Developing a Corrupt Business Practice

The best-selling board game of all-time is unarguably, Monopoly.  If you don't know, a monopoly occurs when a company or group having exclusive control over a commodity or service. The game was developed to demonstrate the evils of land ownership.

The history of Monopoly can be traced back to the early 20th century, where the earliest known version, The Landlord's Game, was designed by an American, Elizabeth Magie, and first patented in 1904. A series of board games were developed from 1906 through the 1930s that involved the buying and selling of land and the development of that land. By 1933, a board game had been created much like the version of Monopoly sold by Parker Brothers and its related companies through the rest of the 20th century and into the 21st.

By the 1970s, the idea that the game had been created solely by Charles Darrow had become popular, and it was printed in the game's instructions for many years. It was even cited in a general book about toys even as recently as 2007.


Also in the 1970s, Professor Ralph Anspach had published a board game intended to illustrate the principles of both monopolies and trust busting, fought over the copyright and trademarks of Monopoly. Through the research of Anspach, the early history of the game was "rediscovered" and entered into official United States court records. The lengthy court process was not settled until 1985.

Above is the first page of the patent submission for the first version of Elizabeth Magie's board game.

Below is a postcard replica of a 1936 poster introducing Monopoly to the U.K.

It's interesting to see how Monopoly has developed since its inception. There are international tournaments held often. There are many spin-off board games and card games, as well as video game and computer games. Hasbro, the parent company, modified the official logo to give the "Mr. Monopoly" character a 3-D computer-generated look.

Monopoly has an interesting history and it's very cool to see how the most popular board game of all time came about.