SYSK's 12 Days of Christmas… Toys: How Monopoly Works

Summary

Stuff You Should Know: How Monopoly Works

Podcast: Stuff You Should Know
Hosts: Josh Clark & Chuck Bryant
Date: December 12, 2025
Episode: SYSK’s 12 Days of Christmas… Toys: How Monopoly Works

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Episode Overview

This episode takes an in-depth, humorous, and surprising look at the history, politics, gameplay, and cultural phenomenon of Monopoly, the world's most famous board game. Josh and Chuck dig into Monopoly’s origins as a socialist teaching tool, its evolution into a capitalist classic, its many versions, and plenty of fascinating trivia and strategies. Listeners new to Monopoly—and lifelong players—will learn about the game’s strange past and the best ways to win (without necessarily losing all your friends).

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Real Origins of Monopoly

• Who Really Created Monopoly?

  • Monopoly originated as “The Landlord’s Game,” created by Elizabeth “Lizzie” Magie, a left-wing Quaker, to demonstrate the dangers of monopolies. (06:01)
  • The game was originally about showing the evils of land-grabbing and unchecked capitalism.
  • Lizzie Magie’s game featured two rule sets: one rewarded ruthless acquisition, while the other benefited the community (08:06).
  • Quote: “It is a practical demonstration of the present system of land grabbing with all its usual outcomes and consequences.” —Lizzie Magie [09:08]

• Monopoly's Transformation and ‘Theft’:

  • The game evolved as house rules and variations spread, particularly among Quaker communities.
  • Charles Darrow, often called the “inventor” of Monopoly, actually learned the game, recopied it, and sold it to Parker Brothers during the Great Depression (11:10-12:03).
  • Parker Brothers retroactively bought out Lizzie Magie, but only after initially ignoring her.

• Cultural Evolution:

  • The original intention was subverted: a socialist lesson became a celebration of cutthroat capitalism.

2. Notable Monopoly Trivia

• Character Facts:

  • Mr. Monopoly is also known as “Rich Uncle Pennybags” and, officially, Milburn Pennybags. The jailbird is “Jake the Jailbird”; the cop is “Officer Edgar Mallory.” (03:35-04:14)
  • The Monopoly Man does not wear a monocle—you're thinking of Mr. Peanut! (02:32-03:17)

• Board & Property Details:

  • Original properties are based on real places in Atlantic City, NJ. Cheaper properties were often names of African-American neighborhoods; Boardwalk was the high roller’s turf.
  • Marvin Gardens is a misspelling—it should be "Marven Gardens." (15:03-15:09)
  • New York Avenue had one of the country’s first gay scenes. (14:19)

• Tokens:

  • Only 8 tokens in the standard set (past and present include: thimble, iron, cat, dog, car, top hat, wheelbarrow, boot/old shoe, rocking horse, cannon, sack of money, etc.). (22:53-25:37)
  • The cat replaced the iron in 2013 after a vote. (23:01)
  • Some tokens (the cannon, iron, purse, horse & rider) have been retired.
  • Quote: “And I am a cat person, you know, and even you think it’s stupid.” —Chuck Bryant [25:37-25:41]

3. Gameplay Rules & Components

• What’s in a Box:

  • The box contains: board with 40 squares (28 purchasable), 22 properties, utilities, railroads, play money, deed cards, 2 dice, 8 tokens, 32 houses, 12 hotels, Chance and Community Chest cards. (26:07-26:33)

• The Game's Objective:

  • Bankrupt your friends and family—a lesson in ruthless capitalism. (35:25, 35:32)
  • Quote: “The goal of the game ... is to bankrupt all of your family and friends.” —Josh Clark [35:25-35:32]

• House Rules:

  • Monopoly is infamous for “house rules.” Common ones include giving all taxes and fees to the Free Parking pot (which the official rules say is just a blank space). (28:18-28:44)
  • Newer versions of Monopoly incorporate fan-favorite house rules as official ones. (28:18-28:51)

• Buying Properties:

  • Official rules require that if a player declines to buy a property, it goes up for auction (almost nobody plays this way). (36:22-37:13)
  • Monopolies (owning all properties of a color) allow building of houses/hotels and doubling rent.

• Mortgaging & Bankruptcy:

  • Players can mortgage to raise cash and sell back improvements to the bank.
  • The only transaction not allowed: personal loans between players (though, “I did all kinds of personal loaning because I was Mr. Cash.” —Josh Clark [39:52-40:07]).

