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Comment by hilbert42 | Hacker News Reader

I haven't played Monopoly in decades. Reason: mostly I played with family and we ended up in fights and arguments. It brought out the worst in us, we'd deceive one another, hide $500 notes when others were not looking and gloat when one's opponent was sent to jail, and so on.

Monopoly really is a nasty game, it amplifies the worst aspects of human nature.

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Players can cheat in any game, but I think the designer of Monopoly would be happy that people do it more in Monopoly than in other games. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly_(game)#Early_history:

“The history of Monopoly can be traced back to 1903, when American anti-monopolist Lizzie Magie created a game that she hoped would explain the single-tax theory of Henry George. It was intended as an educational tool, to illustrate the negative aspects of concentrating land in private monopolies. She took out a patent in 1904. Her game, The Landlord's Game, was self-published, beginning in 1906.”

> Monopoly really is a nasty game

Nothing about Monopoly has stealing or hiding or gloating, though. Your family is not locked in here with Monopoly. Monopoly is locked in here with your family.

How is that the fault of the game? I never experienced any such thing during the dozens of times I played with different groups, including family. The idea of trying to cheat in a board game also seems absurd, to be honest. If there were real prize money - ok, that would at least make sense. But what's the point of deceiving family members over toy cash?

I'll say though that your experience might be in line with how the original game was intended. It was supposed to teach people about the evils of large-scale land grabbing.

Have you tried playing the game with children, who might be more invested in winning (and more upset by losing) than the average adult?

Most of my playing was when I was young and losing was upsetting. It's a highly competitive game.

Yeah, I always heard the intent of the game originally was for basically everyone to lose and say "oh this sucks!" Board game as object lesson.

"But what's the point of deceiving family members over toy cash?"

Why play a game unless the aim is to win—even with family? It's like playing poker, it's a game of one upmanship, such behavior helps deflate the ego of one's opponent which can change his/her decisions to one's advantage.

But then why wouldn't these same family members cheat in every other game?

Well, such behavior never occurred with other games such as chess, etc.—even with card games (outside normal strategies as in poker). I'd suggest the intrinsic design and 'psychology' of Monopoly is the reason. From comments here and those I've read about over the years my experience is far from being unique. Perhaps that's why it's always been controversial and often generated stories like this.

I'm not a psychologist or behavioral expert so I'm unable to make any authoritative comment about why my family would behave differently to perhaps, say, yours.

That's... really odd. I loved Monopoly as a kid, but my family didn't love playing because the games dragged on so long. As an adult, I realize the problem with the game is that the result gets decided fairly early on and takes a REALLY long time to play out/drive itself into the ground as the losers get more and more bored.

I don't see anything about the game itself that would lead myself or anyone I know to lie and cheat.

I think the divergence of opinion in these replies illustrates the large difference in the worldviews of players. It's likely why the game remains controversial.

Same with me and my brother when I was a kid. Family story: we made our own Monopoly from paper & cardboard after our parents banned us from playing the game. Wonder where that ended up.

Monopoly really is a nasty game, because it models the nasty aspects of capitalism/markets + human nature quite well, I guess.

It was originally created to demonstrate the evils of capitalist routines. Then bought by a game company.

See wiki article. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly_(game)

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