Monopoly (board game)

Monopoly is a board game published by Parker Brothers, a subsidiary of Hasbro. The game is named after the economic concept of monopoly, the domination of a market by a single entity.
Monopoly is a redesign of an earlier game "The Landlord's Game", first published by the Quaker and political activist Elizabeth Magie. The purpose of that game was to teach people how monopolies end up bankrupting the many and giving extraordinary wealth to one or few individuals.[2]
Since the game was created, more than one billion people have played it, making it "the most played (commercial) board game in the world."[3] The 1999 Guinness Book of Records cited Hasbro's previous statistic of 500 million people having played Monopoly.[4] Games Magazine has inducted Monopoly into its Hall of Fame.[5] The mascot for the game, known as Mr. Monopoly or Rich Uncle Pennybags, is an elderly mustached man in morning dress with a walking cane and top hat.
==Board==
The Monopoly board consists of forty spaces containing twenty-eight properties (twenty-two coloured streets, four railroads and two utilities), three Chance spaces, three Community Chest spaces, a Luxury Tax space, an Income Tax space, and the four corner squares: GO, Jail, Free Parking, and Go to Jail
===US versions===
Notable changes to the board since the original are; the colors of Mediterranean and Baltic Avenues (which changed from purple to brown), the adaptation of the flat $200 Income Tax (formerly the player's choice of 10% of their total holdings or $200) and increased $100 Luxury Tax amount (upped from $75). Atlantic City's Illinois Avenue was renamed Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. in the 1980s. St. Charles Place no longer exists, as the Showboat Casino Hotel was developed where it once ran.[10] Similar color and amount changes are used in the U.S. Edition of the "Here and Now: World Edition" game, and are also used in the most recent version of the McDonald's Monopoly promotion.
Category:Board/Card Games