4. Strategy & Winning the Game

• General Strategy:

  • Best advice: “Buy everything.” Don't hoard cash; investments pay off. (46:01-46:12)
  • “The number one mistake people make is hoarding cash like I did.” —Josh Clark [46:24-46:29]
  • Trade ruthlessly for monopolies—even “bad” ones—sooner the better.

• Advanced Strategy:

  • Three houses often have the best return; hotels are usually not as efficient an investment. (47:05-47:12)
  • Statistically, orange properties (e.g., St. James Place) are most profitable—they’re right after jail, where many players are likely to land. (50:56-51:16)
  • Railroads are decent (spaced out; $200 rent for all four), but less so than a color monopoly.
  • Utilities are a poor investment—low, variable returns.
  • Boardwalk and Park Place? Avoid putting all your cash there—high cost, but rarely landed on.

• Jail:

  • Early game: get out of jail fast to scoop up properties.
  • Late game: stay in jail to avoid rent—since you can still collect rent from others. (53:08-53:34)
  • Officially, you can build, buy, or sell while in jail; house rules vary.

• Probability & Personalities:

  • Luck matters; dice rolls shape everything.
  • “It’s a game of people and personalities... you’re really playing against people, man.” —Josh Clark [55:17-55:22]

5. The Secret ‘Anti-Monopoly’ History

• Ralph Anspach and the Lawsuit
  • Economist Ralph Anspach created Anti-Monopoly in the 1970s as a criticism of monopolies—players break up monopolies instead of building them. (55:36-56:35)
  • Parker Brothers sued, destroyed his copies, but Anspach fought back.
  • Supreme Court ruled in Anspach’s favor, vindicating both his game and the truth that Monopoly was not Charles Darrow’s invention. (58:06-58:21)
  • Quote: “He deposed the CEO of Parker Brothers and he took the stand and had to admit under oath, like, yeah, we did kind of steal it, the idea from that lady, after all.” —Josh Clark [58:32-58:53]

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Memorable Moments & Quotes

• Mr. Monopoly’s Name

  • “His born name, his given name by his parents, is Rich Uncle Pennybags.” —Chuck Bryant [03:36]
  • “He even has a regular name, too... Milburn Pennybags.” —Josh Clark [03:50]

• Monopoly’s Irony

  • “It’s interesting to me that the game of Monopoly, which is all about capitalism and bankrupting your neighbor, was stolen... It was to teach against monopolies and how they were bad.” —Josh Clark [06:01-06:22]

• Jail Rules

  • “Early in the game, pay the fifty bucks, get out... Later in the game, you want to just kind of hang out in jail.” —Josh Clark [53:08-53:22]

• The Hidden Lesson

  • “All these games are just teaching you about life... Real Monopoly is nothing but real estate. The Game of Life is everything.” —Josh Clark [32:49-33:06]

• The True Monopoly Game

  • “If you want to learn more about Monopoly, including how to play... go on to HowStuffWorks... and check out the rules.” —Chuck Bryant [60:41-60:50]

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• [02:32-03:17] — The Monopoly Man’s (lack of) monocle & names
• [06:00-09:19] — The political origins and purpose of The Landlord’s Game
• [11:10-13:12] — Charles Darrow, Parker Brothers, and the game’s commercialization
• [14:19-15:09] — Atlantic City, cultural facts, and property details
• [22:53-25:37] — The history, names, and evolution of tokens
• [35:25-35:32] — The object of the game: ruin your friends and family!
• [37:32-38:35] — Auction rules and house rules
• [46:01-47:12] — Optimal winning strategies
• [50:56-51:16] — Why orange properties are secretly the best
• [53:08-53:34] — Jail strategies: early vs. late game
• [55:36-59:11] — Anti-Monopoly and the lawsuit that changed game history

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Conclusion

Josh and Chuck’s exploration of Monopoly reveals a game deeply entwined with economics, politics, and American culture. What began as a socialist lesson against the dangers of concentrated land and wealth mutated into a global celebration of those very concepts. Along the way, Monopoly spawned quirky house rules, bitter lawsuits, spin-off games, and infinite trivia. Above all, it's a game about people—their personalities, quirks, and drive to (pretend to) be Rich Uncle Pennybags.

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Further Listening & Reading

• Want to know more? Search Monopoly at howstuffworks.com for easy-to-digest rules and strategy tips.
• For the ultimate Monopoly deep dive, check out Mary Pilon's Monopoly: The Birth of Board Game Capitalism and Ralph Anspach's The Billion Dollar Monopoly Swindle.

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Stuff You Should Know: Because sometimes, games are history lessons in disguise—and sometimes, they’re just reasons to argue with your family for hours on end.

