Monopoly

I am often asked about the best way to play Monopoly as many people have seen my comments about it in my autobiography Return to Go.  Monopoly appeals to people of all ages and is a great family game with younger children.  I hope you will find my analysis of the best sites helpful in your next game.

Jim Slater

From Return to Go:

On 17 December 1970 the Evening News organised a Monopoly game at Browns Hotel, which was covered in the press and also on The Money Programme.  The other contestants were Oliver Jessel, Vic Watson, Sir John Cohen, Nigel Broackes, David Malbert and Robert Morley.  The idea was a bit of fun, and each of us was televised as we went into Browns to engage in mortal combat.  I have always liked Monopoly, which I used to play a lot as a boy.  Although there is a great deal of luck in it there is also a modicum of skill.  For example, it pays to buy the light-blue sites: Pentonville Road, Euston Road, and Angel Islington, and also the orange sites: Vine Street, Marlborough Street and Bow Street.  The highest rental return on hotels in relation to the capital investment is from the light-blue sites, which average 159%, followed by the orange sites at 141%, falling gradually to the lowest return of only 101% on Bond Street, Oxford Street and Regent Street.  The way to work this out is to take the total cost of buying the sites and building hotels, which in the case of the orange sites is £2,600, whereas the rental on the three hotels would total £2,900 giving a return of 141%.  As it happens, I prefer these to the light-blue ones because I think that the difference in yield is more than made up by the increased likelihood of opponents landing on the orange sites.  Firstly, there is a card in Chance which says ‘Go back three spaces’, and from one position this lands on them on Vine Street.  Secondly, the orange sites are a dice-throw away from Jail, which means that opponents coming out of it are likely to land on one them.  Thirdly, there are two other cards in Chance, one of which directs the player to ‘Take a trip to Marylebone Station’, and the other to ‘Advance to Pall Mall’.  Following these directions by-passes the light-blue sites and leaves the player with the possibility of landing on the orange ones with his next throw.  It also pays to build quickly once you have a complete site, even at the expense of mortgaging other isolated sites to do so.  For example, the loss of rent on the Strand would only be £18, but £100 out of the mortgage proceeds of £110 could be used to buy an extra house on, say, Bow Street.  The first house takes the rent from £14 to £70 to give a gain of £56; and this rises to as much as £350 when the third house is added.  Subject, therefore, to keeping a prudent cash reserve you should mortgage all isolated sites, and use the proceeds to build rapidly.  As you can see I had thought it all out and was well prepared for the game.  I even managed to get the orange sites and build hotels, but no one came to stay at them.  It was Sir John Cohen who won easily, only to tell us that he had learned to play from his chauffeur the night before.