Monopoly

Components

Setup

1. 1Unfold the board and place the Chance and Community Chest cards face down on their spaces.
2. 2Each player chooses a token and places it on GO.
3. 3Choose a Banker. If the Banker also plays, they must keep personal funds separate from the Bank's.
4. 4Each player receives $1,500 — two each of $500, $100, and $50; six $20s; five each of $10, $5, and $1.

Taking a turn

1. 1Roll both dice and move your token the total shown, in the direction of the arrow.
2. 2Resolve whatever the landing space requires (buying, paying rent, taxes, cards, and so on).
3. 3If you roll doubles, resolve that space, then roll again, keeping the dice.
4. 4If you roll doubles three times in a row, move directly to Jail without resolving the third space; your turn ends there.
5. 5Passing or landing on GO collects $200 from the Bank (only once per trip around the board).

Buying property and rent

1. 1Landing on an unowned property lets you buy it at its printed price from the Bank.
2. 2If you decline, the Banker immediately auctions it. Anyone may bid, including the player who declined, and bidding may start at any price.
3. 3Landing on another player's property means paying the rent listed on its deed. A mortgaged property collects no rent.
4. 4Owning an entire color-group lets you charge double rent on unimproved properties in it, even if another property in that group is mortgaged — as long as the property being rented is not itself mortgaged.

Houses and hotels — building evenly

1. 1You must own an entire color-group before building houses on it.
2. 2Build evenly: you cannot put a second house on any property in the group until every property in it has one house. Up to 4 houses per property, and the difference in house count across the group must never exceed one.
3. 3Once a property has 4 houses, you may return them to the Bank and pay for a hotel. Only one hotel per property.
4. 4Selling houses or hotels back to the Bank must also happen evenly, in reverse of the order they were built, at half the purchase price.

Jail

There are three ways into Jail: (1) landing on the 'Go to Jail' space, (2) drawing a card that sends you there, or (3) rolling doubles three times in a row. A player sent to Jail collects no $200 salary that turn and the turn ends immediately. Simply landing there in the normal course of play ('Just Visiting') carries no penalty.

Mortgages

An unimproved property can be mortgaged with the Bank at any time for the value printed on its deed. A property with houses or a hotel can only be mortgaged after all buildings in that color-group are sold back to the Bank at half price. Mortgaged properties and utilities collect no rent, though unmortgaged properties in the same group still do.

Bankruptcy and winning

1. 1If you cannot pay a debt owed to another player, you turn over everything of value to them and leave the game. Houses and hotels are returned to the Bank for half their price, which goes to the creditor.
2. 2If you cannot pay a debt owed to the Bank (taxes, fines) even after selling buildings and mortgaging property, you turn over all assets to the Bank, which auctions everything except buildings.
3. 3In the standard rules, play continues until only one player remains, who wins.
4. 4A Time Limit Game variant is also in the official rules: agree on an end time in advance, then the player with the highest combined cash and property value wins.

Strategy

• The orange group diagonally across from Jail is statistically landed on most often, since it matches common roll totals right after leaving Jail.
• Stopping at 4 houses can sometimes beat going straight to a hotel — with only 32 houses in the Bank, spreading houses across multiple groups can delay an opponent's hotel conversion (which requires returning houses).
• Use auctions actively. Declining to buy a property does not shut you out — under the official rules, the player who declined may still bid, sometimes winning it cheaper.

House rules and Korean editions

The official rules include two variants: the Short Game and the Time Limit Game. Interestingly, even the two revisions Hasbro distributes disagree on Short Game details — the 8-page version has players buy two dealt deeds at full price and ends on the second bankruptcy, while the 6-page version deals three deeds for free and ends on the first bankruptcy. Agree on which version you're using beforehand.

Hasbro distributes several Korean-language editions directly in Korea beyond the Classic set — an e-card edition, an app-banking edition, City, Millionaire, and Junior (wiki cross-check). Korea-only K-Real Estate / K-Subscription expansion content reflecting Korean property concepts such as comprehensive real estate tax, housing subscription, and reconstruction is also reported to exist (wiki cross-check, ⚠️ exact rules unverified).

Frequently confused official rules

History

Monopoly traces back to Lizzie Magie's 'The Landlord's Game,' devised and patented around 1903–1904 to teach anti-monopolist economic ideas. In 1932, Charles Darrow of Philadelphia encountered the game, added railroad and utility spaces, and produced his own version. In 1935, Parker Brothers bought both Darrow's copyright and Magie's patent rights (for a mere $500) and began selling it that November (wiki cross-check).

Hasbro acquired Parker Brothers in 1991, taking over ownership of Monopoly. As of 2015, cumulative sales are estimated at roughly 275 million copies, licensed in more than 113 countries and published in more than 46 languages (wiki cross-check).