

Probabilities in the Game of Monopoly - shrikant
http://www.tkcs-collins.com/truman/monopoly/monopoly.shtml

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mturmon
Instead of average-case, here's a funny analysis of an extreme case, the
shortest possible game:

[http://scatter.wordpress.com/2010/05/30/the-shortest-
possibl...](http://scatter.wordpress.com/2010/05/30/the-shortest-possible-
game-of-monopoly-21-seconds/#)

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jonnathanson
This is a fascinating breakdown. Quite a few people have covered this ground
before, but I've rarely seen the raw statistics of the game explored in such
depth. (Most commentaries I've seen, for example, start and stop at the
probabilities of landing on any given space, perhaps coupling those with the
expected ROI of improvements on X or Y properties. But those are only some of
the factors in play, and you do a nice job going beyond them).

Apropos of nothing, there's a really entertaining documentary called "Under
the Boardwalk" that sort of flew under the radar last year. It's about the
history of the game, and the national championships (yes, apparently there are
Monopoly players who take themselves as seriously as chess masters).

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smokey_the_bear
My dad had an article about Monopoly published in 1973 -
[http://www.unz.org/Pub/SaturdayRev-1973mar24-00044](http://www.unz.org/Pub/SaturdayRev-1973mar24-00044)

Including probabilities per space, and expected return per dollar invested.

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squeakynick
If you like this kind of stuff, here is an analysis of Chutes and Ladders
[http://www.datagenetics.com/blog/november12011/index.html](http://www.datagenetics.com/blog/november12011/index.html)

And another about Candyland
[http://www.datagenetics.com/blog/december12011/index.html](http://www.datagenetics.com/blog/december12011/index.html)

Anyone for Battleship?
[http://www.datagenetics.com/blog/december32011/index.html](http://www.datagenetics.com/blog/december32011/index.html)

Or Hangman?
[http://www.datagenetics.com/blog/april12012/index.html](http://www.datagenetics.com/blog/april12012/index.html)

Or Darts?
[http://www.datagenetics.com/blog/january12012/index.html](http://www.datagenetics.com/blog/january12012/index.html)

It's a hobby of mine to analyze these kind of games. Suggestions for other
games to look at welcome.

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ctdonath
(Smiles) Ah, memories of high school in 1985: writing an Apple II program to
find the odds of landing on each Monopoly property, a bit surprised that
(IIRC) the orange & green blocks were visited with unusual frequency.

Was thinking of a similar analysis last week when playing a simplified "kids'"
version of Monopoly.

~~~
jgalt212
me too, my friend. Apple IIc in my case. Monte Carlo methods worked wonders
for a teen who didn't know about Markov Chains and stationary distributions.

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AznHisoka
Ha... me and my friends would always play by house rules, and start out with a
ridiculous amt of money (we even created more money with paper if the bank ran
out), so there was no question we would buy every single property we landed
in.

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triplesec
This is great and all, but I suspect many readers will have the same response
as I: that as a 10-year-old I'd figured out the best-value spaces just by the
jail and Go To Jail placements alone, along with the higher rents and bonus
chance cards for some properties over others for the same building cost. It's
great for someone to run the figures, but if you didn't know what the answers
were largely going to be you're a terrible gameplayer and analyst of your
environment!

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dionyziz
Here's a problem for you, fellow algorithmists:
[http://projecteuler.net/problem=84](http://projecteuler.net/problem=84)

~~~
2old2randr
I have a Lisp solution to this that I wrote some years ago when I was going
through Project Euler problems.
[https://github.com/2old2randr/Euler/blob/master/monopoly.lis...](https://github.com/2old2randr/Euler/blob/master/monopoly.lisp)

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bencollier49
Gah! He's using horrible US street names! Mayfair et al please! Does anyone
have a translation table?

~~~
mhb
Monopoly board images:

[https://www.google.com/search?q=monopoly+board&safe=off&rlz=...](https://www.google.com/search?q=monopoly+board&safe=off&rlz=1C1CHFX_enUS450US450&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=kBomUtnAB4apsATwvIHIAw&ved=0CC4QsAQ&biw=1236&bih=643)

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circa
Weird how this shows up today. I played Monopoly over the weekend and we were
discussing the same thing!

~~~
eru
A bit off-topic: Please note that we have much better boardgames than Monopoly
these days. Have a look at boardgamegeek.com for some suggestions. Carcassone
is a good beginners game.

~~~
HelloMcFly
Much to the chagrin of the BGG crowd, Settlers of Catan is a much better
gateway boardgame. It's easy to learn and it has a lot of social interaction.
I'd also recommend Ticket to Ride as the second-best gateway boardgame. I love
Carcassone, but it's not nearly as intuitive on the first couple of
playthroughs, and the scoring at the end is more than tedious.

~~~
Yen
I've generally had the opposite experience. Carcassone is simpler, and a
player can generally play competently on their first game.

Catan, on the other hand, I've found difficult to teach, despite the rules
being fairly obvious to me, and there's lots of edge-case rules. (I had one
friend get fairly pissed at me that I didn't describe, at the beginning of the
game, the rule that a new settlement can break a longest road, which is a rule
that hardly ever comes up)

Edit: That said, Catan probably is a better gateway game into European-style
board games in general, since it uses many of the same concepts.

Ticket to Ride would probably be my top pick now, though, for a gateway game.

~~~
HelloMcFly
Have you played Trains yet? I think that may be one of my new go-to games with
new people. It's like Dominion but a lot less abstract.

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SchizoDuckie
This needs some charts!

