If you’re planning on getting involved with some board gaming during this festive period, perhaps you should pin your ears back for this mathematically proven way to win at Monopoly.
Monopoly has the power to bring entire families together, before tearing them apart at the seams with ruthless hyper-capitalist gameplay and money-grabbing madness.
Still, it turns out that there is a way that you can come out on top every time, regardless of who you are playing, and it all comes down to the properties you buy.
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Obviously, you have to land on the right place in order to buy it, so there are still some key variables, but one maths student has revealed that there is more than luck to it if you buy carefully.
Writing to Deadspin, the Monopoly maths master said: “I study math in college and actually did a project on this and there have been numerous studies to predict the best strategies in Monopoly.
“Because it is all based on random chance, the exact probabilities can be determined by use of a Markov Chain.
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“The ‘Go to Jail’ square acts as a kind of sink, depriving the spaces after it of opportunities to be landed on, where as the ‘Jail’ square acts as a source and allows spaces after it to get landed on more frequently.
“I have attached an exact probability distribution for your enjoyment.
“As you can see the Orange spaces have some of the highest probabilities.”
It gets better though. The writer continued: “The strategy does not just end there, though.
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“If you take into account the money you put in, the money you get, and the probability of landing on that square, you can determine the Expected Return of that monopoly.
“The Orange monopolies still do very well in Expected Return and a player can expect to break even in the shortest amount of turns with these properties, so Orange is a very safe and good strategy.
“However, the Green properties actually yield the greatest Expected Return, but this is a much riskier move as the game must go on for a long time in order to see those investments pay off.
“So the choice is yours.
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“Try to end the game quickly using the Orange monopolies, or humiliate your opponents by having them mortgage their kids to pay off rent at Green.
“And no, women are not impressed/amused/interested when I tell them this.”
Well, that’s hardly surprising.
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It should still manage to give you the edge over your family this Christmas though.
Don’t say we never tell you anything worthwhile.
Tom Wood