Transcript

[Josh Clark]

This is an iHeart podcast.

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[Chuck Bryant]

Oh boy, it's time for one of.

[Emily]

My favorite episodes, How Monopoly Works. This one was way more interesting than I ever understood.

[Chuck Bryant]

There's a lot more to Monopoly and.

[Emily]

Just as a little aside, if you think that The Monopoly man wore a monocle.

[Chuck Bryant]

You're wrong.

[Emily]

You're thinking of Mr. Peanut. Plus, also, it makes sense that he would be wearing a monocle. It's a bit of a crime that he wasn't. At any rate, here's the episode on Monopoly.

[Josh Clark]

Welcome to stuff you should know from howstuffworks.com.

[Chuck Bryant]

Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark with Charles W. Chuck Bryant and Jerry Rowland. Which makes this stuff you should know.

[Josh Clark]

That's right. Got on my top hat and my cane.

[Chuck Bryant]

Your monocle?

[Josh Clark]

My monocle. Does he have monocle? I thought it was. No, that's Mr. Peanut.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, yeah.

[Josh Clark]

Not Mr. Monopoly.

[Chuck Bryant]

And I think Mr. Pringle has a monocle too, doesn't he? Or. No, he just has a mustache. Yeah, Mr. Monopoly doesn't have a monocle. Huh?

[Josh Clark]

I don't think so.

[Chuck Bryant]

Huh. You'd think we'd know. We do not. But I do know this Mr. Monopoly is a nickname for that man.

[Josh Clark]

That's right.

[Chuck Bryant]

His born name, his given name by his parents is Rich Uncle Pennybags. Three names, so uncle would be his middle name.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, well, he even has a regular name, too.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, not that I saw.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, it is Milburn Pennybags.

[Chuck Bryant]

No.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. There was a book published, and this is one of those after the fact deals called the Monopoly Companion. And they named all the character characters on the board Milburn Pennybags. And then the jail guy is Jake the Jailbird.

[Chuck Bryant]

Okay.

[Josh Clark]

And the police officer and go to jail is.

[Chuck Bryant]

It's. I'll bet it's Iris, isn't it?

[Josh Clark]

Officer Edgar Mallory.

[Chuck Bryant]

I knew it. Really?

[Josh Clark]

You just guess that, huh? Yeah, that's pretty funny. We're talking about Monopoly, by the way.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, yeah, yeah. This is not about anything else but Monopoly.

[Josh Clark]

No. And I was just remarking to you, sir, how I've never seen one of our. This had more supplemental information than most shows that we research.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, I can explain why. Because this was written. There was a whole suite of game articles written.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

Like just how to play certain games. So it kind of came out in this mentality of this is the game and here's how we explain how to play it. And this article's done. Whereas Monopoly, it's like this is more like McDonald's or Twinkies or something like that. It's like a cultural cog. Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

I mean, there's so much extra junk history and I mean, you talk about the different versions, it's ridiculous.

[Chuck Bryant]

Milburn Penny Banks.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. And like I said, that was a post that he wasn't originally called that. This is, I think Monopoly probably wanted to sell a little book or two.

[Chuck Bryant]

I'm sure they did.

[Josh Clark]

Because if one thing we've learned about Parker Brothers and now Hasbro is they love selling different versions of this game.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, they do. They like licensing it off a lot of money. They like making some changes here, there, releasing a brand new game. But it's all still the same game. And all of it came from a left wing Quaker intellectual at the turn of the last century. The Fin de Siekel.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, it was.

[Chuck Bryant]

I'm saying that, right?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, sure.

[Chuck Bryant]

Okay.

[Josh Clark]

I think it sounds right. And it's interesting to me that the game of Monopoly, which is all about capitalism and bankrupting your neighbor, was stolen.

[Chuck Bryant]

The game was stolen from a leftist intellectual Quaker.

[Josh Clark]

In the original version of the game. It was to teach against monopolies and how they were bad.

[Chuck Bryant]

Right. So let's talk about this Monopoly. Actually, if you trace it back to about the literal beginning of the 20th century, it's what's considered a folk game. There were a lot of people playing versions like this in cities all over the country. But again, they all shared some pretty common viewpoints. I guess today you would kind of call them socialists, but for the most part they were followers of a guy named Henry George.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, Georgism.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. He came up with this thing called georgism, which is based on some other philosophies. But the idea of it is that if you produce something through your own labor, your own work, you own that. That should not be taxed. What should be taxed is things that everybody owns. If somebody's taking something that belongs to everybody, say a parcel of land, technically the land belongs to everybody.

