The Best Idea Yet - 🎩 Monopoly: The Shocking Scandal Behind the World’s Favorite Game | 17

Episode Date: February 4, 2025

Monopoly: the game that taught you to ruthlessly bankrupt your friends and family, one hotel at a time. With 250 million copies sold worldwide, ⅔ of American homes have a copy. But you probably don't know its shocking origin story: Monopoly rewards runaway greed — but was originally created by a feminist to teach about the evils of economic inequality. It was a financial flop…but an underground hit when a down-on-his-luck salesman claimed it as his own, making more moolah than Rich Uncle Pennybags — and (almost) writing the original creator out of history. Until an anti-establishment professor with an FBI file blew the lid off Monopoly’s scandalous history. Discover how the best products require iteration, why you need to (sometimes) trust your gut over data, and why Monopoly is the best idea yet.Be the first to know about Wondery’s newest podcasts, curated recommendations, and more! Sign up now at https://wondery.fm/wonderynewsletterFollow The Best Idea Yet on the Wondery App or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to new episodes early and ad-free on Wondery+. Join Wondery+ in the Wondery App, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Start your free trial by visiting www.wondery.com/links/the-best-idea-yet/ now. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to the best idea yet early and ad free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple podcasts. Okay, you hear that thunder. We are stuck at home, man. It is raining outside, the electricity's out, and I know you and Tucker are bored of watching VH1 reruns at this point. Well, no, I mean if the electricity's out, I guess we're not playing Sonic the Hedgehog, I'm not playing Crash Bandicoot. Okay, so you got the games, you're gonna play board games.

What are we pulling off the shelf? Have you ever played the Game of Life? Yeah, I played the Game of Life. I lost because I had like 14 kids in the Game of Life. You could do shoots and ladders. Candyland is good, That's a classic. You know, you get stuck in the lollipop swamp. Doesn't sound so bad.

But if you really wanted a whole night of gameplay, how about Monopoly? There's also Monopoly. You know what our house rule was when we played Monopoly? No one can touch the board. Because if you touch the board, you mess with everyone's wallet. I think there are some trust issues here

that you need to work out with someone before we play Monopoly another time, man. Monopoly has the highest of highs, it has the lowest of lows, and you are guaranteed 100% absolutely certain to be flipping a table at some point during that Monopoly game. Mom! I am your son. I am your flesh and blood. Yeah, your sister, she definitely cheated.

What's special about Monopoly, Jack, is that each game actually taught you something. What it taught me was that when money's on the line, flesh and blood doesn't matter. My mom is gonna jack up the rent on me. It taught you endurance. It taught you the banker never loses. It taught you to go all in on orange, railroads are trash, and being the Terrier

doesn't get you any sympathy, man. Yetis, today we're taking a trip around the board to explore the surprisingly scandalous history of Monopoly. More on that in a minute. People love Monopoly because one roll of the dice can take you from bottom of the heap to real estate tycoon. All while learning some cold, hard economic truths about cash.

Published by Parker Brothers in 1935, Monopoly is still the best-selling board game in history. As long as we don't count the vintage classics like Chess and Checkers, we're not counting Tic Tac Toe either. Over 250 million copies of Monopoly have been sold worldwide. And besties with countless alternative formats like Harry Potter Monopoly, Star Wars Monopoly, and even Swift-Op-Poly, Taylor's version. Monopoly is found in two-thirds of American homes. So statistically speaking, listeners, you, yes you, you probably have a game of Monopoly

on your shelf as we speak. And statistically speaking, you're still bitter about your Sisters-Rideway strategy. Come on, Katie. But Monopoly, it is the most familiar game in the board game market, which happens to be worth $16.8 billion as of 2023. And yet Monopoly is also going for broke in the digital era. Because the latest version of Monopoly, Monopoly Go, was the fastest mobile game ever to reach $1 billion in revenue in the United States.

Even if you know your way from St. Charles Place to Marvin Gardens by heart, there is a lot about Monopoly that you do not know because this is a game that rewards cutthroat competition, but it also began as a way to teach about the dangers of runaway greed. So the opposite of what the game is actually known for today. And on its way to becoming America's most popular board game,

the Monopoly origin story passed through a frat house, a religious society, and Atlantic city. Until one day, a down on his luck salesman passed the idea for Monopoly off as his own invention and sold it to make a fortune. It's a wild story. This guy very nearly erased the true creator of Monopoly from history.

That would be Lizzie Maggie, a feminist inventor and political firebrand. And Monopoly's actual origin story, it only came to light when an anti-establishment professor with an FBI file went up against an army of corporate lawyers. This story reveals how the best products don't spring up from perfectly formed ideas. They usually take a lot of collaboration.

