Las Vegas Weekly

Free parking, anyone? Monopoly World Championship rolls into Vegas

Nicest sugar daddy ever.

Perhaps this is why I’m broke. I hate Monopoly. I love board games, drinking games, the occasional head game—but break out that iconic Park Place/Marvin Gardens board and I dream of doing housework. How can you not hate this game even more in this economic climate? “Who wants to be the banker?” Ugh. In fact, though I’ve played a thousand chess games in my life, which qualifies me to speak fluent Boring, I’m not sure I ever made it to the end of a Monopoly game. By the time you start putting little houses on properties, yawn. What’s a good game for socialists?

But! But: There is a chance for Monopoly to redeem itself, right here in Vegas, right here in the middle the Great Recession. Because if sitting around the kitchen table playing Monopoly sounds like waterboarding, wandering around a casino watching Monopoly players—good ones, people who’ve given a chunk of their lives to this game—play for real money might be an anthropologically interesting day.

So here you go: Forty-two of the world’s top Monopoly players will battle it out at Caesars Palace October 21 and 22 for $20,580. Watching is free. Action starts at 8 a.m. in the forum ballroom. The final event is scheduled for 12:30 on the 22nd. And with any luck, an American will capture the title for the first time since 1974. That’s right, recession-eers, we haven’t won capitalism’s big game in more than 30 years.