[Josh Clark]

Well, that was his notion, was that you shouldn't even be a landowner. The whole concept of owning land to him was ridiculous.

[Chuck Bryant]

And that's based on this idea, the law of the commons, which is around for centuries, if not millennia. And then once people started taking land, he's like, okay, well if you're going to own land, it belongs to everybody. So that should be taxed and then that tax will be given back to the community for the greater good. Yeah, so that's Georgism. And that was kind of the philosophy that formed the basis of Monopoly. What was originally called the Landlord's Game, which was created by a lady named Lizzie Maggie. M A G Y M A G I E M A G I E. Yeah, almost Magpie, but without the P. Right, yeah. And she basically, I think that was.

[Josh Clark]

On her card.

[Chuck Bryant]

And she came up with this, like you said, to kind of teach so you could go and be a rich landowner and bankrupt other people and exploit the poor who need your help, who need a decent place to stay. And you could see yourself like the evils of capitalism. But she actually came up with two sets of rules for the same game. One was where you got as rich as you could at the expense of everybody else. The other was basically the community benefited. And you can kind of see that today in these weird things like community chess. Like, why would I want to pay into this pot? I don't care about the community. Now it's a bad thing. In her original version, it was a good thing. Like, the community won. Right. And that was the basis of the whole thing.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Which is really ironic. It is, yeah. Like you said, she created two versions. And she said one of the quotes from her is, it is a practical demonstration of the present system of land grabbing with all its usual outcomes and consequences. So it was kind of to teach people lessons. And she had it stolen from her, basically.

[Chuck Bryant]

Luckily, Lizzie, Maggie was smart enough to patent this game. It became just kind of a trendy thing again. Like, if you were into socialism at the time and you were on the east coast, you probably hung out at a friend's house and played this game at some point in some incarnation or another.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, it was really popular. Like you said, like, people made up some of their own rules, but it was. I mean, if you look at the original Landlord's game board, it looks a lot like the current Monopoly. I mean, similar, at least.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. And apparently a lot of the rules that make the game a lot more enjoyable today came from Lizzie's Quaker friends. Like, for example, the original plots of land were up for auction for bid.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

Quakers prefer silence, so they just put a fixed price on the piece of land so there wouldn't be a loud, obnoxious bidding war. They also instituted tokens, fun tokens. Before they were just boring pawns.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, like household objects, which, you know, that's why the thimble is in there and originally the iron. Yeah, we'll get to those in a minute, but I know, it's pretty exciting.

[Chuck Bryant]

And then, so this thing's being played and Lizzie, Maggie holds the patent, but she's not exactly, like, cracking down on any kind of infringement. Really.

[Josh Clark]

No. Well, she pitched it to Parker Brothers and they said no.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. So she just kind of went on doing her own thing.

[Josh Clark]

So there's another lady, actually, that figures into this, a lady named Ruth Hoskins, and she was One of the ones who caught on in the Philadelphia Atlantic City area with her Quaker friends. Two of them in particular, Jesse and Eugene Rayford. And they are the ones who changed some of the rules to make it look more like the Monopoly. We know they taught it to a friend named Todd, and Todd taught it to his friend named Charles Darrow. And that's where the story takes kind of a seedy turn.

[Chuck Bryant]

Well, actually, that's where the Parker Brothers official version begins, ironically.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

Things turn seedy if you go to their website. Parker Brothers is like, hey, this is where our story begins. Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

The inventor of Monopoly, Charles Darrow.

[Chuck Bryant]

Right. So he was like a radiator salesman during the Depression. This is the 30s, right?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. I mean, it was ironically, again, during the depression. This game really caught hold.

[Chuck Bryant]

Well, supposedly that's what caught the Parker Brothers attention, was that this guy came to. Came to him. Came to them to sell him this game, which he had stolen. Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

Apparently he didn't innovate it at all. He kind of just copied it and packaged it and said, hey, what do you think of this?

[Chuck Bryant]

And the Parker Brothers said, we don't think too much of it. Like, how does the game end? We don't know what's going on here, so let's just. You just go your own way. So Charles Darrow went off and started selling it at this Wanamaker's department store in Philadelphia.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Without patenting it.