And we'll see why it's important to sometimes ignore the data and go with your gut. All right, Jack, it is time to shuffle the chance cards, sort the banker's stash, and pick a piece. On the top hat, by the way. I'm the dog. Let's roll the dice, Nick. This is why Monopoly is the best idea yet. From Wonder and T-Boy, I'm Nick Marktown. And I'm Jack Kraviche Kramer. And this is the best idea yet.

The untold origin stories of the products you're obsessed with and the bold risk takers who brought them to life. Charles Darrow is in his basement in the Germantown neighborhood of Philadelphia. It's the height of the Great Depression, and he's an unemployed heating salesman. But he's not down there in the basement fixing the boiler. Darrow is hunched over a game board. Squinting in the candlelight, he paints little boxes around its edge. In each box, he paints the name of an Atlantic City landmark.

Baltic Avenue, Larvin Gardens, Boardwalk. He also makes squares for railroad and utility companies. In the corner, go to jail and free parking. As dawn breaks, Darrell paints on the finishing touch. One single word written in all caps, diagonally across the center of the board. Monopoly. Like so many of the stories of other iconic products we've covered

on this show, the Monopoly origin tale, it starts with humble origins. Think Nike, like Phil Knight selling the sneakers from the trunk of his car. Or Lego, the biggest toy in the world came from a small town Danish woodworker. And for Monopoly, it is here. This dank, cold basement in Philadelphia where it all started and not even a Gino's cheesesteak in sight. Except there's one big difference to the Monopoly story. And what's that, Jack? The Nike and Lego stories are true. Good point. This Monopoly origin story? It's a lie. Yes, there was a guy named Charles Darrow who made a fortune off selling Monopoly, but he didn't invent the game. He stole the idea, and he cheated the real creator out of her rightful legacy and fortune.

The Monopoly story actually begins with its true originator, Lizzie Maggie. Lizzie was born in 1866 in Macomb, Illinois. Her dad actually ran a newspaper and had been pals with President Abraham Lincoln. So, dinnertime at the Maggie place, it's gonna come with a big side dish of political discourse. They had a lot to talk about over chicken and mashed potatoes because the late 19th century was a master class in wealth inequality.

Kids in rags ran door to door begging for food while rich landowners rode by in chauffeured carriages. Every day Lizzie saw new foreclosure signs go up on houses and stores around her neighborhood. At no point in history had the divide between the haves and the have-nots been more stark in America. The newspapers are full of guys like Rockefeller and Carnegie and Vanderbilt. These guys were incredibly rich men who owned monopolies in oil, steel, and railroads. And back then, monopolies were legal. So Rockefeller, yeah, him controlling the entire oil industry in the country, that would

soon make him the world's first billionaire. Now customers who had to buy that oil, they would refer to guys like Rockefeller as robber barons because those guys did everything they could to bury the competition, usually by buying them up. Classic move. Because once you owned every company in an industry, you can charge customers whatever you want. That's the cruel glory of being a monopolist.

Lizzie's day job was as a stenographer, but typing was just to pay the bills for her because she also happened to be a poet and an actress, and her real passion was economic reform because Lizzie was into the theories of a guy who went by the name of Henry George. He was basically the Bernie Sanders of his day who called for land and natural resources to come under the collective ownership of the people.

No more robber barons hoarding iron and oil, and no more taxes either, except for a property tax as a way to stop people from owning too much land. So Lizzie thinks that this radical philosophy, this is the answer to society's problems. If you get stuck in an elevator with Lizzie, you better believe you're gonna learn all about Henry George. He really wants to spread this gospel. But even with the economy in the

dumpster, the economic manifesto that she is amped up on is just too dry for most folks. Their eyes glaze over when Lizzie starts going full throttle on her favorite topic. So Lizzie eventually realizes she needs a more fun way to get people into this economic inequality stuff. But what counts as fun in the 19th century? Okay, so this is the 1890s, way before video games, TV, and radio. And definitely before pickleball.

