Inflation in the Game of Monopoly - One Page Punch

Let’s say you and three of your friends are playing the game of Monopoly and everything is going smoothly. Well, thirty minutes into the game, a new bank arrives and gives everybody more money. Then in another thirty minutes, each player is receiving another stack of bills and this keeps happening for the duration of the game.

What happens? For starters, there is too much money in the game and prices won’t reflect accurately. For instance, someone selling Boardwalk to another player might normally go for $400 list price all the way up to a $1000.00. But with this flood of cash in the system, a bidding war brings Boardwalk up to $15,000.00. There’s tons of cash to just throw at property but it’s not that the property is rising in value, but the cash is losing its value.

And during this time, the rents for when someone lands on a property stay the same. Now that’s great for someone who’s ankle deep in money, but for the players struggling to stay in the game due to lack of property to build on; it means a depletion of their reserves if the game lasts long enough. And now, someone just built up even more on the board and the poor little boot or thimble will probably be cleaned out on their next turn, and any property they own will go speedily back to the bank to be resold.

Here’s the kicker, ready? Once the game is won, the game closes and all that cash is history. Similar to the game we’re playing right now in real life. One day, somebody will win, the rest will lose, and all that cash returns to its intrinsic value. Ouch!

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