Board Game Trivia

5 Obscure Monopoly Trivia Facts
Published Tuesday, August 26, 2008 at 12:00:00 PM
 
Here's some Monopoly trivia I found that I simply had to share.

1. Based on probability, the most commonly landed on Monopoly square (not counting Jail) is Illinois Avenue. It's followed by Go, New York Avenue, B&O Railroad, Reading Railroad and Tennessee Avenue.
   
   The reasons for most of those is a mix between dice probabilities and where Chance cards send you. (When you leave jail, odds are you'll hit one of the orange properties. From there, you’re most likely to hit Illinois or B&O. And everything sends you toward Go.)
   
   
2. The least-likely square you'll land on is Mediterranean Avenue. Just above that are Baltic Avenue, Luxury Tax, Park Place and Oriental Avenue.
   
   For a lot of those, the probabilities are low because of the Go To Jail square... for example, it’s seven spots from Park Place, meaning you can’t roll a seven (the most common possible roll) and end up there. 
   
   
3. There's no such place as Marvin Gardens. There’s an area in Atlantic City called Marven Gardens.
   
   Apparently, it was misspelled on the first prototype of the game and never got fixed. 
   
   
4. In classic Monopoly (none of these new, inflation-oriented editions), the bank contains $15,140. 
   
   
5. Only two of the four railroads in the game were actually accurate when the game debuted in the 1930s. The B&O Railroad never served Atlantic City, and there's no such thing as the Short Line Railroad. (AC used to have a streetcar service called the Shore Fast Line and was served by a railroad called the Seashore Lines, so the name was probably inspired by one of those.)