Is winning more a matter of chance, risk assessment, damage control— —or more skill?
Well, I think the classic answer was given by my friend Chris Campbell, who also worked with me at Parker Brothers, and Chris’s answer is Monopoly is 75% skill and 75% luck. What he means is that in any given case, either luck or skill can predominate. Now, if luck predominates, great skill at times can overcome it. If skill predominates, then the player who really understands the math of the game in particular and who’s the better negotiator, well, he’s the person with the better skill level and he’s bound to win. Monopoly’s very much like real life: there’s a component of risk and uncertainty in it, and you need to do the best you can with what luck gives you. It sounds like negotiation is a fairly important skill to winning a game of Monopoly. I like to think that the essence of winning Monopoly boils down to the two N’s—Negotiation and Numbers. Negotiation is the skill to get what you need from your opponents without alienating them in the process. I like to think of a good negotia
