Why does everyone hate Monopoly? | The secret behind the world’s biggest board game

99 Comments

1. I love Monopoly ,it is great a game . I like winning ,but losing gives you information on your mistakes .Monopoly isn't just luck at all ,there are dice probabilities 7 is the most rolled number from 2 dice .Take whatever you can and do trade smartly. Luck is part of Monopoly ,but most of the time players make dumb decisions that is what you can fix .

2. This game, and Risk is a No No in my home.

3. Everybody hates monopoly because my sister is a big cheat and always stuffs a couple of hundreds in her left sock.

4. I once had a Pokemon themed Monopoly set when I was a child. I had fun playing with the figurines and pretending it was one big dollhouse town.

   Apparently when I read the rules I was playing it wrong, but the actual game looked so boring, I didn't really care.

5. I don't think people hate Monopoly.
   I think they hate playing me in Monopoly.

6. The one other thing I'd mention about why to hate Monopoly: Most people play by a house rule (not in game rules) which generally involves all payments of taxes and bills from the cards and Income Tax spot to go into the middle and whomever lands on Free Parking gets all of it. This house rule (that I grew up thinking was a real rule) simply prolongs and already painful game.

7. I knew that it had started as the Landlords Game as a socialist criticism about capitalism. Didnt know about the alternative or the story about how the game was stolen after they played and unironically enjoyed the game. So thanks Wheels.

8. I actually love monopoly but no one I know does so I never get to play it.

9. Hopefully, next week's episode is Wheels' treatise on how to make Monopoly fun

10. It’s one of the worst games ever invented.

11. Siting here sweating because the reason no one in my family likes monoply is because I always wreck them in monopoly.

12. I'm not a fan of Monopoly, but the last part of the video falls a bit flat. "It's automatically bad because it's published by the biggest games publisher" doesn't really carry much weight.

13. Thanks for covering this subject! I love the sad irony of Monopoly! and im a Chicagoan, so like, its a story that is close to home.

14. Pretty big disconnect between title and content here. Nobody (at least not a significant part of Monopoly-haters) hates Monopoly because of its origin story, nor because Hasbro is such a big company in the tabletop space.
    Personally I hate Monopoly because of the lack of player agency; about the only bit in the video that did hold true to the title.

15. Fantastic video—I knew some of the history, but love getting the fuller story. But one quibble: is Hasbro really remotely a “monopoly” in tabletop gaming? A monopolist isn’t just “a big company” but one so dominant it can effectively squeeze out competition. On the BGG rankings, the first Hasbro-published game (Agricola) shows up currently at 32, and the next (Heroscape) shows up at 379. WotC’s top game (surpisingly not MTG but Lords of Waterdeep) shows up at 76. Obviously Hasbro has tons of games—often aimed at kids or families—that do massively, massively better in sales than they do in the rankings on a site for tabletop afficionados. But it does suggest consumers have ready access to an enormous number of widely popular games from many other publishers, which is more or less definitionally not what a monopolized market looks like.

16. Interesting video.
    I think the another reason nowadays is how much time a game of monopoly takes compared to a lot of more modern games. It's a real evening-killer, which doesn't combine well with the points you've already mentioned about low agency and deliberately unengaging mechanics.
    My mum has a habit of referring to the game as "monotony"

17. There was a game called Anti-Monopoly years ago- not sure of what ever became of it but ironically it also involved building a monopoly of interests…

18. Outstanding examination and political analysis of board games.

19. I can enjoy Monopoly, but knowing its history… yeah, I'm even more open to alternatives now.

20. I just hate that the Monopoly money is fake.

21. I am pretty sure monopoly is hated because our bad experience with a lot of house ruling in our childhood. I would still play monopoly, if only we play it by the rules, no house ruling!!

22. This brought back memories of playing with my family. I remember how my father enjoyed beating all of us and how unfair it felt at such a young age. We only played maybe 5 times that I can recall. I don’t think I ever won once. I would have loved to play the co-op version that she made. In fact my mom and siblings prefer co-op games and we try to do weekly board game nights. I can’t wait to look into more board games. I already have a long list of board games I want to get from all your dicebreaker videos.

23. It might be strange to learn that a game isn’t designed to be fun?

    Mate, I’ve played Magic the Gathering before.

24. Thank You. Well put and calmly presented. Well researched and concise. I will use this to show to co-workers in the store where I work. We sell games.

25. Monopoly is a special game to me because it was one of the few games I could play with one of my friends as he had a version of it made for the blind. We played it for hours and always ended up in a stalemate. The important thing was it was a game both of us could play. I haven't played Monopoly in years now, though I have a few of the branded versions of the game, they aren't played.

