The original article linked by this post had it right: the cultural ad-hoc rules for Monopoly evolved to make the game less frustrating for young children. Tra

The original article linked by this post had it right: the cultural ad-hoc rules for Monopoly evolved to make the game less frustrating for young children. Traditional board games like Monopoly are mostly played by families, and games that require strategic thinking are obviously biased toward adults. Children hate losing, but they're pretty good at detecting when an adult let them win. Therefore, the most popular board games are mostly (or entirely, like Candyland) games of chance. The problem with Monopoly is that it doesn't degrade gracefully when you remove the strategic components. Like a game of chess between players who don't know how to set up a checkmate, it devolves into pieces shuffling purposelessly around the board until everyone gets frustrated and quits.