Jim over at Blueprint For Financial Prosperity gave a quickie list of five personal finance teaching gifts for kids. Number 3 on the list was Monopoly.
I agree 100% that this is a great game for teaching kids about the ins and outs of money — with one caveat: Play the game by the rules.
Monopoly has a lot of subtlety that is lost if you play with any number of house rules. When I was younger I didn't play by all of the rules, and there was too much luck involved. Some of the ones that come to mind:
- Not auctioning off properties not bought. If I land on Virginia Avenue and decide not to buy it, the property is supposed to be sold at auction to the highest bidder. An opportunity passed by is an opportunity for someone else.
- Free parking bonanza, double GO money for landing on it, etc. There is some luck involved in which properties you land on, but throwing in all of the fines into a kitty for the first person that lands on Free Parking is too much of a wild card and can give a lousy player an undeserved advantage.
- Extra houses and hotels. There are only 12 hotels and 32 houses allowed in the game. They are scarce resources. If the houses are all in play, and you can't improve your monopolies, well that's just too bad!
- Collecting rent whenever you feel like it. If two people after you roll the dice and you haven't collected rent you're owed, well that's just too bad as well! You have to mind your own business.
Monopoly is a lot more than collecting a GO paycheck and managing money. It's also about taking prudent risks and interacting with other players. A great book that got me re-interested in Monopoly is Alan Axelrod's Everything I Know About Business I Learned from Monopoly
My father taught me that the best ROI came from building 3 houses each on the orange streets … or something like that. It was a long time ago and I haven't played for years. I have a 4yr old and a 2yr old, so I will probably be 'investing' in a new game soon.
Dominic that's right. The oranges, and then the reds right next to them.
Wow, I never thought of Monopoly that way. We had a Monopoly video game for the Sega Master System (remember that thing?) and we cheated on it all the time, buying property for a dollar by adding a phony player and then going to auction whenever the dummy player landed on a property. I didn't learn how to manage my money so well, but I guess I learned a lesson in fraud… 🙂
You're a wet blanket!
But I agree, when you play by the real rules there is more strategy and skill in place as opposed to luck. Both are fun, but when you're looking for a more serious game in order to obtain bragging rights I say play by the rules.
Even breaking the rules teaches lessons about money. When my son was about to lose, my wife decided to pass out an additional $2000 to every player. The result of this action was runaway inflation. Soon everyone had houses and hotels, and rental rates went through the roof.