If I’m going to spend time on hobbies and other things that probably don’t have a lot of utility, I might as well write them. With that in mind, I give you the first installment of Curiosity or Stupidity.
One of my daughters have spent the last six months obsessing over Dungeons and Dragons. Whether intentionally or unintentionally, she sowed seeds of interest in her sisters by doing something quite clever – introducing a 20-sided die into a family Monopoly game.
I love Monopoly. I spent quite a bit of time growing up playing the game with family and friends. I’ll admit that I was a bit leery of introducing the wrinkle into the game, but ultimately my curiosity got the better of me. Then it really got the better of me when I wondered what the most landed on – and by extension valuable – property would be in the game.
In our twenty-sided game, we wanted to have something approximate rolling doubles. We decided that 5, 10, 15, and 20 would be the same as rolling doubles. Curiosity has not lead me to see what the effects of rolling doubles with two die versus rolling a ‘double’ on a 20-sided die would be yet, but I have to conjecture that there would be more doubles in the 20-sided game – and more jail time after rolling three in a row. Perhaps that’s my next installment.
Anywho, I wrote a Python program to simulate a twenty-side game. I took into account rolling three doubles in a row, moving because of Chance and Community Chest, and going to jail. The ‘space’ I counted is the one that you end up on at the end of your turn, for example, you never end up on ‘Go to Jail’ because that’s not where you end up at the end of your turn. I then ran 100,000 games of 100 rolls to see what spaces got landed on the most. The most landed on spaces are…
- Jail – While this isn’t a valuable space, you can end up here for lots and lots of reasons. In my simulated games, you ended up here 613,237 times. Almost twice the amount you ended up on the next most landed property which is…
- Go! – There is a Chance and a Community Chest card that send you to Go! You’ll find this is a common theme. My player ended up on Go! 324,595 times during the simulation.
- Illinois Avenue – The highest-landed on property that will generate some revenue for you is this red property. In addition to just passing through, a Chance card will also land you on this property. It’s relative position to Go! doesn’t hurt either. This was the only property to break 300,000 sitting at 306,930.
- St. Charles Place – Again, a Chance card will send you to this property that is the first of the light purple group. It’s relative position to both Go! and Jail also doesn’t hurt. My player visited ‘St. Chuck’s’ 295,371 times.
- Reading Railroad – Not just one Chance card will send you here, but another one will send you here if you land on a certain spot on the board. My player ‘took a ride on the Reading’ 291,255 times.
- Tennessee Avenue – The highest property that doesn’t have an ‘advance to’ card is Tennessee. With 279,106 hits, it’s the highest of the orange set, followed closely by…
- New York Avenue – The most expensive of the orange properties, my player landed on it 278,319 times.
- The rest of the board…
- Marvin Gardens – 277,280
- Boardwalk – 275,981
- B&O Railroad – 275,904
- Water Works – 274,115
- Ventnor Avenue -271,110
- Electric Company -264,805
- Atlantic Avenue – 263,159
- Kentucky Avenue – 261,590
- St. James Place – 260,823
- Free Parking – 259,518
- Indiana Avenue – 259,006
- Short Line – 254,312
- Virginia Avenue – 252,804
- States Avenue – 252,369
- Pennsylvania Avenue – 252,357
- Income Tax – 245,946
- Pacific Avenue – 243,715
- North Carolina Avenue – 243,149
- Pennsylvania Avenue – 241,246
- Mediterranean Avenue – 235,288
- Park Place – 233,375
- Baltic Avenue – 231,648
- Oriental Avenue – 231,251
- Luxury Tax – 229,970
- Community Chest (in orange group) – 228,940 (remember, 2 out of 16 times you end your turn somewhere else)
- Community Chest (in yellow group) – 222,707
- Vermont Avenue – 219,623
- Connecticut Avenue – 216,237
- Community Chest (in dark purple group) -206,255
- Chance (in light purple group) – 127,637 (remember, 7 out of 16 times you end your turn somewhere else)
- Chance (next to Park Place) – 101,179
- Chance (in light blue group) – 97,820
So…. what about when you play it with the dice it came with? I decided to run the numbers for that one as well. Here are the results.
- Jail – 616,116
- Illinois Avenue – 342,459
- Tennessee Avenue – 313,330
- New York Avenue – 295,886
- St. James Place – 295,886
- Pennsylvania Railroad – 295,817
- Go! – 293,672
- B&O Railroad – 293,214
- Free Parking – 289,564
- Kentucky Avenue – 283,004
- Indiana Avenue – 281,877
- Reading Railroad – 277,555
- Virginia Avenue – 274,816
- St. Charles Place – 274,562
- Marvin Gardens – 270,869
- Atlantic Avenue – 270,570
- Electric Company – 268,054
- Ventnor Avenue – 265,454
- Community Chest (orange group) – 257,503
- States Avenue – 257,428
- Pacific Avenue – 255,984
- Electric Company – 252,915
- North Carolina Avenue – 248,937
- Boardwalk – 245,519
- Income Tax – 228,058
- Pennsylvania Avenue – 226,793
- Short Line – 225,264
- Community Chest (green group) – 221,535
- Oriental Avenue – 220,416
- Vermont Avenue – 217,891
- Connecticut Avenue – 215,400
- Baltic Avenue – 209,198
- Park Place – 205,841
- Mediterranean Avenue – 204,392
- Luxury Tax – 203,260
- Community Chest (dark purple) – 179,941
- Chance (red group) – 136,433
- Chance (light blue group) – 96,225