Monopoly rules: how to play and how to win

Monopoly quick rules

The goal

You go around the board buying properties: the more you own, the more rent you collect when others land on them. A player who can’t pay goes bankrupt and leaves the game. The last player who still has money wins.

A turn

Roll both dice, move your token clockwise and follow the rule of the space. A double lets you roll again, but three doubles in a row send you to jail. Every time you pass or land on GO, the Bank gives you 200.

Buy or auction

An unowned property, a street, railroad or utility, can be bought at the listed price. If you don’t want it, the Banker auctions it, starting at 10 and open to everyone, you included. If nobody bids, it stays with the Bank.

Rent

The owner must ask for rent before the next player rolls, or it’s lost. A street’s rent doubles when its owner has the whole color set; railroad rent depends on how many are owned; utility rent is 4 times the dice, or 10 times with both.

Houses and hotels

With every street in a color set, you build houses, even when it’s not your turn, evenly across the set and four at most. Four houses on each street can be swapped for a hotel. No building on a set with a mortgaged street.

Special spaces

Chance and Community Chest: follow the top card, then put it at the bottom of the pile. Taxes: pay the Bank. Free Parking: nothing happens. Go to Jail: go straight there, without passing GO.

Jail

To get out, at the start of your turn: pay 50, use a Get Out of Jail Free card, or try for a double. A double frees you and you move, but your turn ends there; after three failed tries, you pay 50 and move. In jail, you still collect rent.

Deals, mortgages and bankruptcy

You can trade properties at any time, at an agreed price, after selling the set’s buildings back to the Bank. To raise money, sell your buildings for half price or mortgage a property. If you still can’t pay, you go bankrupt and leave the game.

Beginner traps

Skipping auctions, putting money in the middle for Free Parking, lending money between players or forgetting to ask for rent in time: the official rules have none of that, and these habits make the game longer.

How to win Monopoly

No points

Monopoly has no points, and the current rules have neither a time limit nor a count of everyone’s wealth.

Bankruptcy

A player who owes more than they can raise, even by selling buildings and mortgaging, goes bankrupt: they hand their properties to their creditor, or the Bank auctions them.

Victory

The game goes on until only one player is left: they win.

What Ludingo records

The winner, and for the record the players who went bankrupt.

Example ending

Emma and Jake are left. Jake lands on one of Emma’s streets with a hotel, rent 1,100. He has only 300 in cash: he sells his two houses at half price, 2 × 100 = 200, and mortgages his streets for 400. With 300 + 200 + 400 = 900, he can’t pay: he goes bankrupt, and Emma wins.

Common mistakes

• Collecting a Free Parking jackpot: it’s a house rule, the official rules give nothing there.
• Collecting 400 for landing on GO: it’s 200, landing or passing.
• Leaving a declined property with the Bank without an auction: auctions are mandatory.
• Stopping on time and counting wealth: the current rules don’t provide for it.

How to set up Monopoly

Setup takes about five minutes: a Banker, the starting money, the cards and the tokens.