So what do people do for fun? Board games! That's right, the 1890s were actually a a boom time for the board game industry, which had gotten cheaper and easier to produce thanks to modern manufacturing. Pick a topic and there was a board game about it. Travel, fighting crime, playing the stock market, and don't sleep on the tiddlywinks craze either. The 1890s, day and night was you, your partner, and a chaperone trying to toss your winks

with your tiddlies. In most of these games, they were pure entertainment. However, some were aimed to educate at the same time. Lizzie Maggie decided she would create a game that would reveal the ugly truth of capitalism. It wasn't supposed to be happy and it wasn't supposed to be pretty. It was supposed to be harrowing. Lizzie comes up with the idea and tinkers with it for a few years. A game where players move pieces around a board. At each stop they're faced with

either economic opportunities or economic penalties and they have a limited supply of cash. Once it's gone it's game over. Of course Jack unless one of your opponents cuts you a deal on a loan. So Lizzie makes a square board and around the edges she draws a track and she calls this game Monopoly not yet. No, no, no. She calls this game the landlord's game And yet he's if you google Lizzie's landlord game You're gonna be surprised by the game that she made back in 1904 because a hundred twenty years later It looks freakishly similar to the monopoly that we know and love today

Jack I'm looking at the landlord's game and and there's a Go To Jail Square. There's a Chance Square. I'm seeing the street names here. We got Madison Square, Broadway, The Bowery. I'm also seeing some that I don't recognize on the street names. I'm looking at Beggarman's Court, Rubeville, and Goat Alley. That sounds freaky, but kind of fun. What's going on? This looks so much like Monopoly, but this was created 30 years before Darrow claimed

he invented the game. We'll get back to Darrow in a minute. In the meantime, Jack, let's talk Lizzie's Landlord game. What else we got here? In an article for a political magazine, Lizzie describes the Landlord's game as, a practical demonstration of the present system of land grabbing with all its usual outcomes

and consequences.'" Sounds like a laugh riot. "'Lizzie wanted to show how everyone suffers when property and wealth gets too concentrated.' She thought that this would spark some empathy, maybe even a revolution. They'd realize how the actual economic system is rigged against them.'"

But Jack, in 1904, Lizzie makes a move that is actually a huge step for something that started as a side hustle. He patents the landlord's game and starts trying to sell it, but it doesn't exactly take off. It was well liked by certain crowds, like college professors and left-wing intellectuals, but it wasn't exactly a profit puppy. But those who did buy it, they loved it, but not for the reasons that Lizzie had in mind. Players found a thrill in the unfairness of capitalism. They loved bankrupting their family

and their friends in the Landlord's Game. Layers of irony are like an onion in this game, Jack. And get this, players loved the game so much that they bootlegged it by making their own hand-drawn copies. And then people made copies of the copies. So Jack, what you're saying is that the Landlord's game was a viral hit. And each time someone made their own copy, they'd introduce their own rules too. Their own board design tweaks. Even their own name for the game. Fans called the game by a bunch of different names back then, but the one that stuck was

the Monopoly game. So Yaddis, the best-selling board game of all time, it was actually named by a game of telephone. And the person who invented it wasn't even looped into the call. She never even knew that this invention of hers was the sleeper hit of the century. And it got hot in a bunch of random places, including a progressive utopian community called the Village of Argon in Delaware

and a fraternity at Williams College. All right, bros, Friday night is tiki night, gyms on the beer pong, and Saturday, we're playing Monopoly. But there was another unlikely group who took to the game with gust out. And through them, it was introduced to our old friend, Charles Darrow.

It's Monopoly night with the peace loving Quakers of Atlantic City. Outside, people are partying in the streets. In the casinos, they're shooting dice. And all around, people are indulging in some good old fashioned vice. But up in the Quaker's meeting room, the Society of Friends is quietly gathered around a large table for a good, wholesome game night. Draped across the table is an oil-skinned cloth.

Around the cloth's edge are hand-inked squares with the names of Atlantic City streets and neighborhoods. Illinois Avenue, Park Place, and of course, Boardwalk. And yetis, this explains all the Atlantic City names, including the Boardwalk, the famed seaside wooden promenade under which we'll be having some fun. By the way, my favorite version, Under the Boardwalk by Bruce Willis. Look it up, it's wild. But for the Quakers, Mon monopoly is a way to tune out from the town's permanent spring break vibe. Even in the 1930s, the height of the Great Depression,

this town is bumping. And the Quakers DIY version of the landlord's game, it has those Atlantic city names. Oh, it also has free parking and it has go, collect 200 bucks and scattered around the board on some of the properties are small carved houses and hotels. And yeah, they call this game Monopoly. And it's this version that eventually makes its way to our old friend and board game imposter,

Charles Darrow. Now remember, Darrow is one of the millions of people out of work thanks to the Great Depression. Money is tight, stress is high, and tragically, one of his sons suffered brain damage after contracting scarlet fever. Darrow's son needs round-the-clock care for the rest of his life. So honestly, Jack, who could blame Darrow and his wife for needing a little escapism? So on any given night the couple clears the dinner table and spreads out one particular board game on the table under the one light bulb. And they love Monopoly. This is their therapy. They play, they chat, and they get a

moment finally to be somewhere else. And then Darrow hatches a plan. He thinks, you know what? I could turn that pretend Monopoly money into some cold, hard cash. So Darrow heads down into his basement with paper, scissors, and pen, like he's prepping for some kind of arts and crafts project. Then he starts churning out his own copies of the game

that he and his wife can't live about, Monopoly. And he starts selling these games small scale. And most of the people who try it love it. Remember, this is the 1930s. Times are hard. And as much as you'd think that's a problem, it's actually an opportunity. Because it turns out people like pretending to be rich. It's like binging on the Kardashians mid-pandemic.

