My favorite Custom Monopoly Rules

There are three types of people out there. Those that HATE Monopoly, the Monopoly purists, and the people that play Monopoly with House rules. My family and I fall into the last group. We like playing Monopoly but over the years have also grown to love coming up with new house rules to make the game better (in our opinion of course). This post is my contribution to the last group in search of new rules to adopt into their game.

The rules of Monopoly aren’t really organized in any real fashion that matters, mostly listed in the order we’ve adopted them into our game.

• Business first. All business dealings must be done at the start of a player’s turn. (Trades, Mortgages, or other Bank transactions)
• When a player is in Jail, they cannot conduct ANY business – No auctions, bids, rent collections, etc..
• They must pay 50 Bucks on the next turn after going to jail.  Any player can bid up the bond price to try to keep the existing player in jail.  A Prisoner only has to pay 1/2 the proposed Bond amount to get out. If outbid, they may still roll the dice to get doubles for a jailbreak. 
• ‘Get out of Jail free’ cards can’t be outbid and can be used immediately.
• The only money that goes in the middle of the board is Jail Bonds and Luxury Tax.
• Center money is won by landing on Free parking.
• A player can attempt to ‘mug’ someone at free parking.  Each player rolls a single die. Mugger must BEAT dice roll or go to Jail. The tie goes against the mugger.
• When a property is landed on that is unowned or in a mortgage state, it immediately goes up for auction at either sale price or mortgage price.
• All bids must be done with cash on hand.
• ANY overbid differences (bid more than you have) must be paid to the BANK and bidding starts over.
• A player can pay $20 to the nearest railroad (forward) to throw a third die and any 2 dice can be chosen to conduct your move. 
• Rail tickets can only be purchased from a player.  Not the bank.
• A player can choose to roll just one die by paying the bank $20.
• When passing go, a player must pay a $10 water bill and a $10 electric bill to either owners or the bank if unowned.
• If you land on GO, you get $250 and No Utility Bills.
• Once it gets down to 2 players, Rail tickets can no longer be bought from the other person.
• Uneven building is not permitted in general however if you own a monopoly AND land on one of your properties, you have the option of purchasing a single house for that property at that moment.  Additional traditional building must always level up the remaining properties first. 
• All existing buildings are lost across the monopoly if a property is mortgaged.
• The Monopoly Man: When a player rolls doubles, they can choose to move ordinarily OR move the Monopoly Man to ANY property on the board.   Players do not have to pay the rent on a property while the monopoly man is placed on it. The Monopoly Man cannot be moved to an unowned property.  The Monopoly Man can be moved the next time a player rolls doubles and chooses to move the Monopoly Man.

There are lots of resources on the internet for Monopoly fanatics with rule suggestions and discussion. Many of the rules above were adopted or inspired by those but some were just created from scratch while playing. The goal of most of our rules is to pull either money or luck out of the game which typically speeds it up and makes it more enjoyable for us. If you have any house rules that you and your family enjoy, please let me know on Twitter. We are always looking for more rules to add to our house game. 🙂

Happy Game Play!
Carlo