At one point in your life, you’ve probably played Monopoly. If want to learn how to ruin the game so that you and your friends will never want to play again, here’s how.
This story was originally published in January 2016.
Imgur user Elpher gives a step-by-step guide, which I encourage you to read. However, the gist is that you want to create a housing shortage. By creating a housing shortage (there are only 32 houses and 12 hotels), the other players would not be able to improve their properties to charge high rents and so would begin their deaths by a thousand cuts.
Photo: Elpher [Imgur]
Early in the game, you need start a monopoly. Elpher then recommends putting three houses on each of these properties. After that, you need to get a second monopoly, which can be by convincing other players to sell you theirs, and put enough houses on them to create a housing shortage. The goal here is not to upgrade to hotels! Do not do that. The goal is to break the damn game before the other players figure out what’s going on.
Even if you only get six properties and put three houses on each, you’d end up with 18 houses, which is more than half of the whole supply.
Photo: Elpher [Imgur]
Put four houses on those six properties, and you’ve got 24 of the 32 — that’s 75 per cent the whole supply.
The rules specifically address what happens next. Via Elpher:
Photo: Elpher [Imgur]
Once you’ve amassed two monopolies, build those houses, you leave them there, and ruin the Monopoly experience for you and your friends forever.
Be sure to read Elpher’s full walkthrough which contains even more details on how to destroy the game and make other people sad.
Top photo: Elpher [Imgur]
Comments
51 responses to “How To Ruin Monopoly And Make People Hate You”
I’ve always found fire to be effective.
Isn’t that the guide to fixing – not ruining – it?
What about the rule that says if someone lands on a property and chooses not to buy it, someone else can! Not many people use or play this rule (from my experience) and usually get quite upset when you tell them about it (as you buy the property)…
Monopoly is one of those games where house rule deviations run rampant, especially in regard to free-parking = money from the middle, which drags the game out immeasurably.
There is also the house rule of having to make a lap of the board before you can buy anything. When I first played as a youngster I was taught that this was a rule. Massive handicap if you had a few crap rolls.
Same thing here. Once we found out it wasn’t in the rules it was heaps better. Hate the free parking thing and we never did that, but did have the house rule of not auctioning declined properties.
Wow, I just replied to my own comment from a year ago…
Generally play the rule that if a player doesn’t buy a property, all the other players go to auction.
That IS the rule… lol
My partner and I are a couple that often risk our sickeningly blissful relationship by playing monopoly – we both have a frightening competitive streak – and we recently made the mistake of buying the game for Xbox One. We were shocked to discover the auction rule is standard as neither of us had ever used it in the table top version.
No one plays Monopoly by the actual rules, and then everyone complains that Monopoly is an awful game. Well yeah, it is. Because your stupid bloody house rules broke it. It’s not a great game by any stretch, but if you play according to the rules it’s a lot better.
No free money on free parking. What that does is artificially prolong the game potentially forever. You can’t give people properties to pay your rent – you have to sell the houses / hotels back to the bank, mortgage them, and then if you still can’t pay you are eliminated from the game and the player you owe money to takes everything. No one understands mortgaging in the game either (you get the amount the property can be mortgaged for from the bank, and later you can pay it back + 10% to re-activate the property for gathering rent again). Also no one ever auctions off the properties that are landed on like they should, so it takes forever for all the land to be bought up when playing properly, about 80% of the board should be owned by someone once everyone’s been around two or three times.
Yeah, we have started playing by the rules as written too. Makes for a quicker game I’ve found. The advice in the article would be useless in our games because 90% of the time if someone is in a position to have a colour set with three houses on each, they are going to win the game.
What really annoys people is when you do deals that aren’t strictly property sales per se. For example, I give you the property you need to make a set, but you agree never to charge me rent on any of that colour. Same with funding development. I’ll give you $$$ to build houses on that property but in return you’ll give me half the income you make from other players landing on those properties. Etc…
This omission is probably responsible for more drawn-out, frustrating and ultimately tedious games of Monopoly than any other.
I thought the answer was just “play it”.
You forgot to add “whilst drunk and naked”.
That actually makes it better! Also, pizza and lollies help.
Came here to post that.
Same.
Just play anything else.
I always hated Monopoly, the weird house rules everybody wants, the fact that it wasn’t even designed to be a fun game, but a method of showing people that Monopolies are bad things.
Why even play Monoply, there are so many other better games out there.
One Night Ultimate Werewolf is our current favourite Party game, it takes about 6-7 minutes a round, nobody gets excluded and even when you are the Werewolf, everybody knows it and you’re lying you arse off in a desperate attempt to create reasonable doubt it’s still hilarious. And it’s even better when unknown to you another player swapped you from the Werewolf to the Tanner who wins the game by getting Lynched by the villagers. Oh and it’s 10 players, the main reason I got it. Their are tons of role combinations, and despite it’s only a bluffing game your identity can be changed without your knowledge.
As someone totally unable to make things up on the spot (let alone convincingly) I hate games like Werewolf. Also most of the time there isn’t much to do but sit back and let the dominant personalities take over and talk it all out, and just wait around til it’s time for everyone to point fingers. But I guess that at least makes it pretty easy to “play” the day after a night of very little sleep.
