MEZARPOLY

A short history of property-trading games

10 November 2026 · 3 min read

Did you know that one of the world's most played board games was designed to criticise monopolies? From one woman's idea in 1903 to boards copied by hand, and a forgotten story that came to light decades later.

1. 1903: a game to explain monopoly
2. 1906–1930s: hand to hand, home-made boards
3. 1935: a big company and the "inventor" myth
4. 1973: the Anti-Monopoly case and a lost history
5. Property trading as a genre
6. Where does Mezarpoly fit in?
7. Sources

1903: a game to explain monopoly

The genre we now call the property-trading game goes back to The Landlord's Game, designed by the American Elizabeth "Lizzie" Magie (1866–1948). Magie wanted to illustrate the ideas of the economist Henry George: landlords grow rich from rent while tenants grow poor. She applied for a patent in 1903 and received US patent 748,626 on 5 January 1904.

The board in the patent was strikingly close to the layout we know today: a square track, special squares in the corners and properties to buy and rent out in between. The real difference was in the rules. Magie wrote two rule sets for it: in one the goal was to bankrupt your opponents through monopoly; in the other (Prosperity) everyone grew rich together. Her 1932 second edition contained both. The lesson was plain: monopoly makes everyone poorer.

1906–1930s: hand to hand, home-made boards

In 1906 in Chicago, Magie and fellow followers of Henry George set up a company and published the game themselves. But it spread mainly by hand: university students, notably at Harvard, Columbia and Pennsylvania, drew their own boards and played; families and Quaker communities took it up too. Each community wrote its own town's streets on the board. When the first patent expired in 1921, Magie patented a revised version in the 1920s.

In one of the versions that spread in the early 1930s, the names on the board were the streets of Atlantic City. Charles and Olive Todd of Philadelphia, who played this version, changed some of the names and misspelled one: Marven Gardens became "Marvin Gardens". Charles Darrow learned the game at the Todds' home in 1932 and began selling it under his own name.

1935: a big company and the "inventor" myth

Parker Brothers bought the rights from Darrow in 1935 and launched the game on 5 November 1935. On learning that Darrow was not the sole inventor, the company also bought Magie's patent; Magie said she had made "a mere $500" from her invention. For many years the boxes credited Darrow as the inventor.

1973: the Anti-Monopoly case and a lost history

Magie's story was forgotten for decades. In 1973 the economics professor Ralph Anspach published an anti-monopoly game. In 1974 he was sued for trademark infringement. Researching the game's origins for his defence, Anspach found Magie's patent and the students' home-made boards. The case dragged on for years; Anspach won on appeal in 1979, and a 1984 law then removed the basis of that ruling.

Property trading as a genre

Today there are hundreds of versions of the genre: cities, countries, films, teams. They all share the skeleton of Magie's 1904 board: a track you go round by dice, squares you buy, rent and bankruptcy. The genre's most criticised feature has also stayed the same since then: when the game drags on, the player behind crawls along and the winner is often clear early. In a sense, Magie's "Prosperity" rules were an answer to that problem too.

Where does Mezarpoly fit in?

Mezarpoly is a free take on the genre with its own maps, cards and rules. It stays close to Magie's concern in two places. First, a player who falls behind gets help: an extra salary at Go, a rent discount and solidarity cards. We measured how this keeps games open without making them longer in Can you come back from behind? Second, rents rise as the game goes on, so games don't last forever (How do house rules change the game?). And in team mode you can get a little closer to Magie's idea of growing rich together: teammates pay each other no rent.

Sources

• US Patent 748,626, "Game Board", L. J. Magie, 5 January 1904.
• Mary Pilon, The Monopolists (Bloomsbury, 2015): Magie's life, the students' boards, the Atlantic City version and the Anspach case.
• Wikipedia: "Lizzie Magie" and "Monopoly (game)" (dates and the course of the lawsuit).

More from the blog