Best Ways to Always Win Monopoly: Eight Strategies That Work Every Time

If you love to play monopoly, would you be interested in learning to win monopoly every single time? This would be fun to show off your skills in front of family and friends. 

To win monopoly every time, you must develop property aggressively and buy red and orange properties. Do not try to save money and please forget about the utilities; they are not worth it. If you want to always win the game of monopoly, develop three hotels or houses as fast as you can, and lastly, do not try to get out of jail straight away. 

You win monopoly once you become the sole supplier of a commodity. You have to be aggressive and quick in your approach. This game requires luck, skills, and strategy to make financially wise decisions quickly to handle your money and invest with every dice roll. This article will teach you how to come out as a winner every time.  

According to NPR, the shortest game of Monopoly requires 21 seconds with 9 rolls of the dice and four turns. Monopoly has been around since 1935 and has sold over 250 million board games so far, with over 1 billion people who have played this iconic game.

The Elfer Technique

This technique exploits an elementary rule of monopoly. A fully intact game of monopoly has 12 hotels and 32 houses in total. If you can quickly manage to build 32 houses, then nobody else would be able to unless you sell them or convert them into hotels. This is all about a simple concept of supply and demand. 

According to Elfer, if you can purchase all the houses, this will stop your opponent players from gaining any power in the game. Hence you will have increased chances of a guaranteed victory. Here are eight steps to apply Elfer Technique

1. Buying Property As Much As You Can

Your first step should be to start buying as much property as you can and as fast as possible. Most players wait until getting their hands on high-dollar properties. Do not make this classic mistake and buy whatever you can get your hands on. 

The game is not about the value of the property. You just have to make sure that you get first place in the monopoly. 

Whenever you land on a property and choose not to purchase it, the other players will start a bidding strategy for that particular square. This is another traditional rule that most monopoly players do not incorporate even when they know about it. 

2. Using Trades to Get the First Monopoly in the Game

The opponents will line up to trade in the game with you. This is because you can offer what they want in order to start your monopoly. Let the trade offer you and the other players the monopoly. No matter what price you pay, you will still win the game. 

You just have to remember to focus on three categories of properties; three places are better than two. Moreover, focusing on cheaper properties may actually work better in Elfer Technique because you will spend less when building houses. 

This one is all about the houses and if you remember that you are going to win monopoly every time. 

3. Building Houses

The faster you build three houses on each property, the better for you. You can start earning rent income that will fund the construction. If you fall short on money, do not hesitate to mortgaging other properties to build a minimum of three houses on every eligible square you own. 

Moreover, whether you can afford it or not, you must never give in to the temptation of upgrading the hotels and houses. Remember, the goal of using Elfer’s technique is to create a shortage of houses in the game. On the other hands, hotels can be counter-productive, so stick to the houses. 

4. Going for Second Monopoly 

The more monopolies you own, the more space you have to build houses. You must buy or trade in order to get a second monopoly before the mid-game starts. In the meantime, you can continue to build more houses on the existing monopoly. Remember, four houses are much better than three. 

5. It is all about the Houses

Once you manage to gain two monopolies, you must focus on building three houses on each property you own. The next step will be to ensure four houses in every square. However, you must remember to build houses only. Hotels are your foe in this strategy. 

6. Protecting Your Assets

The secret of security in the game of monopoly you must own a huge stack of cash. You must maintain a healthy amount of money until you can afford to pay an opponent’s rent. This is inevitable because while your travels across the game board, you will be landing on other player’s property at some point. 

Most players do not know this, but if landing in jail is not that bad. You can sit there and enjoy the rent-free time while other players fight each other with tooth and nail. 

7. You only Accept Cash Payments for Rent

If an opponent lands on your developed property square in the early stage of the game, it would be alright to take their property instead of cash. However, that time of collaboration and understanding is over. 

Now, you must insist on receiving cash payments only, which will force your opponents to mortgage their lands and sell their houses to pay you as the monopoly holder. At this point, you are almost near the finish line. 

8. Building More Monopolies 

If you wish to speed up the game to the finish line, aim to build one monopoly after another. Eventually, you will be the bulk owner of the entire board game’s resources. 

8 Strategies to Win Monopoly Every Time

Here are some other strategies by experts on how you can win a game of monopoly every single time and infuriate your family and friends. It is like a fun party trick that will leave them scratching their heads about how you do it. 

1. Always Know What You Should and Should Not Buy

This is one of the quickest strategies to win monopoly whenever you play the game. Apart from the more apparent reasons, i.e. buy most of the things and buy sets of them whenever possible, you must remember that railways pay back all the time, utilities never or rarely do. 

So the strategy is always to buy railways and property; do not buy utilities. 

2. Knowing the Best Starting Positions 

As a player who wishes to win every game of monopoly, you must remember all the best starting positions to give you an early advantage. Therefore, here is a detailed list of five of the best starting positions to win monopoly. 

• Try to own all four railroads as quickly as you can. This is one of the best starting points in the game of monopoly. The revenue will flow in from the start, and it will be consistent throughout the game. Moreover, railroads are a more pocket-friendly option because other properties may offer the same return on investments, but they will come with a catch of bigger payouts in the long term game plan. Owning 3 to 4 railroads give you a competitive edge as they are cash cows. You can earn continuous cash from them that can help you fund building your monopolies
• You must own at least 3 houses on every orange-colored group, i.e. Tennessee, St James and New York.
• You must own at least 3 houses on every light purple colored group, i.e. States, St. Charles, and Virginia
• You must own at least 3 houses on every light blue colored group, i.e., Connecticut, Oriental and Vermont. 
• You must own a hotel on every dark purple colored group, i.e., Baltic and Mediterranean. However, this option is probably the worst investment in the game but has two main advantages. Firstly, it is the cheapest investment option out of all 5 starting positions, and secondly, it only comes with 2 properties. This means owning this colored group will be far easier, especially if you are playing large games. 

