Maybe you and your friends have made Free Parking more like a winning lottery ticket by adding the proceeds from taxes and fees. Or you’ve started your own stimulus program by jacking up the take for landing on Go – or amended those pesky regulations limiting houses and hotels.
If so, you’ve been playing Monopoly incorrectly. But soon such “house rules” may receive an official blessing.
Hasbro, which has published the classic board game since 1991, is announcing Tuesday that it will incorporate the top “house rules” into a special edition of the game starting this fall.
“While the official Monopoly rules will not change,” the company said in a statement, “fans who love playing with ‘house rules’ will now have the opportunity to play them in their game.”
To kick off the promotional effort, Hasbro will invite fans to debate the pros and cons of 10 popular house rules on the game’s Facebook page through Thursday. Then it will choose five to become part of a special edition and to be included as an addendum to the official rules in a Monopoly game guide next year.
The announcement may be odious to many Monopoly die-hards, who lament that most people do not play by the rules in the first place.
According to the official rules, largely unchanged since the 1930s, whenever a player lands on an unowned property and decides not to purchase it, the bank sells it to the highest bidder in an auction, speeding up the game and increasing benevolent sparring among players. Each player is to receive $1,500 – no more or less – to start the game, and the limit of 32 houses and 12 hotels that come with the game can add offer an additional layer of strategy by creating a housing shortage.
Many common house rules cast aside prescribed limits: injecting more cash into Free Parking; giving $400 for landing on “Go” rather than the stipulated $200 for merely passing by; using additional houses and hotels if the provided stash runs out; and providing higher tiers of cash payouts for rolling snake eyes.
Many of the house rules can prolong a game, which typically wraps up under 90 minutes in elite competition. In general, any rule that pushes more cash into the game leads to a longer time before a player goes bankrupt.
