The Art of Monopoly

Yesterday, while watching the Giants game, I asked Little One if she wanted to play a game of Monopoly. Did she? In an ecstatic blur she whooshed into the play room and zipped back with her beloved game.

She is Donald Trump’s mini-me, less the tumbleweed hair of course.

Our games last about two hours. Usually I win for the first, oh, twenty minutes or so. Then my Little Shark takes over. Ninety minutes into the game I was firmly losing to her merciless buy-buy-buy build-build-build philosophy. She had five hotels aggressively constructed across two complete color groups, three out of four railroads, twice as much cash reserves than I had somehow, and got that “Get Out of Jail Free” card not once but twice.

Before long I was coughing over my utilities, Boardwalk, and a few of those other properties I bought to keep her from building on completed color groups. All in order to pay those exorbitant hotel rents she was charging! I threw in the towel just shy of two hours, completely bankrupt, much to her cackling maniacal glee.

Then, we wondered: Is there a tried-and-true strategy to win at Monopoly?

Turns out, there is. Kinda, sorta.

There are a couple of websites out there where the dudes really crunch the statistics. We both read through them carefully, referring to the still-open Monopoly board to let the tactics sink in. Truthfully, I don’t know if I understood everything (not sure if that’s my fault or the website researchers’), but here’s a quick distillation of what we took away:

Not all properties are created equal. Obvious, due to increasingly higher buying prices, rental charges, and building costs as you travel around the board. But some squares have a higher statistical probability of being landed on than others, and that makes all the difference.

Which square on the board is the most visited during a course of a game? Deceptively easy – it’s Jail. Why? Well, you can get there a whole bunch of ways. You can land on it during the round the board travel. You can be sent there by landing on the “Go to Jail” square. You can roll doubles three times. You can land on either a Community Chest or Chance square and pull a “Go Directly to Jail Do not Pass Go Do Not Collect $200” card. Lots of ways to get to Jail, making it the most-frequently-visited square during a game.

What does this mean? It means the properties just outside jail are the most frequently-landed-upon. That makes them more than worth their price to buy. The orange-ish squares just before Free Parking are thus the most valuable on the board. Buy ’em and build on ’em and watch your opponents fork over the dollars to you hand over first. This, by the way, was Little One’s intuited strategy to beat me yesterday.

Similarly, the purple and the red properties, which are on either side of the orange-ish, are valuable too, only slightly less so. Buy them and build on them too. FYI, Illinois Avenue is the second-most landed on square, followed by the B&O Railroad and Go.

There are some properties not to worry about. The dark purple, Baltic and Mediterranean, on squares one and three from Go, are among the least statistically visited squares on the board. Their low price and build-up costs are almost not worth the small rents you’ll get because no one hardly lands there.

This brings up a question: which is a better to buy, a utility or a railroad?

Railroads all the way! First of all, there are twice as many railroad squares then utility squares (4 versus 2) so you have about twice the chance of having opponents land on them. With both types, the more you own the more you can charge your foe. Utilities are a roll of the dice when it comes to “rent”: one dice times ten if one is owned; two die times ten if both are owned. So your rents can range from $10 to $60 or $20 to $120. If you own three railroads, “rent” is fixed at $100. All four and you can charge $200. When you factor in the double-odds of ensnaring the other guy that railroads have, they are the best bet.

Another tactic found across the internet is to develop 3 houses per property as quickly as possible. Why 3 houses? Because the jump in rent from 2 to 3 is huuuuuge. If 2 houses brings in $250 rent on a certain property, 3 will bring $750! The jump from 3 to 4 or even to a hotel is not as huge percentage-wise.

Other tidbits: The average income you make going round the board once is $170. Early in the game it’s a disadvantage to be in Jail, so pay the $50 to get out; late in the game it could be an advantage (if your opponent owns a lot of developed property), so wait to roll doubles. Pay the 10% income tax until you’ve gone round the board three times – then it’s best to pay the $200 (you’ll have accumulated enough property by then to justify it).

Boardwalk (and Park Place) are nice gems to have but not essential to win the game. There is only a 5% chance of landing on either square during the trip around the board (2 out of 40). If your opponent does own both and begins building, well, you best start building up your cash reserves, just in case.

Which leads to the most head-scratching advice we saw: Try to build up your cash early in the game and try to buy as much property as possible. Huh? I’ve tried that for the past ten years and all it’s done is give me a mountain of credit card debt.

Anyway, Little One made me promise not to tell Mommy (and I hope either one doesn’t read this!) while she hones her monopolist skills, evilly rubbing her hands and chuckling at how she’ll send her Mama to the poor house ...