So demand for this Monopoly game is booming. And there is no way Darrow can keep up with all of the orders. So he actually hires a printer to make a more polished version of the game. He prints the rules, pretend money, the cards, the whole thing. And he handmakes little houses and hotels as well.

He and his wife are stacking cardboard, order forms, wads of cash on that kitchen table that they used to play at. And he calls his new game, Monopoly. If all the different versions of Monopoly up to this point were badly recorded bootlegs, then this version is the remastered deluxe edition. Okay, so Jack, I am looking at Darrow's version right now.

And the font is there. The cop in the corner is there. deluxe edition. Okay so Jack I am looking at Darrow's version right now and the font is there. The cup in the corner is there. Even the shade of royal blue on the Park Place logo. It's the monopoly we all know and love. And Jack what is Darrow using as the playing pieces at this point? Like do we have the top hat, the poodle, the iron? In the Great Depression game makers and Darrow made games as bare- bones as possible to keep costs down. So they expected people to use their own random items like buttons, rings, hair clips as the

piece that they move around the board. Their DIYing part of the game is a battery not included situation. It's bring your own bottle cap. And Darrow, he actually had a niece who loved to play Monopoly and she and her friends would use bracelet charms, including a car and an iron and a thimble as their playing pieces. This is the time in the story when Darrow wants to take Monopoly from regional hit to national phenomenon. So in 1934, Darrow sends a pitch letter and a copy of Monopoly to one of the country's biggest game publishers, Parker Brothers.

But it's not just Monopoly he's selling. He's also selling his entrepreneurial story of how he single-handedly came up with the idea in his basement. And if Parker Brothers buys that story, then Darrow could get richer than Uncle Pennybags. All right, so Charles Darrow had pulled himself out of financial ruin by selling his own version of Monopoly. It's a hit in his hometown of Philadelphia, and so is his founder story of inventing the game in his basement. Except, remember, he didn't invent the game. He just copied it and sold as many copies

as he possibly could. That's a good footnote right there, Jack. But to make Scrooge McDuck-level money, he's trying to sell the game to Big Toy Inc. Remember, he just shot his shot. He sent a letter to Parker Brothers. He needs to convince this big game company to acquire it. Parker Brothers has name recognition,

it has experience, and it has the finances. They got the distribution baby. Parker Brothers, they actually take a look at this financial board game and they give Monopoly a hard pass. Get this, they even employed game testers to ensure that new games were, you know, fun to play. And those testers, they don't pull any punches

in their report about Monopoly. I mean, they find not one, not two. They find 52 fatal flaws in this game. It's too boring, it's too complicated. And they think no one wants to be reminded of the terrible economy by playing a game where you can very easily end up penniless and on the streets.

The experts, they wrap up their research and they agree to reject this game like an unimpressed Mark Cuban. And for that reason, I'm out. Parker Brothers isn't doing well at this time. Business is down, debts are mounting. The last thing they need is to roll the dice on some boring economic themed education game, literally.

And Jack Parker Brothers, they got a history worthy of a Hulu movie you see George Parker and his brother they built their game empire from scratch in the 1880s and they became America's board game behemoth by buying the rights to a whole bunch of other games these guys they were eating up trademarks like Pac-Man until 1929 when the stock market collapsed faster than a Jenga tower but But something fortuitous happens. One morning, Sally Barton, the daughter of Parker Brothers founder, George Parker, and the wife

of company president, Robert Barton, gets off the phone with a friend in Philadelphia. And this friend, she's been chewing Sally's ear off about this amazing new game that everyone in Philly is playing. Sally tells Robert, and the name rings a bell. So Barton asks his secretary to dig through the files. She hands him a folder marked rejects, and there it is, Monopoly.

This game was submitted a year ago by one Charles Darrow. He scans through the scathing summary written by one of his game testers, and then he shows his wife. We had 52 flaws in this thing. I mean, in this economy, no one wants to even go pretend bankrupt. Trust me on this one.

