The Monopoly Scandal | Luke Visser Chappaqua

When most people think of feuds that arise from Monopoly, they likely imagine arguing over properties and rent when playing the game. However, for the game’s inventors and publisher, there was another feud entirely.

Monopoly first became available to purchase in 1935 . Many people enjoyed — or hated — countless hours of Parkers Brothers’ Monopoly before the company became part of Hasbro in 1991. In fact, we now know that the board game was never designed to be enjoyable; it was created to teach people about the pitfalls of monopolies. But we haven’t always been aware of that fact.

For approximately 40 years, the credit for Monopoly has been given to one Charles Darrow, an out-of-work salesman who was able to turn his own rags to riches thanks to the popularity of the board game. Some people viewed Darrow’s rise to wealth and fame in parallel to a player’s good fortune in the game — if they’re lucky, that is. The roots of Monopoly actually go further back.

In 1904, feminist Lizzy Magie first patented a board game called Landlord’s Game with two sets of rules. One set of rules encouraged players to collaborate, while the other was more similar to modern Monopoly. As the first patent ran out, Magie applied for another, this time with revised game rules, including moving in a circle and causing other players to become bankrupt.

Darrow owes credit to Magie’s original game. It was Darrow who is responsible for mass-marketing Monopoly after playing Landlord’s Game, and this earned him the ire from the game’s original creator. Magie contacted both the press and Parker Brothers. The latter promised $500 in exchange for the patent, and Magie thought there would be a chance to create more games with the company. Yet no business partnership would flourish.

In fact, Parker Brothers used the patent to sue an economic professor named Ralph Anspach in the 1970s when he attempted to create a game like anti-Monopoly, the rules of which matched one set — now Parker Brothers’ property — of Magie’s original rules. After 10 years in court, Anspach was successful, and he eventually wrote the book that revealed how Parker Brothers had swindled one game creator and failed to swindle another.

Originally published at https://lukevisserchappaqua.org.