My theory on why folks dislike Monopoly is that they learned to play it when there were basically no other options, probably with siblings they couldn’t stand, and at least one if not all players were a little too young.

Playing as an adult with other adults is a lot of fun, though it’s almost impossible to get people to play.

I've seen 3 reasons why people hate Monopoly. To start with, it's not really a good game, especially if you're familiar with a lot of other board games. There is some strategy, but very little meaningful choice. That means you're really just there to face whatever the game wants to do to you. Roll-and-move games tend to be like that. All games have randomness, but games made in the last several decades also include choice and strategy so that there's more to the game than just random chance.

The second problem is that no one actually knows how to play the game. They add in all these rules that aren't in the game, like Free Parking being anything but an empty square, and not auctioning properties. The problem is that doing this when you don't fully understand how the game works and how those choices affect it ends up breaking the game and dragging it out, which is part of the next problem.

The reason people say Monopoly takes too long to play is because, when people aren't playing it correctly, it does take too long to play. When you add in things like free money when landing on Free Parking and not auctioning properties, this just drags out the game. Worse, when players give pity offers like allowing someone to owe you money they can't pay or refuse to trade properties, all this does is drag the game out even further and prolong everyone's misery. These things add nothing to the game, which is why people end up hating it. The proper way to play Monopoly is to be as aggressive and predatory as possible (the designer seems to have been taking a jab at capitalism and real estate), because that means eliminating players and ending the game. When you do things that drag the game out, even if you think they improve the game, all you're doing is ruining people's night.

There's a reason why people crap on this game. You mention that the number one game on BGG is 2 hours long. But what is being done in those 2 hours? If you have a really engaging game, even several hours can still be fun. But when you have a miserable game that you're waiting until someone wins so you can stop playing, that's when people complain about it being too long. When people say it's poorly designed, that's because it is, or rather than it's a very old and simple game that doesn't have much going on. I'm not sure what people mean when they say it's too broken to fix, but there's probably a reason why they're saying that. Again, if you're familiar with other games, Monopoly as it is written doesn't offer much, and people break the game by trying to force it to offer more. That you learned to count and have great memories is fine, but it's important to recognize why other people don't.

The below is a post made about two years ago, regarding people claiming Monopoly is "all luck."

Usually, those who utter that completely false statement either do not know the rules, play by the rules, or wish to understand the rules.

This is an analysis:

>Successfully winning Monopoly is a combination of luck, skill, strategy, people skills, negotiating ability and knowledge of probabilities, statistics and history all combined and needed at the same time. The percentage of each skill changes with each player and with each game or even each move.

>Some attribute the presence of dice as the luck, but they merely serve as a move indicator, otherwise it would be a spinner or drawing a card.

>Knowing what to buy and what is not worth buying -- knowing when to place houses, just before opponents are entering that area -- estimating just how much money your opponent has, because even if you enact a trade to gain an affordable color group and give your opponent a more expensive color group, means nothing for them if they cannot build -- watching and creating housing shortages -- keeping mental track of Chance / Chest cards -- Mortgaging broken or incomplete color groups to gain funds to purchase houses on complete color groups -- Observing opponent's favorite color groups and taking advantage of that propensity -- *All of that is not luck.*

>Chess is strategy and moving your opponent into a losing position. Checkers is semi-strategy. Monopoly enters most lists as third to fifth most played game in history.

>On a personal basis I have a solid 77% winning average and about 10-15% second place. I do not play family. I do not play children. And I only play standard ClassicMonopoly rules, with no made up and contrived "House Rules," which go against the ultimate goal of Monopoly.

>Win all.

If monopoly had potential to be a good game they would've already implemented the changes and printed it.

I think there are a couple of reasons:

1. Many don't know the rules. This has already been mentioned.

2. Some don't understand the actual purpose or aim of the game. I sometimes played with those who thought the whole point of the game was to accumulate as much money as possible. Obviously, money helps; but the point is to accumulate as much PROPERTY as possible (i.e. to gain a monopoly)

3. Players refusing to trade at all. Or, only offering ridiculous trades that no one with half a brain would accept in a million years! I think this one is often at the heart of the "it takes too long" because without trades no-one can get a set, no-one can develop, no-one goes bankrupt, and no-one ever wins.