But then Sally's like, accept everyone I know in Philadelphia. Yeah, pretending is what Sally's friends love about this game. With each roll of the dice, you can change your fortunes. You can escape poverty and become filthy rich. The emotional stakes of this game were extreme and high stakes drive high sales. Now, Jack, this is where the science of product development just becomes an art. When it comes to recognizing amazing ideas, no system is perfect. But sometimes you just got

a short circuit that system. Sometimes you got to ditch the data. Sometimes you got to go with your gut and going with his gut is exactly what the president of Parker Brothers is about to do. The official game testers did not like Monopoly, but hundreds of people in Philadelphia love Monopoly. So Barton overrules his game testers and offers Darrow a pretty sweet deal.

$7,000 upfront if you sell us the rights to the game. That's over $150,000 in today's money. Plus, Darrow would get residuals on every copy of the game sold. Sounds like he's getting advised by Michael Jordan's mom. Not too shabby. So in March of 1939, Darrow signs the deal. There was just one tiny problem. Darrow hadn't actually invented Monopoly, so it wasn't his game to sell. Well, that roll of the dice on Monopoly really paid off for the Parker Brothers.

All right, Jack, we got some Monopoly numbers here. What kind of stats are these guys putting up? In 1935, they sell 278,000 copies of this game. Not too shabby. Then in 1936, the first full year of production, they sell 1.75 million copies of Monopoly. Parker Brothers is making millions of dollars in profits. Monopoly fever is sweeping the country. People may be cash poor, but they're Monopoly money rich.

And Parker Brothers is saved. Jack, this is like this incredible lesson on human psychology here, right? 1936 is the depths of the Great Depression. People have less money than ever, but they want to escape for an hour or two, pretending to have lots of money in this board game. And this means that Monopoly's business, it is booming,

even if it is destroying family relationships so long in the way. This guy from Brooklyn in 1936 writes to Parker Brothers and says, are you trying to disrupt homes and destroy families with your damn rules? But the Parker Brothers also know they're not just selling a board game, they need to sell a personality.

They need a character. So they basically pull a Disney and create the embodiment of the Monopoly spirit and they call him Mr. Monopoly. Aka Mr. Pennybags. Aka the Monopoly guy. He's got a mustache, a top hat, and a cane to smack you if you don't hand over your cash fast enough. Meanwhile, Charles Darrow is living the American dream.

He makes $5,000 in royalties in the first year alone. That's enough to put his son in a state-of-the-art care home and buy a farm for his family in Pennsylvania. His wife is proud, his kid is comfortable, and he is finally enjoying some stability for the first time in years. But soon, Parker Brothers starts getting complaints. People are saying that they played Monopoly years before Parker Brothers published it, and long before Darrow claimed to have invented it.

So Parker Brothers follows their tried and tested Pac-Man protocol. They snap up the rights to small-time board games that might resemble Monopoly. Jack, I see what they're doing here. They're preemptively avoiding the lawsuits by paying off anyone that might claim they invented Monopoly. If you can't beat them, buy them. And one of the titles on their list is the Landlord's Game by Lizzie Maggie. A now 70-year-old Lizzie Maggie has a spring in her step and a gleam in her eye. The decades, they have flown by. And since creating The Landlord's Game in 1904, she's gotten married and she's living this quiet life

in Arlington, Virginia. She's continued to make other games and she's worked as a typist and as a reporter. But she's also lived all these decades thinking that her greatest creation, The Landlord's Game, had been a flop. She never knew how much it took off and morphed into Monopoly.

But that was all about to change with a knock on the door. Literally, George Parker himself, the founder of Parker Brothers, he paid a visit to Lizzie and he was there to officially buy the rights and ownership of The Landlord's Game and two of her other games. I mean, holy money bags, this is finally happening to Lizzie. It's the dream moment. She certainly thought this was the dream moment

because Parker Brothers paid her $500, or about $11,000 in today's money, for the Landlord's Game. Jack, you don't have to do more math on that one. I think I know where you're going with this. Well, it's not that much money if you consider that Monopoly blew up. It's actually a tenth of what they paid Darrow for Monopoly.

And even worse, they didn't offer Lizzie a cut of sales like they offered Darrow. Still, at this time, Lizzie was stoked. She thought that this offer meant that her educational board game would finally reach a mass audience. She even wrote Parker Brothers a letter, addressing her game like it reach a mass audience. She even wrote Parker Brothers a letter addressing her game like it was a loved one.

This was emotional to hear and blown away about this letter. Here's her letter to her game from Lizzie. Farewell my beloved brainchild. I regretfully part with you, but I am giving you to another who will be able to do more for you than I have done. It's like a sonnet, it's a poem, man. And for any founder who has built and sold their company,

they can feel the emotion in that note. Like Jack, when we sold our first company, it's like you say goodbye to your baby, even if you have just a little bit of control or you retain most of the control, that is a really painful, challenging thing, even if you're popping champagne too. But here's the thing, for Lizzie, it was never meant to be.

