Game of Chance or Game of Stats?

In the world of games, one game dominates over others in all the categories:  length of play, level of competition, thinking skills, random chance, negotiating ability, number of versions, and the innate tendency to destroy friendships in a single roll of the dice:

Since the 1930s, people have been playing this game, rolling the dice, buying properties, and just hoping everything turns out right.  I mean, after all, it involves dice, so it's just a game of chance.  The only thing that's determining if I win or not is if the dice send me to Boardwalk with a hotel on it, right?

The nefariousness of your deed can never be undone.  Mr. Top Hat is probably ruined for life!

Wrong.  Very, very wrong.  In fact, you can build your hotel on Boardwalk and still lose the game.

"But I've got the best spot in the game!  It's the most expensive!"

Yes, it's the most expensive, but you don't understand!  The other blue spot...the one you need to make the monopoly to build the Boardwalk...It's evil...but in a completely different way!

When my parents first started teaching me to play Monopoly when I was nine, they taught me two equally important truths:  Boardwalk is the most expensive property, and Illionis Avenue is the most landed on property.

"Pfft!  Yeah, right!  How in the world is that?"

Because, my dear randomly praying and rolling, friend, Monopoly is more than a game of chance...it is also a game of statistics.

Here are the ten most landed on spaces in Monopoly:
1.  Illinois Avenue
2.  Go
3.  B & O Railroad
4.  New York Avenue
5.  Reading Railroad
6.  Tennessee Avenue
7.  Pennsylvania Railroad
8.  St. James Avenue
9.  Water Works
10.  Kentucky Avenue
Boardwalk is only the 16th most landed on property (not counting all the spaces; just the properties).  Park Place is the least landed on space.  Although I don't know exactly how the stats were calculated for any other space, I can explain Park Place.  The most rolled number with two dice is seven.  Park Place is seven spaces from "Go to Jail."  Because "Go to Jail" immediately sends you backward to jail, Park Place is landed on less than any other Monopoly space.

A handy dandy chart for the visual learners out there.

One note I will make is that some websites don't have Go on the list because it isn't a property, thereby altering what #10 is.  Also, other sites claim Go To Jail/Just Visiting is the most landed on space (due to the 3 Doubles rule, Go to Jail space, Go to Jail cards, and simply rolling and landing on "Just Visiting"), however, I tend to see this as kind of like a two-headed, one-bodied Siamese twin space.  It's got two different things going on, two different purposes, but they're still joined, causing people to perceive them as one space.

Now, here are my tips to playing a good stat based game of Monopoly:

Tip #1:  You WANT to own Illinois.  Statistically, it's the best single space to own in terms of other people landing on it.  You can get here by both dice roll and by card.  Therefore, if you own Illinois, you want to try to scoop up the other red spaces too, if possible, because then you can collect more rent when people land on Illinois.  Also, notice that Kentucky is on the top 10 list, and, although it's not on my list, I do need to point out Indiana ranks just below Kentucky statistically.

Own these

Tip #2:  Don't freak out because Go is only the second most landed on space.  Notice the key term here is "landed on."  You will pass Go more times than you will land on it.  Of course, there's always the chance that you'll land on income tax and never see your $200, but you're statistically more likely to land on other spaces.  Statistically.

It was the best of times

It was the worst of times.

Point #3:  Your best monopoly is the orange one.  Look at the list again:  New York, Tennessee, and St. James all made the Top 10.  I call this the "Jail Row Monopoly."  Yes, Parker Brothers was somewhat kind and placed a Community Chest seven spaces from jail, BUT what are the rules for jail again?  Either pay $50 OR roll doubles.  Let's check where the doubles land you:  Electric Company (never too painful because it's only the double 1's), Virginia, St. James, Tennessee, Free Parking, and Chance.  That's what makes owning the orange so good:  you have a one in three chance of someone who rolled doubles out of jail landing on your property.  Furthermore, if they roll low doubles, they still have a chance of landing on the oranges.  Rolling double sixes sends them to Chance where they can either be sent back to Jail, sent to St. Charles, or sent to Go, leaving the possibility for them to land on your oranges quite open still.  So best individual card to own:  Illinois; best monopoly to own:  the oranges.

