly is boring well think again! are you comfy... good then i`ll begin. My grandads brother played monopoly for days on end and then his wife bet him 100 that he would end up with only 5 houses. he was curious due to the fact that he currently had 5 houses! then when he said "lets play monopoly" someone said nah i dont feel like it and his freind agreed. so he payd the 100 pounds to him and then discovered that his five year old daughter had benn telling his wife how many houses he had! they got into an argument and he then remembered that she owed him 100 pounds so they all lived "happily ever after" LOL isnt it cool how not boring monopoly is hope you like it.

-- jake , Dec 1, 2008
I just had the most amazing win. I thought i was gunna loose coz i kept going in jail and having to pay rent and tax...ect..ect...but then i recieved 100 pounds wich let me build another 1 house and then i made a hotel and won the game! What are the ods of that! (aproximatley 25 to 1)

-- jake , Dec 1, 2008
One thing that this model should incorporate is the risk of ruin. Ultimately Monopoly is ALL about the risk of ruin, not just finding an ideal return on investment. For example, the dark blue monopoly is clearly not as valuable as the railroads for cash flow, but it is far more likely to bankrupt a player. When a player goes bankrupt, not only will he or she lose the game, but also give you all (albeit mortgaged) property, and will no longer be able to charge you rent. THIS IS HUGE. Even if the players are not bankrupted, higher payouts are more likely to make players sell houses, mortgage property, or make other crippling economic moves. (My personal favorite is, during a housing shortage, force a person to sell a hotel. He or she will have to sell all three hotels on the monopoly to the ground.) Statistically incorporating these would be extremely difficult; it would rely on examining a wide variety of behavioral patterns from other players (which themselves are unlikely to be perfect), and determining how much spare change they are likely to have at various points in the game. Probably, individual players would play so differently that such models would not be very useful. This is where intuition really comes into play. Furthermore, attempting to build expensive property like the dark blues is much more likely to ruin YOU. This is mentioned to some extent in the article, where it gives the cost of building up properties, but it is not explained why this is so important. It is a CRUCIAL question to determine how many questions one can afford at a given time. The race to three houses is important, but exactly when they can be afforded and how many to buy in the meantime is a difficult problem, and one that every monopoly player faces (and one I would very much like to learn). Finally, the article doesn't give any details on how large money or income discrepancies affect the game. For example, if I have 2,000 dollars sitting around and my opponents are sitting on $20 and Baltic, I will spend every dime I get as long as I can afford $150 for the doctor's fee or a few hundred for street repairs. On the other end, how does the player behind play? Is the correct strategy to go for broke? Save enough for small rent but nothing more? I'm really not sure. Overall, I think it is clear that one should basically never buy the greens, and the purples are only worth it with hotels and early in the game, while pinks and reds are nice, blues are great, and oranges are unbelievably amazing. However, exactly when to buy which, how much to trade for given ones at given times with given players, at which point on the board (your station and your opponents'), with which amount of money and what income, for you and your opponents, becomes a problem so complex that statistical analysis simply can't answer the question. Even before one considers personality and such (which clearly are very important), one must recognize that the strategies outlined herein are very broad outlines. Still, I wish these calculations could be easier. Maybe just compile results from millions of AI games and consider those? It could be somewhat insightful, even if the computer doesn't play exactly like people.

-- Eebster, Dec 1, 2008
After re-reading the rules I realized that I did not understand the house buying rules. The way I play you can only buy a house just before you roll the dice. The rule about auctioning off houses from the bank seems to say that you can buy them at any time. Is there any time you cannot buy a house? (Like when someone is rolling)

-- BillG, Dec 3, 2008
I suggest it's time to update the venerable old game Monopoly. This was a game borne of the Great Depression and marks that real estate and economics moment. Everyone knew what the problem was, everyone knew the solutions. And lots of folks got hurt. The difficulty is that economies don't respond just because you know the fix. Those with money want to keep it. Those without money want to get it. Those in debt want out. Those holding debt want to be paid. Etc. Stalemate. At any rate, if a NEW Monopoly gameboard is to be issued, there'll have to be some relevent additions to factors influencing who wins and who loses the big game. For example, short-term-profit-oriented CEO's surrounded by yes-men, Presidents entrenched in foolhardy religious notions, Idiot Congress takes country to war over a known trumped-up reason but did it anyway because a holiday was coming up and they wanted to get home and campaign. Government bailouts. Government checks for nothing. Government stimulous that stimulates inflation. Kellog Brown Root wins no-bid cost-plus contract for trillions. Government tripples debt. Money being printed so fast it can't be physically printed but has to materialize via electronic issuance. Idiot Congress hands Idiot Treasury Chairman a trillion tax-bucks and passes it out to his pals. Interest rates at zero, but only Treasury pals can borrow at that rate. Inflation at ten percent. Debt at ten trillion. President has IQ of ten. Ten days until auto industry defaults. Lots of pessimism. Boardwalk and Parkplace rot in disrepair. Baltic avenue is crowded, has no heat and is sixty days late paying its mortgage. Not enough Go-Directly-To-Jail cards. There is no GO thus no two hundred dollars. B and O railroad runs out of diesel. OPEC becomes world pusher of choice. Iran tests nuclear device. Military refuses to admit that stop-loss is a draft. Military kills thousands. Military touts volunteer service. Women scream for equal pay. Women scream against drafting women in the military for combat jobs. Dupont closes its doors. Wal-Mart is last retailer standing. Yikes. We're going to need a bigger gameboard.