Parker Brothers isn't really interested in publishing her game at all. They're just getting Lizzie to sign on the dotted line. Sure, they'll put out a few copies to keep her happy and stave off any legal action, but they do nothing to promote the Landlord's Game. It's a strategic legal move. Lizzie doesn't realize it yet, but Parker Brothers are paying her off. They're not buying her game because they love it, they're buying her game because they want to kill it. It's like an insecure king killing off the rivals who might have a claim to the throne. So the

Landlord's Game disappears into obscurity now that it's legally owned by Parker Brothers. In 1948, Lizzie passes away, and her role in inventing Monopoly, the board game sensation of the century, is covered up. Meanwhile, Jack, how are we checking on Charles Darrow? This guy, he's been telling everyone how he invented Monopoly out of thin air. He's in the newspapers, he's in magazines, he's even on television preaching that lie.

He's actually doing a PR blitz to own the narrative. He's making it touching. He's adding an emotional rags to riches element on it. If Oprah had existed at this time, he would be on her show. He'd be jumping on the couch and he'd reveal a monopoly board under everyone's seat. He even goes on the TV game show to tell the truth, which is ironic, where a panel of contestants try to tell who is the real inventor of Monopoly out of Darrow and two imposters. Alright, panellists, gentlemen, all claim to be Charles B. Darrow, inventor of the game

I'm sure you've all played at one time or another, Monopoly. Will the real Charles B. Darrow please stand up? And Parker Brothers loves this story that Darrow is telling. They use his phony story to promote monopoly. His rags to riches creation myth is a key part of the escapism that they're selling. And it's kind of like the heart and soul of the game Monopoly. We've seen this before. The brands, they often build their appeal around an origin story that is, you know, taking some creative license. Sometimes these origin stories,

they're a little more myth than fact. Sometimes they're real innovators they get left out to. Yeah, Mark Zuckerberg started Facebook along with some contributions from his roommate, his best friend who now hates him, and a couple of giant twins who love to row in the Charles River. Hey, Winklevi, you just received a poke. Awkward.

Charles Darrow passes away in 1967 with a very healthy bank account balance and a very nice new house. And the obituaries describe him exactly as he hoped. The inventor of Monopoly. Wow. But Parker Brothers, they have no idea what's about to hit them, because another economics buff and political activist turned board game inventor is coming for them. The Golden Gate Bridge

Economics professor Ralph Onsbach is stuck in traffic on his commute to San Francisco State University. He can see the peaks of the Golden Gate Bridge as he crawls along the 101. It's 1973 and the oil crisis is in full swing. Gas is rushing and lines of cars waiting for gas stretch so far that they block freeway exits. Although Elton John just dropped Benny and the Jets on the radio, so not everything's bad.

And that is probably what is playing in this professor's car as he is stuck in traffic. The constant traffic delays though, give Onspock less time for his side hustle as a board game inventor. This professor also created a game, Anti-Monopoly, and it's been a surprise hit. Anti-Monopoly sold 200,000 copies in its first year.

All right, Jack, I'm doing the math on this at five bucks a game? Like, this is a little bit more than a side hustle right now. This is a million dollars of revenue for a professor in his mid-40s. Now, just like Lizzie Maggie, Onspock made a game to teach about the harsh realities of capitalism.

But Jack, while Onspock knows all about Monopoly, he does not know anything about Lizzy Maggie or the Monopoly games hidden history that we've been discovering this entire episode. He doesn't know about it. Yet. As the freeway traffic slows to a stop, Ralph goes through his unopened mail he grabbed on his way out the door. There's the usual bills, a

monthly sale summary for his anti-monopoly game, and then something catches his eye. An envelope with a New York postmark. Ralph opens it and starts reading. It's a cease and desist letter from the lawyers of Parker Brothers. They're demanding he immediately stop selling anti-monopoly or else. Now, Jack, can I pause the pod here for a second to quickly plunge into the levels of irony I'm recognizing? Parker Brothers got monopoly from a guy who claimed to have invented monopoly, but didn't invent monopoly. And they paid off the real creator and buried her story about Monopoly, right? Yep. Okay. But now Parker Brothers is trying to enforce their Monopoly of the Monopoly game by coming after a guy who has made a game called Anti-Monopoly, which, like

the original Landlord's game before it was Monopoly, is the game that Monopoly is based on and is teaching people about the dangers of Monopoly Nick, that is mind boggling levels of irony. I'm sorry, I monopolize the word monopoly, my bad man. But Parker Brothers had picked the wrong guy to get tough with with a cease and desist letter. It does the opposite. Because little did Parker Brothers know, Anspach is something of an activist.