I always strive to get a monopoly in the railroads and utilities and at least one full color group. An opponent landing on your railroad or utility can be quite depleted, especially if it is the result of a Chance/Community Chest card.

If you refuse trades out of selfishness it will only make the game take hours and it will be boring as hell

Don’t let anyone get a full set before you. Hold on to what they need. Even if they offer you something you need only accept if it going to mean both of you get a full set,

Know the statistics of the game. In terms of probability to be landed on, oranges > reds > yellows > greens > pinks > light blues > dark blues > browns/purples (color depends on what edition of the game you have).

This doesn't mean that the color groups' actual power is ranked in this order, though. It's very situational and always changes, but a rough guideline to follow is oranges are the best almost no matter how much money you have; between the reds and yellows, the reds are a little better; and between the pinks/reds/yellows/light blues, you basically want the one that matches your budget the best. Very low money? You want the light blues. Lots of cash? The reds will probably suit you well. Browns/purples are a supplemental color group, really just meant to fund your other monopolies; you aren't really going to win off of these. Same goes for railroads and utilities; utilities should be considered the least valuable properties that you own. Dark blues are a situational color group; if lots of people are coming up to them on the next roll, you absolutely want to trade and get your hands on them if you can build a few houses. The greens are generally considered terrible due to their low chance to be landed on and their extremely high price ($200 a house). While the dark blues are equally expensive, you only have to build on two properties, which means those properties become much more damaging with less invested.

When considering a trade, always always always take board position into consideration. The most likely dice roll is a 7, with every number away from a 7 being 1/36 less likely to hit (i.e. a 6 or 8 is a little less likely than 7; 9 and 5 are a little less likely than those, etc). If everyone is standing 7 or 8 rolls away from the yellows, you can bet your ass I'd be trying to get my hands on those immediately if I have enough to build some houses on it, even if it means giving up the oranges. The most likely scenario is that the person who just got the oranges hits your yellows before you hit his property, which means he has no money to build anymore and you suddenly gain a bunch of new houses with the cash he just gave you.

When you get a color group, you basically want to drop everything you have and immediately build on it. That means mortgaging everything; yes, I mean everything; else you own, in order to gain money to fund it. You want to get your color groups to 3 houses each as soon as possible. Once a property has 3 houses on it, the rent nearly triples. That doesn't mean you should stop there, though; the light blues and browns/purples (especially browns) are very weak unless you get hotels. Don't be afraid; if someone is coming up to your color group, build like a mad-man. It's true that you should sometimes save up a bit of cash as a safety net, but new players do this too often; as a rule of thumb, it's usually better to build with all your money than it is to save your money in case you hit somebody else's property.

Know the rules of the game. You can collect rent in jail. If you have 4 railroads, and 3 of them are mortgaged, when a person lands on the unmortgaged one, you get $200.

Always be on the lookout to get a color group. Getting a color group and enough money to build a lot of houses means it's usually worth it to give up literally every other property you own.

Your goal in Monopoly is to bankrupt other players. I bolded this because it is important. You want your rents to be damaging enough to cripple or bankrupt your opponents. Being the first player to bankrupt an opponent almost always guarantees you the win. Do whatever you can to make this happen.

Try to do trades that will make it so you can either get a color group or make a mutually beneficial trade with another player where you both get color groups. Against inexperienced players, it's easy to do this. Against good players, unless you have just the right properties, you'll usually need to get in huge multi-way deals to get into the game, wherein all assets are typically redistributed almost completely.

Buy as much as possible and make good trades

You should avoid buying hotels for as long as possible. There is a limited number of houses and once they're gone they're gone. If there aren't any houses for anyone to buy you've literally got the best monopoly in the game.

Railroads are excellent to trade for better stuff. Never skip buying anything TBH.

Don’t buy hotels. Rules state that once houses run out it creates a “housing shortage“ and no players can buy anymore houses.

I embezzle heavily. I win each and every time.

