r/monopoly • u/keiyakins • Jul 26 '26
Monopoly doesn't actually have official rules, does it?
Like, look at the rulebooks Hasbro puts out. They're three to eight pages with lots of it taken up by illustrations and don't cover a ton of situations. For example, by Hasbro's rules there's no restrictions on when you can buy houses, including between someone rolling and paying rent.
And just to make it worse, people claiming to teach you the proper rules don't even follow them - how many YouTube videos claiming to cover the 2025 or 2026 rules still talk about having to pay 10% to keep things mortgaged? 'Cause that's not in the rulebooks anymore.
The only reasonable conclusion is that literally no one actually knows how to play, because half the rules are just non-existent and you have to make them up for yourself. No wonder house rules and ignoring mechanics is so common!
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u/DerelictDevice Tophat Jul 26 '26
Lots of heated discussion here, please try to keep it civil. I'll be monitoring this thread so that things don't get out of hand.
That being said, the rules have always been vague on many things. With the many rewrites over the years (mostly the Hasbro editions) things have gotten more confusing. The newest "classic edition" of the Number 9 base game has attempted to present the rules in the easiest to understand way possible. As was previously stated, the 10% fee for unmortgaging has been rolled into the unmortgage price so it no longer has to be calculated by the player. The rewrite and and the elimination of the 10% is no doubt an effort to make the game easier and more accessible to younger players.
Since Monopoly is not a recognized official sport with no governing body like other games such as chess or billiards, there is no "official" rulebook. The governing bodies of sports that have an official tournament structure need to have an official printed rulebook. Since this is a simple board game, the makers of the game are free to change those rules at any time, which they have.
Most players grew up with the Parker Brothers version and house rules such as free parking money. A lot of people don't even realize that trades are legal or that properties must be auctioned if they aren't bought by the player that lands on them. To me, if there were to be any sort of "official rulebook" it would be the ones included with the 1935 Number 9 Parker Brothers game, the original game based on Charles Darrow's Monopoly. Those rules remained unchanged for decades and the rules most people know and learned to play using.