He and his wife used to organize demonstrations against the Vietnam War. In fact, the FBI once had him under surveillance for, and I quote, Subversive activities. What do we want? Freedom to publish board games. When do we want it? Now. So instead of ceasing and desisting, this guy's like putting on his armor and his helmet because he's going to battle.

He's not the kind of guy who's going to back down from a fight. So this professor with a knockoff board game side hustle making a million bucks a year on it is deciding to take on Parker Brothers by exercising his legal rights. This kicks off a legal battle that will last nearly a decade. To pay the legal fees, Ansbach maxes out his credit cards

and remortgages his house three times. Wow. He basically martyrs himself in the name of principle and freedom of play. Oh, and that's not the end of it yeties. Because fighting this case, it takes up the professor's entire life. He is a mild mannered teacher by day, but a social monopoly justice warrior by night. Finally in 1984 he wins. Parker Brothers can't stop Onsbach from selling anti-monopoly anymore and it goes on to sell half a million copies. The case also blows the lid off the whole fake Charles Darrow origin story because in a lawsuit you have a certain thing called

discovery and in that discovery the key role that Lizzie Maggie plays and the Quakers and Williams College, they all get blown up and finally get widespread press coverage. The whole world discovers the true origin story of Monopoly. And as the author Mary Pallon writes in her book, Monopolous, had Ralph never pursued his anti-monopoly case until the end. It's extremely unlikely that Monopoly's true history would have ever been unearthed.

We are revealing this true origin story of Monopoly thanks mainly to a single professor who dedicated his life to a court case over a board game owned by Big Toy. Justice for Lizzie. Despite the contested origin story, a lawsuit, and thousands of angry letters from emotionally wrecked families, Monopoly the business only grew stronger. In fact, Monopoly is one of those products that actually thrives during times of adversity. Monopoly beat the odds to become a huge seller at the tail end of the Great Depression, and it also sold strongly during the 1970s recession

and the 2008 global financial crisis. Jack, it's like we said before, in times of crisis, nothing sells like escapism, especially escapism that makes you feel rich. Hasbro, the company that bought Parker Brothers in 1991, said that Monopoly was among its best sellers during COVID when the company saw a sales spike 25%. The only thing that made you smile during lockdown was owning Pennsylvania Avenue,

understandably. But like any good creative capitalist, Hasbro knew it could squeeze more juice out of the Monopoly orange. So they expanded the Monopoly range with the most low cost, high ROI move any IP owning entrepreneur could ever make. I love every acronym you just threw at us, Jack. Licensing. Under Hasbro's ownership, Monopoly pursued franchise tie-ins including Star Wars and Harry Potter, which unlocked a whole new revenue stream.

To quote Mel Brooks, Merchandising, merchandising, merchandising, where the real money is made. In fact, in our research, we discovered there are over 1500 versions of Monopoly, depending on how you count them. And we counted 1500, bringing in 1500 different licensing fees. And each new version of those follows the same general rules.

But instead of landing on Vermont Avenue, you might land on Tatooine Boulevard. Monopoly is about to make it to the big screen. And they're going Hollywood using the same producers as the Barbie movie, which brought in 1.4 billion at the box office. Jack, I gotta ask you, who's gonna play Uncle Moneybacks? Cause I got Sam Elliott's agent on the line right now.

I'm going with Ron Swanson. That mustache is gonna win an Oscar. So Jack, now that you've passed Go, collected $200 in advertising revenue and discovered the true winner of the best-selling board game in history, what's your takeaway on Monopoly? There's a brain in your gut.

I know you're good with this. I feel like we've all been there. We've been in a meeting and we're kicking around ideas and you feel like you have this great this. I feel like we've all been there. We've been in a meeting and we're kicking around ideas and you feel like you have this great idea, but then someone says, but what does the data say about your idea? Oh, then you are deflated.

You know it's not gonna happen when someone says that. Data drives decisions across the meeting rooms of corporate America. And sometimes, a lot of times, that's a good thing. But other times, you gotta just go with your gut because your gut instinct isn't just random. It's actually a combination of times, that's a good thing, but other times, you gotta just go with your gut because your gut instinct isn't just random. It's actually a combination of expertise, awareness, and risk tolerance.

Your gut is the sum of all of your experiences, and that's something that matters too, just like data matters. There are actually plenty of studies, Jack, that show moments in industries when going with your gut is better than going with your brain. And Parker Brothers, they did exactly this. They went with your gut is better than going with your brain.

