How to Win at Monopoly (by Knowing How Dice Work)
When you think about the most valuable properties in Monopoly, do you think of Boardwalk and Park Place? The two dark blue spaces next to Go might be the most expensive, but they actually aren’t the most lucrative properties to own. That honor belongs to the orange properties (New York Avenue, Tennessee Avenue, and St. James Place) right down the street from jail.
The reason for this is a basic statistical fact:
When rolling two or more dice, some results are more common than others.
Rolling a single die has an equal chance of giving you each possible result, assuming it’s a fair throw. But roll two dice together and the math changes; some total results can be reached in more than one way. For example, there are five different ways to roll a total of 8, but there’s only one way to roll a 12. If you had to bet on which one you’d roll, you’d be better off with the 8.
By listing out all 36 possible results of throwing two dice, sorting them by their total result, and dividing them into rough percentages, you get the chart below.
It turns out that 7 is the most likely result, with percentages dropping off from there as you go higher or lower. And if you combine the possibilities of rolling 5 through 9, and you’ve got a 67% chance of landing somewhere within that range. That’s two out of every three rolls!
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Let’s go back to Monopoly. Landing yourself in jail is a painfully easy thing to do in that game, which has questionable moral implications we won’t go into here. But once you get out, you’ve got to go somewhere. If players have a 67% chance of rolling between a 5 and 9, there’s a good chance that’s what they’ll do. And guess which properties are 6, 8, and 9 spaces away from jail?
That’s right–the oranges.
So the next time you have to choose between trading for Boardwalk or New York Avenue, use math to your advantage–go with the orange and you’ll be extorting money from fugitives like there’s no tomorrow.