26. First time I ever tried to play Monopoly as an adult with a fully functioning brain I was almost immediately sent to jail.

    I'm glad my dislike for the game has a solid basis.

    (Also this was extremely interesting, I will always look at it differently now, thank you)

27. Was expecting a lighthearted rant, but got an actual history lesson about an incredible woman and general game design. I'll be damned, I seriously learned something today! Thanks and well done, Wheels!^^

28. Thank you SO much for making this video. It’s an important story with so many layers of context that build on each other. It’s exciting to see finally see a video that captures it all so well together.

    I just sent it to, like, everyone I know who cares about games (or are curious about why games matter so much to me : )

29. I used to enjoy monopoly because it made people cry ( including evil mustace twirling). But I was shown the error of my ways and I'm a better person now.

30. It is almost as if there are only 2 type of games, the ones where you try to beat everyone else so they feel terrible and not you, or the ones where you have to work together in order to all win. But sarcasm aside, i think monopoly has simple started to show it's age by today. So many interesting and fun variants of games these days that perhaps have the same goal (beating everyone else around the room) but do it in such various ways. I actually got into Root because it was featured here on dicebreaker, and have loved it. Meanwhile social deduction games are also very attractive for me, but unfortunately no-one in my direct friends area wants to play those. But while i enjoyed monopoly in the past, i am indeed one of those that rolls my eyes at the mere mention of it, as it indeed usually only fun for one player, the winning one.

31. Just a quick comment to point out that Georgism wasn't just a philosophy of Elizabeth Magie's day but it's actually recognised by many economists today to be among the most progressive, fairest and most efficient systems of taxation. Which of course is why the government won't entertain the possibility and why you don't hear much about it…

    A UK-wide land value tax of around 5-10% could replace both VAT and Income Tax completely , massively redistribute wealth away from banks and landowners (by which I dont mean homeowners, but people owning more than their "fair share" of land and/or property and hoovering up rent without actually adding any value or production), and generally make taxation both simpler to administer and harder for the wealthy to find loopholes to avoid (you can hide or disguise your income, but you can't hide a house or a plot of land).

32. 13:52 why is she moving the houses?

33. I saw math study video that studied if it was the best thing to buy everything. They came to the conclusion that you can upgrade your chance of winning by buying certain plots depending on the number of players around the table. Because of the odds of your rolls. Can't imagine how much boring it would be to play against someone who use this strategy.

34. Great video! Nice work. I hate Monopoly, but now it at least makes sense why.

35. Easiest way to still have fun is mod it. Don't auction a property if you don't want to buy it and end the game early once all the properties are bought. Whoever then has the most money (or least money) wins. Simple changes can keep the fun and enjoyment (as well as a shorter overall game).

36. I actually like Monopoly and learned a little bit about the history before watching this video so this should be good :).

    EDIT: I was right! Wonderfully infomative. Thanks so much!

37. This is a very good video. Love home much it teached me. Not sure what I expected but it was quite entertaining. Go Wheels!

38. Will you guys consider making a video on Monsterpunk?

39. Then, of course, there are the "house rules" that were, more often than not, "invented" (because, y'know, no-one ever reads the rules) so that a player (usually the inventor of said rules(s)) could actually win.

40. This video really gets me as someone struggling to introduce anything aside from d&d at the game table.

41. I have to disagree on the “luck-vs-skill” argument. My dad is an accountant, and the first lesson of Monopoly I learned is “the accountant always wins”. Even when you cheat and slip yourself some extra money at the beginning of the game, the accountant ALWAYS wins. We had to homebrew some rules that basically turned it into a 3-vs-1 game to give anyone else a chance. Now the accountant just usually wins.

42. Are we ribbing on Papa Hasbro? lemme call the MTG warriors!!

    Kidding aside. I wholeheartedly agree on the No randomness=Predictable
    too much randomness=frustrating

43. Wait, there are people who are fans of being taxed?!? 🤣 .

44. 13:00 "Ooh la la, someone's getting laid in college" 🤣

45. Are there any hacks or house-rules you can apply to the game to make it any better? Or use the game pieces and play an altogether game with it?

46. Great video! I had no idea about the second, Georgist, game! 🤯 Maybe follow this up with a video of games similar to Monopoly as suggestions for people who are tired of playing it?

47. Not started the video yet, but my highlight: most people don’t play the game properly. No one uses the auction rules set out in the book, and no one uses the right strategy to play.

    Edit: I’m a horrible person, as I love playing, and almost always win playing monopoly. I also found this super interesting! Thanks Wheels!!

48. Monopoly a.k.a. Familybreaker

49. For a bunch of folks who say they hate Monopoly, they sure do talk about Monopoly a lot.

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