3. Remember Trading Rules

Trading is the fourth but important area to remember when you want to win monopoly every time. This is going to be absolutely essential unless you managed to get lucky in the early stage of the game and have some advantage. 

The trading rules in the game of monopoly are pretty open. However, the principles are clear. You have to be ruthless and do whatever you want to in order to grab a set and/or prevent anyone else from getting a set. This is all that matters; you cannot be friends with opponents if you want to grab all the land. 

Typically, the trick is to identify who is the soft-touch trader amongst the opponents. If you are after a set owned by an uncooperative sibling, it is better to move on to something else. You will have to play as a suck-up and dump while nagging and preying on people’s emotions. You must get that set by hook or by crook. 

Here is another tip; you can indulge in some unconventional trading agreements. For example, you can commit with another player not to charge them any rent on your property for a certain amount of time or even indefinitely. 

4. Managing Your Cash

A monopoly game is not just about getting the square. You must remember that the game is all about developing your property as quickly as you can. Many players of the game do not understand the massive tip that is “Leverage.” 

You can mortgage the property you own in order to get half of its worth. However, there is a catch; you must pay a premium to un-mortgage it. 

That said, you must mortgage almost everything else once you manage to get a set. This will help you raise fun to build a hotel or house as fast as possible. To ensure your monopoly, you must get as many houses or hotel as you can. Ideally, four hotels or houses will set you in a strong position. 

Another critical aspect of cash flow management is avoiding paying too much rent amount to other players. Therefore, ending up in jail is another useful tip you can use to your advantage. The official rule of monopoly is that you still collect all your rents while you are in jail. Players may argue with you on this, but you can confidently show them the rulebook or ask them to Google it. 

The best part is that you can still buy or sell properties, hotels and houses while in jail. So, ending up in jail is more of a win-win scenario that most people are unaware of. 

However, if you find yourself in jail in the early stage of the game, you can pay to get out as soon as possible. Generally, jail is good in the game of monopoly, but you cannot afford to lose any momentum at the beginning of the game. 

Once you have enough property and making money with rents, jail is the best place to be in the game. 

Similarly, you can also try to make an unholy alliance with another opponent against the third player. This is an excellent way to stop a formidable player from winning the game. 

5. Locations Matter

Locations, locations, and locations remember that they really matter. Why? Because it is all about the mechanics of the game. Monopoly is a relatively linear and predictive game, and you can certainly see where other opponents are or where they are likely to land. 

The dice roll probability of playing with two dices is a cornerstone of the monopoly game. The positions are intuitively obvious, but if you have a property seven spaces away, there are 1 in 6 six chances that it will get hit. On the other hand, rolling 12 or 2 has a 1 chance out of 36 probabilities. 

Let us look at the monopoly board for a while (use your own, or you can Google a picture of the board). You can go around the board, but there can be several ways you can end up in jail. Similarly, several paths may send you straight to go and collect $200. 

This means around every seven spaces on the board from either of the two squares mentioned above will see higher traffic. You can literally heatmap this and observe which of the property players are highly likely to land on during the game. 

Once you correlate this factor with the price of each property, you will be able to spot the hot zones on the board game for a breakeven time. Moreover, you will be able to identify the targets you must prioritize. 

Remember, orange is the king, followed by red and lilac, whereas pink and yellow are strong places as well. However, if you can have all four railways, the game is yours to win. 

6. Strategy to Finish the Game

The game of monopoly only ends once everyone else except the winner goes bankrupt. People have started making up their own rules to make the game fair or get a faster start. However, these rules kind of ruin the fun in the game. 

If you want to play something that makes everyone happy, probably play a tea party or something. Monopoly is all about corporative ruthlessness. Therefore, if someone gives you any of the following rules, simply say no. 

• Double money if you land on the go is not a rule for monopoly. All it does is add up more money and delays the outcome. 
• Putting fines on free parking, so if a player lands on free parking, the owner collects the fine. 
• Agreeing to give out loans and adding in extra cash. There is no fun in that; it just makes your game longer. 

To win monopoly every time, you will have to be cruel. Therefore, play a proper game of monopoly and do your best to make people go bust. 

7. No Need to Bother With Utilities at All

This is going to be a real surprise for many seasoned players of monopoly. However, many experts of the game precisely advise not to bother with buying utilities or investing in them. According to Knappskog, the monopoly player only has a 3 percent chance of making any money from any utilities throughout the game. 

Additionally, unlike any other property group in the game, you cannot upgrade utilities. If you wish to win monopoly every time you play, use this strategy to your advantage. 

8. Staying Quite While You Play

Do not say a word while playing the game, or try to communicate as little as you can. The only way you can win monopoly or influence the flow is via playing the odds. Do not share these tips with any of the others, or you will lose the edge over them. 

Ever heard of the saying, “do not mix business with emotions”? Well, that applies here precisely. Show emotions during the game, and you may end up losing the game. So, stay cool, keep quiet, and bring your best poker face to the game to win monopoly every time.