-- jwc, Dec 8, 2008
Never play american monopoly with british, they start the game with 1500 pounds instead of 1500 dollars, and with the exchange rate they get a huge purchasing advantage over the american players.

-- Joe, Dec 20, 2008
We're all giving away our strategies here, but such is the attraction of a forum. I'm a big chart guy and I usually do this kind of analysis for each economy game I play--it's part of the fun of the game for me--but with Monopoly I agree with Eebster; you don't buy properties for their ROI (return on investment), you buy them to ruin the people who land on them. You can win Monopoly without ever getting back your money on your properties, as long as you can keep the other player(s) worse off than you, keep them selling back their improvements for half price and mortgaging their land so that when you land on their properties, it doesn't hurt you. It's about getting the upper hand and milking it, wearing down everyone else into eventual ruin. You need to make a perniciousness chart for how good properties are as weapons, not investments.

-- Raxin, Dec 26, 2008
Author's Response: The argument I make is not that you should ensure a positive ROI at any given time, rather that you can choose between different investment alternatives by selecting the one that maximizes the ROI. Since the cash flow you receive from an investment only comes from other players, maximizing your ROI (while investing as much of your cash as possible) is the same thing as maximizing the odds of bankrupting your opponents.
I mostly agree with your theory except for 2 things: 1. the utilities can be helpful if you are in a bad situation and owe someone money. You can mortgage them instead of selling back a house or two. 2. Boardwalk and Park Place are essential! You use your profits from the Orange to build on them. They are much cheaper to build on than you are implying. It costs $1350 to put 3 houses on either red or yellow, vs only $1200 on Boardwalk and Park Place.. and you get a whole lot more money back. AND.. this isn't really a disagreement.. but you failed to mention the BIGGEST RIPOFF in the game: the green properties.... more expensive to buy than Boardwalk and Park Place, you get slightly less when people land on them, and it costs MORE to build on them because you multiply by 3 instead of 2.

-- Christine, Jan 4, 2008
Author's Response: It’s definitely the right idea to use your profits from properties such as orange or the railroads to fund investment in more expensive properties such as Park Place and Boardwalk. The article was primarily about discovering those best starting positions on which the game often hinges.
Hi All, We've now got a trailer for the upcoming MONOPOLY documentary - "Under the Boardwalk" posted at http://www.MonopolyDocumentary.com Please check it out and let us know what you think!

-- Kevin Tostado, Jan 15, 2009
Monopoly is the best game ever but the electronic one is not

-- Eb, Jan 15, 2009
I always start with the Green. I love them and rarely ever lose when i have them :)

-- devo, Feb 1, 2009
Joe, I'm with Secular Sage. The rules clearly provide that if the owner doesn't demand rent before the second player goes, the rent is forfeited. Thus de facto rent can be waived. In an immunity deal, no loan is being made at the time the deal is struck; there is just a contingent claim for waiver of rent if the player happens to land on the property later, and the owner promises not to demand rent. Another way around the loan prohibition is accepting property in lieu of rent, i.e. implicitly selling it and then turning over the proceeds to the same player. I see no reason the players in such a transfer in lieu of rent couldn't also require a reconveyance at some defined point, at a higher price. This would be the functional equivalent of lending with interest - a kind of zero coupon. Or just call it Islamic Banking! The only hitch is that these arrangements are not 'judicially' enforceable (i.e. by the bank/government). This is normally not an issue in a strai! ght trade or private sale transaction because title passes immediately at the closing, or else the deal is annulled. But then, maintaining a reputation for being an honest business person is part of Monopoly strategy.

-- Smith, Warsaw, Feb 10, 2009
You are correct to point out that the 'sweet spot' for rent is generally at 3 houses, because that is when the marginal increase in rent starts to level out. But this is not universally true. Consider Baltic and Mediterranean avenues: the rent grow more from 3 to 4 houses than it does from 2 to 3 houses, and similarly from 4 houses up to a hotel. It's similar if less pronounced in the case of the other cheap properties (Oriental, Vermont & Connecticut).

-- Smith, Warsaw, Feb 10, 2009
Question rather than comment. Do you think a serious player would keep a mental note of how much money he and the other players have at any given time (income from paydays and major rental charges, less major outlays on rent etc)? It's crucial information, but is this too much hassle? At least if one keeps track of one's own net worth, it helps with income tax, where you must elect $200 or 10% before (whatever that means) adding up your assets.

-- Smith in Warsaw, Feb 10, 2009
I like the way you've broken it down. I think you have nailed the best static strategy but a dynamic strategy that takes into account the properties already owned by opponents and their current position on the board would be optimal. Admittedly it would be very difficult to calculate the odds on the fly in a real game situation. However if you were going to make the strongest possible monopoly playing computer program it would be what you needed to do.