[Chuck Bryant]

Right. And the Parker Brothers said, you know what? It's the Depression. Can you believe it? We're not going to have any kind of economic woes like this for another 70, 80 years. And this guy's selling these things like hotcakes. You know what, sir? We will buy your idea from you. And Charles Darrow apparently said, well, that's great. Give me the money first, and then I'll tell you the second part of the story. And they gave him a bag of money with a dollar sign on it, much like the ones that rich Uncle Pennybags likes. And he said, okay, we also need to buy the patent now from this lady named Lizzie. Maggie. Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

Which they did. The game was still stolen, I say, even though they eventually did pay her money.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

But part of the deal was they said they agreed to buy her patent and said, you know what? We're gonna. We'll sell a few of your other game ideas, too. None of those ever went anywhere. And she was sort of lost to history.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

Except for people who do a little bit of digging.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. And we actually have a guy named Ralph to thank for doing that digging initially. We'll talk about him later.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, yeah, that's right.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Because he's the one who came up with the unofficial history and like really tracked it down.

[Josh Clark]

Well, there's a lot of teases in this one so far.

[Chuck Bryant]

So the Parker brothers now own the game and it becomes a huge hit virtually off the bat. In the 30s is when they bought it and started really printing it.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. And the game is based on Atlantic City. Those are the properties. And that's because that was the area where it became popular. But this excellent New York Times article you sent, what was the name of it? Monopoly Goes Corporate.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, it was written by. What's the lady's name?

[Josh Clark]

Mary Pillin.

[Chuck Bryant]

She is a Monopoly expert.

[Josh Clark]

There's a lot of those out there, I've learned.

[Chuck Bryant]

Well, she wrote a lot of the articles, you'll find.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, really?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, she's good.

[Josh Clark]

Well, she pointed out that it's interesting that it mirrored sort of the cartography of the day in Atlantic City. Like, Boardwalk was clearly like a rich area. The Baltic and Mediterranean. The cheapest properties were in African American neighborhoods. There was a Reading railroad that transferred people between Philly and Atlantic City. And little known fact, for our friends in the gay community, New York Avenue was one of the earliest gay scenes in the country.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

So buy that one up and support. Support the LBGT community.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's right.

[Josh Clark]

If you're playing Monopoly. Yeah, that's what I would do.

[Chuck Bryant]

And maybe just, you know, don't charge anybody when they land on it. Yeah, just be like, this is the party place.

[Josh Clark]

Exactly.

[Chuck Bryant]

And Marvin Gardens apparently is misspelled.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, E instead of an I or I instead of an E. Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

On the board it's an I and it's supposed to be an E. There's a lot of Monopoly facts dropping all around us right now.

[Josh Clark]

I know it's raining thimbles.

[Chuck Bryant]

Before we go any further though, you want to do a message break?

[Josh Clark]

Yes.

[Chuck Bryant]

Okay, we'll be right back, everyone.

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[Emily]

Hey everybody, we're hitting the road again starting in January 2026, picking up again in April 2026 and eventually Canada will tell you year dates too.

[Sponsor Voice 4]

That's right.

[Josh Clark]

We're going to do at least three legs, and the first leg is starting out in Denver, Colorado at the Paramount Theater on January 27th. We're going to go back to our beloved Seattle at the Paramount Theater there on the 28th, and then finally back at SketchFest on the 29th at the Sidney Goldstein Theater.

[Emily]

Yep. And then April 16th, 17th and 18th, we're going to be in Madison, Wisconsin, Chicago, Illinois and Akron, Ohio. And if you're not keeping up with all this or taking notes, don't worry, you can get all the info you need and buy tickets atstuffyou should know.com, click on the Tour button and thank us later.

[Josh Clark]

That's right. We can't wait to see everybody again out there on the road. All right, so we were just talking about Atlantic City. I guess we can go ahead and point out now that there are hundreds of versions of Monopoly out there now. One for your hometown, probably one for your favorite sports team. I have personally, my version is a Star Wars Monopoly.

[Chuck Bryant]

Nice.

[Josh Clark]

Which is pretty fun.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, I guess Hasbro's like, you got some money? Sure. You can license this. Make your own Monopoly game. Go ahead.

[Josh Clark]

There's a Simpsons Monopoly. I haven't played it though.

[Chuck Bryant]

And in addition to the licensed versions that you can find like everywhere.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

They also have like official versions Too. Like there's a US version.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

There's a UK version. There's a new version that's called Monopoly here and now.

[Josh Clark]

What does that even mean?

[Chuck Bryant]

Super corporate.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, is this the corporate one?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, okay.

[Chuck Bryant]

It's like everything is multiplied by I think a thousand. So the dollar amounts are way higher.

[Josh Clark]

Is this one where they replaced the.

[Chuck Bryant]

The railroads are replaced by airports.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Is this one where they replaced corporations for all the properties though?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yes.