I recently bought Dominion and am loving it. I’ve already had friends over several times to play it, even though I only got it on the 10th. It has heaps of variety as when you set up the game, there are 10 stacks of action cards. The game comes with 24 sets though so you can add heaps of variety there, not to mention the expansion packs.
I played the game once on the 9th, and had to get it after one game. First expansion I ordered should be available today. I’m hooked.
When you have Dominant personalities you need to tell them to reign it in, and while the game may not be to everyone’s tastes I know my group enjoys it. That’s just the latest example. There are tons of better games to play than Monopoly, Catan (Formerly Settlers of Catan), Betrayal at the House on Haunted Hill (if everyone can get their head around the rules), Fluxx, Munchkin. Ticket to Ride is similar to Monopoly but a lot more fun.
My point is Monopoly sucks and there are better games out there, Werewolf was chosen because it’s the same price as Monopoly.
I love Werewolf but no-one ever believes me because I have a reputation for lying and scheming (in games).
Make sure to put the Tanner in there, I spectacularly convinced everybody I was the Werewolf, but I was the Tanner.
For those of you wondering the Tanner wins by losing his Job is that bad.
The one night version is too quick for my liking.
I don’t understand why everyone likes house rules when they demonstrably make the game worse. For me the biggest offender is the idea you need to go around the board once before you can buy any property (NOT a standard rule); gives the luckiest person of the first lap a massive lead on buying property.
And the jackpot in the middle when you land on free parking. Land on that a couple of times and you have a massive advantage in auctions, house building etc.
Monopoly is based too much on luck. I hate it.
just like life rally
You pretty much just roll the dice and eat what’s on your plate. horrible.
I usually exchange all my money for $1 bills gradually. At some point, correct change becomes a concern, then it becomes an issue, then they leave.
I HATE MONOPOLY. The fastest way to ruin the game is to lose quickly… by favouring one player and losing to them. If they are not paying attention you can overpay a player and land on their properties… no one accuses you of cheating when your losing.
That’s the point of the game…. To show people that monopolies are bad things
the roll of the dice is enough for me, I land on income tax 8 times in a row which costs $200 and takes the $200 I get from passing Go.
Our way to ruin it was simple the table we played on had a small gap underneath where the wood panels would meet, before you play the game you take out a couple of bigger notes hide them in the gap and then sneakily get them out through out the course of the game. Helps when my parents have poor memories as well.
So, you literally just cheated? Good for you.
Oops, sorry for zombie post reply.
All good, yes you I did indeed just cheat lol.
Is this ruining it, or just, ya know, a standard strategy? The whole point is that there aren’t enough houses and hotels to go around. It reduces stalemates.
Exactly. This isn’t ruining it, it’s strategy. Just like refusing to sell properties to people looking for a complete set is strategy.
we played Billionaire instead of monopoly, the screaming at each other is actually constructive rather than detrimental to the family unit.
THREE THREE THREE!!!!!
Just chiming in with my (seemingly shared) dislike for this game. I don’t think I’ve ever finished a single game. It’s just so… not fun, for everyone involved. Your goal is to screw over everyone else through the most soul less and unimaginative process. Compare this to something like Catan or 7 Wonders where you’re also out to screw over your neighbours but the aesthetics/rules of those games make the experience enjoyable.
I’m gonna go ahead and add to this because someone re-linked the article. Ive always hated the competitive nature of Monopoly, how your goal is to completely and utterly destroy everyone else that plays and I refuse to play it with my family. What we DO play however is Monopoly World Edition. Its very different in that everyone is competing to fill stamps in a passport. Its a lot quicker and its “first to win” as opposed to “last to not die”.
That’s the point of the game though…. To show people that monopolies are bad things. It wasn’t actually made to be a fun game, it was made to expose the evils of capitalism by having players see how it works first hand as they crush each other financially and spiritually.
29 January 2016
If you understand nothing else, know that kotaku and co are reposting a bunch of articles from 2016 that were popular at the time. So, everything old is new again.
This only works if all players follow the actual Monopoly rules, every game i’ve played (with different people) over the years have had their own interpretation of the rules of even new aspects that they add to the game.
I bet if I tried this strat, someone would come up with the idea of using some random house hold object to represent houses/hotels
i.e “bottle caps now represent houses”
My wife and I have recently been playing a lot of monopoly together. We use no house rules, and both race to play as fast as possible. All properties are purchased on visit because we dare not let it go to auction, any property will be mortgaged early to help purchase additional properties and in almost no cases do we ever sell a property to another player. Houses are strictly limited to those in the box, all amounts paid by players go to the bank, not free parking. We also don’t allow special deals on property: you can rade properties for cash or property, but no immunities or special circumstances. If you land on a property, you have to pay, either by selling property or mortgaging.
Ah, Monopoly.
We have a set, of course. It’s not been opened.
For Xmas, my wife’s stepmum sent us a Monopoly set. Now we have two sets. FFS.
Liking Monopoly pretty much makes you undatable imo. It’s awful and there’s so many games that are more fun out there.