I'm pretty sure that they mean build houses on your sets up to three before moving on to hotels. The biggest price difference is between the 2-3 houses. If you have 2 color groups, you can build on, build both of them up to 3 houses each before you build hotels. It also has the benefit of creating housing scarcity.

Well, whenever you're falling behind, just yell "Yahtzee!" and flip the board in the air causing all the pieces to be scattered throughout the room.

Buy everything possible. Always sacrifice money for property because property is a long term asset that will eventually work in your favor.

If that doesn’t work, steal from the bank when they aren’t looking.

The only way to win is not to play

Don't play it

1. Buy as many properties as possible, railroads as well, no utilities. The original point of the game was to drive your opponents into debt to the point that they can not continue by spending your own money, and that still reigns true. A lot of people think the point is to have the most money which is not true at all.

2. Play by game rules only. House rules elongate the game and give unfair advantages. House rules are why monopoly has developed a bad reputation as a game that never ends; a proper game of Monopoly should not last longer than any other comparable board game.

3. Buy all the houses you can to put on your properties as soon as you can. DO NOT BUY HOTELS. There are a finite amount of both houses and hotels, if you can have a significant amount more houses than any other player it’s just a matter of time until you bankrupt them. The different between maxed out houses and one hotel is not worth putting the houses back into circulation for other players to play with. For every hotel you buy that puts 4 houses back into circulation, 12 for an entire property group, not worth the extra change considering you will be landing on those eventually and paying for it.

4. Have fun

OP, while I strongly disagree with you on Monopoly being good, or interesting, or deep:

If you feel this way about Monopoly you owe it to yourself to try better, more modern games

Terra Mystica, Ra, The Quest for El Dorado, Concordia, Castles of Burgundy, Viticulture, Brass, Cascadia, Agricola, Terraforming Mars, Ark Nova, Sidereal Confluence —there are so many games that are so much more interesting, fun, deep, better looking, etc to try. Way better ways to spend your time off a screen

The explicit intent of the original version of Monopoly, was to embody how unfair life is for people without property. It's a roleplaying the ruin of smaller players by bigger ones. The depression and ill will is the point.

Genuinely who the hell has ever played monopoly in a way that you make deals like “give me Mayfair and I’ll make your next 2 landings on Mayfair or park road not cost you anything”

I know some weird house rules in monopoly but I have never heard a single person ever play with deals that are anything more than property for property or property for property and money

Edit; from the comments yall apparently play frankenmonopoly, no wonder yall hate it

Yeah sure, this might make monopoly better... but it still isnt that good. At the end of the game you just roll a dice and hope you dont end up on a bad square and games can last ages with nothing happening and very little decisions involved.

I LOVE video game monopoly. No counting money. No trying to remember what the rules are and how to enforce them. You just roll the dice and the game does the rest. 

This is the only way Monopoly should be played in imo.

No wonder people don’t like monopoly, those rules sound absolutely horrible

Compared to modern games, the amount of decisions in monopoly is quite lacking. I agree the game is better when playing rules as written, but "fantastic" is quite a stretch...it's nowhere near my top 100 board games. I guess I agree it's an unpopular opinion, so kudos I suppose

Yes, playing first actually increased your odds at monopoly. I use this to become a capitalist America could be proud of

I’ll message you and teach you how to fly

Oh boy I don’t know much either, help 😂

My favorite house rule is mortgaging non game assets to take out bank loans. For example taking out a $400 loan against your daughter’s Yorkshire terrier. And if you don’t pay that loan off before the game ends, who ever wins gets the dog. Sorry pumpkin, Charlie is going to live with uncle Dan until he loses at monopoly.

My house rule: you can cheat as much as you want as long as you don't get caught.

Mine are. If in jail you have to move everyone’s pieces and make change for every transaction (prison labor)

If a player can’t afford something send them to Jail.

If a player expresses any malcontent about playing monopoly, jail.

If someone yawns, jail.

Money and houses carry over between games permanently.

Dealing real world drugs actually makes the game last way longer, a lot of people don't know that

Delete it😁

This site has a few good articles with tips on various parts of the game ... https://www.appgamer.com/monopoly-go/updates/