[Josh Clark]

Like McDonald's and Sony and.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

God, who would want to play that?

[Chuck Bryant]

Some people do, you know. Yeah, yeah.

[Josh Clark]

I mean I'm not a purist because I have the Star wars version, but I just. It's no fun to me to play as Paramount Pictures and to buy the McDonald's property.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

That's just me.

[Chuck Bryant]

So there are a bunch of different versions, but the one we're going to talk about, we'll just talk about the normal version with the 2008 rules.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. And there's actually coming soon later this year there you can go online at my Monopoly and you can design your own board.

[Chuck Bryant]

Is that right?

[Josh Clark]

And do like your own neighborhood.

[Chuck Bryant]

Wow.

[Josh Clark]

And then they will make it for you. And I think it's like 150 bucks or something.

[Chuck Bryant]

Wow. Money bags you can get.

[Josh Clark]

I'm not gonna do it. To the East Lake Monopoly.

[Chuck Bryant]

No, I was talking to whoever went and got it.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, sure, yeah. Rich uncle, rich penny bags. That's what you should have said.

[Chuck Bryant]

Rich uncle penny bag, penny bags. Just sounds not, not that wealthy.

[Josh Clark]

Well actually I have a bag of.

[Chuck Bryant]

Pennies on me right now.

[Josh Clark]

He Forbes has their silly fictional 15 list of fictional characters wealth and he in 2013 was number 13.

[Chuck Bryant]

Jeez. His stars declined him, huh.

[Josh Clark]

Guess who the first the richest fictional character is?

[Chuck Bryant]

The Incredible Hulk.

[Josh Clark]

No, he was not rich. Scrooge McDuck.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh yeah.

[Josh Clark]

Well dude, he had that gold vault apparently 65 billion. Number two was Smaug, which I thought was kind of silly.

[Chuck Bryant]

Smaug from like Lord of the Rings.

[Josh Clark]

It's a dragon I think had like was sitting on a bunch of gold.

[Chuck Bryant]

Gotcha.

[Josh Clark]

Carlisle Cullen, Number 3. Tony Stark 4. Charles Foster Kane, Number 5. Who's Number 3? Carlisle Cullen from Twilight.

[Chuck Bryant]

Who is that?

[Josh Clark]

He was the dad. Vampire dad of the vampire family. And he's been alive forever. So I guess he just keeps accumulating. Well, Bruce Wayne, Richie Rich. Christian Grey, Richie Rich.

[Chuck Bryant]

I forgot about him.

[Josh Clark]

He's number seven.

[Chuck Bryant]

He had a robot made and a crazy like weird scientist friend, didn't he?

[Josh Clark]

Sure. Like a Richie Rich. Robot of himself.

[Chuck Bryant]

I think he had that, too. But no, his maid was a robot, wasn't it?

[Josh Clark]

That was the Jetsons.

[Chuck Bryant]

No, he had a robot made, too.

[Josh Clark]

I thought Monty burns at number 10 was pretty good.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, yeah, that's good. Although I would guess Mr. Monopoly would be wealthier than Monty Burns. But.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, 13. And they put it out each year, and it's dumb. Can we just admit that I was thrilled by it? Okay.

[Chuck Bryant]

We just spent three minutes on it.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, well, that's true.

[Chuck Bryant]

Okay, so, Chuckers, you want to talk about the rules of the game again? 2008 rules. If you are a Monopoly purist and, like. I'm sorry, that's just what we're going with.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Well, let's talk about the game board itself. Just so if you haven't played it, I'm surprised because I think like a billion people have played the game. But if you haven't, when you get your Monopoly game, you're going to open it up and you're going to have a board with all these different properties and a square. You have two dice. 12. They call them tokens. That's not the right amount either, is it?

[Chuck Bryant]

No. There's eight.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

I don't understand where they got 12 from. Unless they're counting ones that maybe were retired or something like that. But when you open the box, there's only eight there.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

There's a. Can we go over?

[Josh Clark]

Sure.

[Chuck Bryant]

There's a wheelbarrow. Scotty Dog.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

Top Hat. A cat, which replaced the iron in 2013.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

There was a big, big to do because Parker Brothers or Hasbro was like, we haven't made a lot of money off of this for a couple months, so let's just do something.

[Josh Clark]

Well, they let people vote at least, which is kind of cool.

[Chuck Bryant]

Right. But it was also. Did you see the other ones that they were voting for, like a robot?

[Josh Clark]

Richie Rich's main guitar.

[Chuck Bryant]

A guitar, yeah.

