The way the games is supposed to end: One player buys up enough real estate to bankrupt all other players.
How it really ends: Your younger brother* says “this is stupid, I’m bored” 1 hour into playing and quits. *Younger brother can be substituted with another sibling and/or friend and quitting can also include rage which results in an act of aggression such as flipping the game board and storming off.
In honor of this game most of us have played but few have won and/or finished, here are some fun facts:
– The longest game of Monopoly lasted 70 days.
– Marvin Gardens doesn’t exist. Marven Gardens is real, but there’s a typo on the board that never got fixed.
– The game’s mascot used to be named Rich Uncle Pennybags but it was then changed to Mr. Monopoly (makes sense to me).
– More than 275 million games have been sold worldwide and it’s available in 111 countries, in 43 languages.
– Since 1935 more than 1 billion people have played the game (I bet only 164 actually finished).
– McDonald’s Monopoly was rigged. When McDonald’s teamed up with Monopoly and placed Monopoly pieces on their fries and drinks the independent marketing agency hired to run the contest (Simon Marketing) stole the most valuable pieces and gave them to friends and family and split the winnings. Fifty-one people ended up getting indicted for fraud.
Now let’s all play Jenga!