Monopoly

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***Monopoly*** is a board game published by Parker Brothers, a subsidiary of Hasbro. Players compete to acquire wealth through stylized economic activity involving the buying, renting, and trading of properties using play money, as players take turns moving around the board according to the roll of the dice. The object of the game is to own every piece of property and drive the other players into bankruptcy. The game is named after the economic concept of **monopoly**, the domination of a market by a single entity.

Monopoly is the most commercially-successful board game in United States history. According to Hasbro, since Charles Darrow patented the game in 1935, approximately 750 million people have played the game, making it "the most played board game in the world." The 1999 *Guinness Book of Records* cited Hasbro's previous statistic of 500 million people having played *Monopoly*. *Games Magazine* has inducted *Monopoly* into its Games Hall of Fame.

## History

The history of *Monopoly* can be traced back to the early 1900s. In 1904, a Quaker woman named Elizabeth (Lizzie) J. Magie Phillips created a game through which she hoped to be able to explain the single tax theory of Henry George (it was supposed to illustrate the negative aspects of concentrating land in private monopolies). Her game, *The Landlord's Game*, was commercially published a few years later. Other interested game players redeveloped the game and some made their own sets. Lizzie herself patented a revised edition of the game in 1904, and similar games were published commercially. By the early 1930s, a board game named *Monopoly* was created much like the version of *Monopoly* sold by Parker Brothers and its parent companies throughout the rest of the 20th century and into the 21st. The Parker Brothers' version was created by Charles Darrow. Several people, mostly in the U.S. Midwest and near the U.S. East Coast, contributed to the game's design and evolution.

In 1941 the British Secret Service had John Waddington Ltd., the licensed manufacturer of the game outside the U.S., create a special edition for World War II prisoners of war held by the Nazis. Hidden inside these games were maps, compasses, real money, and other objects useful for escaping. They were distributed to prisoners by the International Red Cross.

By the 1970s, the game's early history had been lost (and at least one historian has argued that it was purposely suppressed - see below), and the idea that it had been created solely by Charles Darrow had become popular folklore. This was stated in the 1974 book *The Monopoly Book: Strategy and Tactics of the World's Most Popular Game*, by Maxine Brady, and even in the instructions of the game itself. As Professor Ralph Anspach fought Parker Brothers and its then parent company, General Mills, over the trademarks of the *Monopoly* board game, much of the early history of the game was "rediscovered."

Because of the lengthy court process, and appeals, the legal status of Parker Brothers' trademarks on the game was not settled until the mid-1980s. The game's name remains a registered trademark of Parker Brothers, as do its specific design elements. Parker Brothers' current corporate parent, Hasbro, again acknowledges only the role of Charles Darrow in the creation of the game. Anspach published a book about his research, called *The Billion Dollar Monopoly Swindle* (and republished as *Monopolygate*), in which he makes his case about the purposeful suppression of the game's early history and development.

## Variants

This list is of unauthorized, unlicensed games based on *Monopoly*:

*Anti-Monopoly* – Technically, the game is sold under license from Hasbro. According to the History of the board game *Monopoly*, shortly after Public Law 98-620 was signed into law by President Reagan late in 1984, Dr. Anspach, developer of *Anti-Monopoly*, reached an agreement with Parker Brothers (now owned by Hasbro); assigning them the *Anti-Monopoly* trademark while retaining its use under license.