[Josh Clark]

They didn't make the cut, though.

[Chuck Bryant]

No, they got voted out and the cat got voted in, but the iron got booted.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. It only got 8% of the vote. There's the classic shoe, of course, or boot, which is modeled after a 1930s working shoe. And I think they've kept it the same.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, that's one of the original ones. The Scotty Dog was not one of the originals. It came in the 50s. Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

And I think that was supposed to be the companion of Milburn Money. Vinny.

[Chuck Bryant]

Is that right?

[Josh Clark]

Benny?

[Sponsor Voice 1]

Bags.

[Chuck Bryant]

Penny bags.

[Josh Clark]

I know. Should be cash bags. Fat stacks. There was a cannon which has since been retired.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. And if they thought it was too militarist.

[Josh Clark]

Well, it was the cannon and the battleship. Yeah. They were from a failed game called Conflict. And they were like, well, we got all these pieces.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, yeah.

[Josh Clark]

Let's just throw them in Monopoly for now.

[Chuck Bryant]

Right.

[Josh Clark]

It's pretty smart.

[Chuck Bryant]

But they faced the cannon up because it was just too overtly violent.

[Josh Clark]

It just says with any. Without any fanfare or vote or campaign. So probably. Yeah, that'd be my guess. If it's hush hush.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

It's probably because of violence.

[Chuck Bryant]

There's a conspiracy afoot.

[Josh Clark]

There's the race car.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

It's every little kid's favorite.

[Chuck Bryant]

Which apparently had a number three on the side for a little while.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. I didn't know that.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

Dale Earnhardt.

[Chuck Bryant]

I guess so.

[Josh Clark]

Purse has been retired.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

The rocking horse was retired.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yep.

[Josh Clark]

The lantern was retired.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, yeah. I'm doing my best Ben Bola impression. Did you do.

[Josh Clark]

Did you get Wheelbarrow in there yet?

[Chuck Bryant]

I think I. No. Yes, I did. It was the first one I said. Did we say top hat?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. That was always my favorite, actually.

[Chuck Bryant]

I don't remember what my favorite was.

[Josh Clark]

It fit on my pinky. And I used to draw faces off the pinky, the horse and rider, which is retired, which I didn't know. That's one of the best pieces to me.

[Chuck Bryant]

What you didn't know was retired.

[Josh Clark]

No. It was kind of sad.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

And now they're. And the sack of money was retired as well.

[Chuck Bryant]

The sack of money and a purse. Those are a little similar.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. The cat. Come on.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

Cat people.

[Chuck Bryant]

I'm sure they're like, that's exactly right. I guarantee that's why they got cat voted in.

[Josh Clark]

And I am a cat person, you.

[Chuck Bryant]

Know, and even you think it's stupid.

[Josh Clark]

Exactly.

[Chuck Bryant]

So those are the tokens. Some of those tokens that we mentioned you're going to find in the 2008 set. Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

And that is your piece. That is what represents you in the game.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yes.

[Josh Clark]

Again, for the three people who have never played Monopoly.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Because supposedly, at least as far as hasbro calculates, over 1 billion people have played Monopoly. And frankly, I'm surprised it's that low.

[Josh Clark]

It sounds like an old number.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Okay, so you've got the box open, you get the board, you got two dice, you got the tokens, 32 houses and 12 hotels, 16 chance cards, 16 community chest cards, a title deed card for each property. It's got the information on it, like how much it costs to purchase, how Much rent is depending on how many houses or hotels you have on it.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. What the mortgage value is worth.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's right. And then you've got your play money, your Monopoly money, which, man, I think.

[Josh Clark]

That'S where it grabs kids because. And they even pointed out in this article that's kind of the first time a lot of kids have money to play with.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Especially the $500 bill ones.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, man, that gold bill, I always.

[Chuck Bryant]

Thought it was orange. Is it gold?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

Okay. It's kind of cool one's. Definitely golden rod, like yellow. But I remember the 500. It was. Yeah. I guess gold is the way to go.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. See, I was a cash hoarder, which is no way to win at Monopoly.

[Chuck Bryant]

No, I thought it was can't save.

[Josh Clark]

No, I just thought that just figures for me, though.

[Chuck Bryant]

Like you got to spend money to make money. Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

I was like, look at all this cash that I will soon be paying to everyone else.

[Chuck Bryant]

You just keep wandering off from the table and try to buy stuff with it.

[Josh Clark]

Did not work.

[Chuck Bryant]

So, Chuck, you've got the board laid out, and if you count them, if you're that kind of person.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

You're gonna find that there's 40 squares.