This monopoly is so awesome, Etsy suggests framing the cards and hanging them on your wall.

Tip #4:  Hope for Boardwalk and Park Place but don't sweat it if you don't get them.  Seriously, I told you the stats for these two.  Boardwalk isn't ranked super high statistically (If it's 16 for properties, it's ranked even lower when the other spaces are counted in), and Park Place isn't landed on a ton really either.  If you own half of this monopoly but not the other half, don't go trading two pink properties, $300, a "Get Out of Jail Free" card, and your firstborn child to get it.  Instead, focus on putting the individual who has that space out of the game so you can get their card for free, plus the price of the mortgage, etc., etc., etc.

And so on and so forth and...sorry; random The King and I moment

Tip #5:  Think through your trades.  Even though Ventnor has a higher rent than St. James, trading it away to get St. James may not be a bad idea, even if it gives the other person a monopoly.  You have gotten a monopoly that is far more landed on.  Trust me on this.  Once, I traded my dad an orange for a green, completing both our monopolies, and got beaten.  Green is higher rent than orange, but Mom warned me it wasn't a good trade.  Because I wasn't thinking statistically, I lost.  Sometimes making a trade that seems like a step down may actually help you out in the long run, if you make a trade for the better statistical advantage.

Tip #6:  Railroads are important, but once again, don't sweat if you only have one or two.  Railroads being important should seem like a "duh," especially since Short Line is the only railroad not listed in the Top 10.  However, railroads aren't something really worth trading over.  I'm not going to pay you a bunch of money and hand over my Electric Company just to get my hands on B&O, unless it's the last one I need to own all the railroads.  If I've got two, I'm going to be content with two and instead focus on putting you out of the game and collecting your railroads that way.

Tip #7:  Only buy houses and hotels if you have lots of extra money on hand.  I'm not buying a house if it leaves me with only $283 sitting around in my hand.  I only buy houses and hotels when I feel secure about moving around the board without having to mortgage my properties and/or sell houses.  They're nice little upgrades, but since I can't sell them back full price, they can be an awful waste if no one lands on the property while they're there.  I don't know how many times I've put all these nice little houses on Illinois Avneue and then promptly landed on North Carolina Avenue with a house and had to sell back all my houses in order to pay Mr. Battleship rent money.  If I'd done it, you know, eight turns before, then I'm kind of like, "[sigh of frustration] Why did no one land on my property?" but if I just put those houses up and this happens I'm like, "Why did you do that, Katrina?  You are the worst Monopoly player on planet earth!"

All that beautiful lovely money, now sacrificed to the evil person who I used to love!

Tip #8:  May the odds be ever in your favor.  Honestly, in the end, Monopoly still does have many elements of a game of chance.  You can't force the dice to roll sevens or doubles when you need them.  Maybe statistically you aren't going to land on Park Place, but as soon as Mr. Shoe places his third house there, you do, and you're kicking yourself big time.  I know this is a very ironic tip in my post about how Monopoly is actually a game of stats, but Mark Twain's third category of lies is "statistics."  I can throw you statistics all day, but the dice don't have brains, and they don't know they're supposed to roll sevens most of the time.  So, yep, in the end, a lot of chance is still involved, but a knowledge of the statistics can certainly improve your game.  I can't promise you're going to go out there and kill everyone in Monopoly now, but I can say that these tips should help at least improve your game.  They improved my game at least.

Yeah, I was obligated to post this after what Tip #8 was.

BONUS TIP!
Tip #9:  Have fun.  It's just a game, but go out there and compete, but really have fun, enjoy yourself for a couple, few, seventy hours or so, and win.  And maybe, just maybe, try one of the hundreds of other versions available.

All the versions; all the possibilities; all the miniscule optional rule variations making each one different from the last!  It's brilliant!

P.S.  Also, I grew up without collecting money when landing on Free Parking, which makes me a dozen times more hardcore than most Monopoly players on this planet.  Not bragging or anything, though.  I am just saying, though, that money in the middle isn't in the rules.