How to Play Monopoly

The Short Version

Monopoly is a trading and development game: move around the board, buy properties, complete colour sets so you can build houses and hotels, and charge everyone else rent until they can’t pay. The rules below follow the current standard edition. The official game does end — it’s the famous house rules that make it last forever.

What You Need

A standard Monopoly set for 2 to 8 players: board, tokens, two dice, Chance and Community Chest decks, title deeds, play money, and the buildings — 32 houses and 12 hotels, a hard limit that matters (see Scoring). Amounts are in the standard edition’s dollars; themed editions use the same structure with different names.

Set Up

• Choose a banker. The banker runs auctions, pays salaries, and keeps the bank’s money separate from their own.
• Every player receives $1,500, traditionally dealt as: two $500s, two $100s, two $50s, six $20s, five $10s, five $5s, and five $1s.
• Everyone places a token on Go. Roll the dice to decide who goes first; play proceeds clockwise.

How to Play

On your turn, roll both dice and move that many spaces clockwise, then resolve the space:

• Unowned property (street, railroad, or utility): you may buy it for the printed price. If you decline, it is auctioned immediately (see the dispute above). Railroads and utilities cannot be built on; their rent rises with how many of the set you own, and utility rent is based on the dice roll.
• Someone else’s property: pay the owner the rent shown on the deed. Rent on an unimproved property doubles if the owner holds the full colour set. Rent is owed even if the owner is in Jail.
• Chance or Community Chest: draw the top card, follow it, and return it to the bottom of the deck — except a Get Out of Jail Free card, which you keep until you use it or trade it away.
• Tax spaces: pay the amount shown to the bank.
• Go to Jail: your turn ends and your token goes to Jail (see below).
• Doubles: roll again after resolving your space. But roll doubles three times in a row and you go to Jail without resolving the third roll.

Building. Owning a full colour set lets you build houses during your turn (or between other players’ turns). Buildings go on evenly: you cannot put a second house on one property until every property in the set has one, and so on up to four. Four houses plus paying the hotel price replaces them with a hotel. Houses are sold back to the bank at half price, also evenly. You cannot build on a set while any property in it is mortgaged.

Trading. Players may trade properties, cash, and Get Out of Jail Free cards at any agreed terms. Any houses or hotels on a colour set must be sold back before a property in that set changes hands. Side promises like future rent immunity aren’t part of the official rules — official trades are property and cash, full stop.

Mortgages. If you owe money, you may mortgage properties: sell back any buildings on the set first, then turn the deed face down and take its mortgage value from the bank. No rent is collected on a mortgaged property. To lift a mortgage, pay the mortgage value plus 10% interest.

Jail. You go to Jail by landing on Go to Jail, drawing a Go to Jail card, or rolling doubles three times in a row (no $200 on the way). Landing on the Jail corner by an ordinary roll is “Just Visiting” — nothing happens. Three ways out:

1. Pay a $50 fine at the start of your turn, then roll and move.
2. Use a Get Out of Jail Free card, then roll and move.
3. Try to roll doubles on your turn. You get up to three attempts; if the third fails, you must pay the $50 and then move the number you rolled.

While in Jail you can still collect rent, trade, build, and mortgage — you simply don’t move.

Scoring

There is no score as such; the game’s currency is money and property. Key numbers: $200 salary per circuit, rents and building prices printed on each deed. Remember the box limit: 32 houses and 12 hotels exist, total. If the bank runs out of houses, no one can build until some are returned — a genuine housing shortage is part of the official game, and hoarding houses by refusing to upgrade is a legal, ruthless tactic.

Winning

Officially, the game ends when every player but one has gone bankrupt. If you owe money — to another player or the bank — you must first try to raise it by selling buildings and mortgaging. If you still can’t cover the debt, you are bankrupt: everything you have goes to the player you owe (or back to the bank if you owe the bank), and you are out. The last solvent player wins.

Honesty corner: most home games end by agreement instead — calling it at a set time and totalling cash plus property and buildings at purchase value, richest total wins. A fine way to end an evening; it just isn’t the printed win condition.

Variations Worth Knowing

• The house rules above (Free Parking jackpot, no auctions, double Go salary) are how most people learned the game. Play them if your table loves them — they all push money in and postpone the ending.
• Short game (official classic variant): deal two title deeds to each player at the start (paying the bank for them), and end the game at the second bankruptcy, winner decided by total worth. Printed in official rulebooks for decades, and it genuinely fixes the length.
• Speed Die editions: some modern sets include a third die that speeds movement and forces quicker endings — an official edition variant, not a house rule.