-- Peter C, Feb 13, 2009
If anyone is planning on competing in the 2009 US Championship, please send an email to info (at) monopolydocumentary (dot) com. We're looking for people to film starting as early as the qualifying process. More details on the championship and how to qualify will be posted on MonopolyDocumentary.com as info becomes available. Thanks, Kevin Tostado Producer/Director of "Under the Boardwalk" http://www.MonopolyDocumentary.com

-- Kevin Tostado, Feb 18, 2009
oranges are the best property. after that, I'll take the reds. (although they are a little pricey to build). light blues aren't bad early in the game. they are cheap to build on. maroon properties (st charles, etc) are not bad either. i'll trade green for just about anything, because you can never afford to build on the greens, and nobody ever lands on them. railroads are good, especially if you can get all 4 of them. generally requires a trade. best strategy I have is to stash about $5000 in cash in the refrigerator before the game. then, throughout the game, you can excuse yourself to get a drink or snack......bring back $1000 or so and start buying after a turn or two. works great. LOL. actually....I would go so far as to say that a player with all of the property on the left hand side of game board (as you are facing side 1) will easily beat a player who owns the entire right hand side. (i.e. light blues, maroons, oranges, reds, 2 rr's, 1 utility VS yellows, greens, blues, purples, 2 rrs, 1 utility). doesn't matter if you want hotels on everything to start out, or if you just want the unimproved properties.

-- strawboss760, Feb 26, 2009
Interesting, I found it very useful (though I rarely play Monopoly anymore). Another strategy (cheap though) is if your good at throwing dice then you can pretty much get whatever number you want. I use to do that till my family made me throw the dice in a different way, or throw them into a bowl so I couldn't control which numbers I got.

-- Viktor, March 28, 2009
Whoever in this post said Monopoly was complete luck is an idiot, the only time its completely luck is when all 4 players only roll the dice and buy properties they land on and just go through game without ever wheelin' and dealin'. I think the biggest thing by far is people skills and getting them to trade you what you want by making a deal sound better then it really is. Obviously luck is involved but people skills are much more valuable. It does help to know the detailed value of everything on the board when your with other good players.

-- chris, Apr 3, 2009
maybe if we take the railroad cuz if we make the orange light bue dark purple and utility in ur hand and u must make it hotels all of them except utilities cuz u cant put ull be ownage i just did it i was battling my tutor and i got all of it cuz he just buy right side so i didnt went cuz we have SPEED DIE!!

-- UNKOWNLOL!, Apr 22, 2009
ANY property is worth it's mortage value. Even if you don't want a property such as a utility, always bid 70-80 dollars for it.

-- Ethan, Apr 26, 2009
Just threaten to kill all the other players if they beat u hAhaa online jokin the trick is to buy all the greens and put hotels on them coz u make a fortune,but this of course is only my opinion

-- Bob, May 15, 2009
Don't buy hotels. If you want, you can upgrade your 3 houses into 4, but don't buy hotels. Hotels get less money on return to the bank, but more imporantly they free up extra houses for other players to buy. It's better to create a housing shortage by buying four houses

-- John, May 17, 2009
I love Monopoly, and in fact own 6, or 7 variations of it. I love reading the statistics, and trying to use them in the many games my brothers and I play. Although the Oranges are great, my favorite properties are Baltic, and Mediterranean. Early in the game, they're cheap, and easy to buld, and it seems like once they're fully developped, they get landed on a lot. I have no statistics to back this up, just what's happened from experience.

-- Mino, May 18, 2009
I rather play cluedo, at least you spend your time trying to figure out something that is inside that little envelope. WASTING hours however, just to see other people and/or yourself running out of "money"? It's only fun at the beggining and when your winning, THAT'S the truth, the problem is... WHEN you're winning the rest of the players are spending, i don't know about you, but when i sit for 2 hours or more trying to land on an orange space and trying to avoid the railroads, I expect to win some mulah because if i don't I feel like smashing the table where the board is on with a sledge hammer let alone trading anything with anyone... Its not my favourite game, i can play it but, i have to be in a very good mood,stoned or drunk(with a good mood).

-- Kennedy Salazar, May 28, 2009
The power of the orange color group is even a bit stronger than noted here because of the multitude of ways someone can land there: *Ordinary roll of the dice proceeding around the board *Likelihood of landing on that side of the board due to being sent to Jail *Landing on the Chance space two squares after Free Parking and drawing the "Go Back 3 Spaces" card (sends you back to New York Avenue) *Likelihood of landing on that side of the board after drawing the "Advance to St. Charles Place" (first square after jail for people with other versions of the board) card *Landing on the Community Chest card in the light blue color group and then being told to advance to the nearest railroad (Pennsylvania), followed by rolling a 3 or a 4 Admittedly the odds of being sent there due to a card are slimmer than the "ordinary course of play" or the "getting out of Jail" scenarios, but the player who truly wants to play the statistics would take it into account. (I tend to think that it's a mistake to OVER-rely on statistics, but it's undeniable that buying up the second side of the board is a big advantage.)

-- Rich, May 28, 2009
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