And Parker Brothers? They did exactly this. They went with their gut when they tossed out that report saying Monopoly had 52 critical flaws. Instead, their CEO went with his gut. So we say, trust your gut, because there's actually a brain in there, and it's got a lot more to tell you than it's time for lunch. All right, Nick, what's your takeaway from the story of Monopoly?

Jack, to quote Forrest Gump, customers are like a box of chocolates. You never know how they're going to react. It's actually Forrest Gump's mom who said it originally. Good fact check, Jack. You see, and he's Lizzie Maggie, the creator of Monopoly's original precursor. She intended for her game to educate people about the unfairness of our economic system. But instead of being disgusted, people were delighted. In fact, people wanted to become landowning robber barons, the opposite

of what she intended. And that is an important lesson for entrepreneurs and creators. You can have a thesis about how customers will react to your product, but be ready to be wrong. You know Jack, it's really a lesson on the importance of customer testing. Like get your user using the product early because you truly have no idea how they're going to react. So the most important part is just launching it. Open up that box of chocolates. Now besties, before we go, it is time for our absolute favorite part of the show.

Jack, it's the best facts yet. The best tidbits and factoids. We couldn't fit into the show, but we also couldn't leave you without Jack letter rip What do we got? Here's a fun piece of Uncle Pennybags trivia What type of corrective eyewear does rich Uncle Pennybags the Monopoly man actually wear? He doesn't seem like a contacts kind of guy If you said monocle then Congratulations, but you're wrong

If you said Monocle, then congratulations. But you're wrong. You, along with 61% of Americans, are experiencing the Mr. Monopoly Mandela effect, the phenomenon of large numbers of people incorrectly remembering the same thing in the same way. We've all done it. Mr. Monopoly doesn't have any eyewear. He's got 20-20 vision.

And Jack, another fact, the former Soviet Union, China, and Cuba, they all at one time banned Monopoly for promoting capitalist principles. In 1959, Fidel Castro ordered the destruction of every Monopoly set on the island of Cuba. If only he'd known Lizzie Maggie's original intention, he would love it. They could have been playing Monopoly in Havana instead of Dominoes. Here's another one for you. On average, it takes between five and six dice rolls to get all the way around the board. With 28 of the 40 squares being properties, you'll likely land on four within a single rotation. Jack, I got another one for you.

The world's most expensive monopoly set, it was valued at $2 million. This thing was created in 1998 by a San Francisco jeweler apparently with like platinum pieces. Alright last one here. During the Second World War British spies disguised themselves as charity organizations to distribute special monopoly games to allied prisoners of war. And why they do that Jack? Well the games secretly contain compasses, maps, real money, and other tools to aid them in escaping the prisons. Monopoly, not a game. War changer.

Which Monopoly piece would be most effective to dig an escape tunnel, Nick? You might think it'd be the iron, but I'm actually gonna go with a get-out-of-jail-free card. That sounds right. And that, my friends, is why Monopoly is the best idea yet. For our next episode of the best idea yet, Jack, Cuppercone. Cone. We're lifting the lid on how Ben and Jerry pulled off the greatest ice cream of all time.

They convinced four Vermont musicians who never sell out to buy in to fish food. That's not chocolate. Those are fish. No, actually Jack, it is chocolate. By the way, yetis, wanna dig even deeper into the Monopoly origin story? Well, check out the recent episode of our fellow Wondery podcast, Scamfluencers,

which has another take on this incredible board game story. Follow The Best Idea Yet on the Wondery app, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to every episode of The Best Idea Yet on the Wondery app, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to every episode of The Best Idea Yet early and ad free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple podcasts. Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey at Wondery.com slash survey. The Best Idea Yet is a production of Wondery hosted by me, Nick Martel, and me, Jack Kraviche-Kramer. Hey, if you have a product you're obsessed with, but you wish knew the backstory, drop

us a comment. We'll look into it for you. Oh, and don't forget to rate and review the podcast. Five stars, that helps grow the show. Our senior producers are Matt Beagle and Chris Gaultier. Peter Arcuni is our additional senior producer. Our senior managing producer is Nick Ryan and Taylor Sniffin is our managing producer. Our associate producer and researcher is H. Conley.

This episode was written and produced by Adam Skewes. We use many sources in our research, including Mary Pilon's book, Monopolists, Obsession, Fury, and the Scandal behind the world's favorite board game. Sound design and mixing by Kelly Kramarik. Fact checking by Erica Janek. Music supervision by Scott Velazquez and Jolina Garcia for Freesawn Sync. Our theme song is Got That Feelin' Again by Blackilack.

Executive producers for Nick and Jack Studios are me, Nick Martel. And me, Jack Ravici Kramer. Executive producers for Wondery are Dave Easton, Jenny Lauer Beckman, Erin O'Flaherty and Marshall Lewis.