[Josh Clark]

That's right.

[Chuck Bryant]

I believe 22 of which are. No, 28 of which can be purchased.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. 22 are properties. You've got your electric company and waterworks.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

Sucker's bet.

[Chuck Bryant]

And then you got the four railroads.

[Josh Clark]

Four railroads, yep.

[Chuck Bryant]

So that's 28.

[Josh Clark]

That's right.

[Chuck Bryant]

There are others that you can't buy. So for example, there's a luxury tax square.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. You got to pay what, $100 when you land on that?

[Chuck Bryant]

I believe.

[Josh Clark]

So just right out of. Just right out of your pocket, there's.

[Chuck Bryant]

An income tax square.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, no good.

[Chuck Bryant]

There's the go square, which is where you start. And then when you come back around, you collect $200, which is in Monopoly called your salary.

[Josh Clark]

That's right. I never knew that.

[Chuck Bryant]

I didn't either.

[Josh Clark]

And there's a lot of rules in here. And I guess it's a good time to point out Monopoly is one of those games where house rules are highly encouraged and a lot of the fun of the game. And in fact, to make more money, Monopoly this year are incorporating the top house rules as voted on by fans as official rules for this one version.

[Chuck Bryant]

In a $70 hardback book.

[Josh Clark]

I don't see why a lot of people were incensed. They were like, we've no one plays by the real rules anyway, so why Bother packaging it and selling it.

[Chuck Bryant]

Right.

[Josh Clark]

And they went. I think you just said the word sell.

[Chuck Bryant]

Did someone say sell?

[Josh Clark]

Therein lies the answer.

[Chuck Bryant]

So you've got. Oh, there's. And so there's 40 squares, but there's actually 41 places you can go to on the board. Because jail is divided into two squares.

[Josh Clark]

That's right.

[Chuck Bryant]

You got the jail with the jailbird. What's his name?

[Josh Clark]

I can't remember. Johnny.

[Chuck Bryant]

Johnny Jailbird or something.

[Josh Clark]

Jake the Jailbird.

[Chuck Bryant]

Right. Okay. Which is where Jake the Jailbird is. And then you've got the lower part of it. It's just visiting.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. If you want to visit Jake, give him a bundt cake with the nail file in it. It'd be very old school.

[Chuck Bryant]

Or a Monopoly set with maybe a map with an escape route embedded in it.

[Josh Clark]

Hey, that sounds familiar.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. POWs in World War II were given such Monopoly sets. True. Which is strange to me. It's like. Were the Nazis allowing Monopoly sets to be delivered to POWs? Is that what I'm seeing here? Maybe it's the Burmese.

[Josh Clark]

No, I mean, you've seen the, like, the Great Escape on those. The war prison camps in World War II. It seemed like a lot of them, they let them, like, garden and they were kind of chummy with them. You saw Hogan's Heroes?

[Chuck Bryant]

I saw Hogan's Heroes. I didn't put a lot of stock into it. Yeah. But, yeah. No, I just figured they played soccer. Maybe the Japanese or the Burmese or the Italians. I could see, like, saying, like, yeah, hey, bring some Monopoly and who cares? But the Nazis, I would think would. I just don't see that.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. I'm not saying it was a walk in the park, but I think from the depiction and like. Like I said, like the Great Escape. It's not like Vietnam prison camp.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, yeah.

[Josh Clark]

You know, like, they weren't playing soccer or Monopoly.

[Chuck Bryant]

Right.

[Josh Clark]

They were playing Survive Another Day, that game.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

I'm not making light of that, by the way.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, I didn't think you were.

[Josh Clark]

And I'm basing everything on more movies, so I'm probably wrong.

[Chuck Bryant]

I've seen Uncommon Valor.

[Josh Clark]

That was a good movie.

[Chuck Bryant]

That was a great movie.

[Josh Clark]

It doesn't age well, though.

[Chuck Bryant]

Really?

[Josh Clark]

No.

[Chuck Bryant]

Remember that menu with the gun silhouettes on it?

[Josh Clark]

Oh, yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

And when you're 12, you're like, oh, my God. Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

It's like, I would buy that one and that one.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

All right, so where were we?

[Chuck Bryant]

We were talking about the board itself.

[Josh Clark]

Yes.

[Chuck Bryant]

And the different squares.

[Josh Clark]

Yes. There are the cards that you can draw as well. Community Chest and Chance Squares. When you land on these, you draw a card from one of those two piles. And there are various things in there. Like, you want a fashion modeling contest, you get $10.

[Chuck Bryant]

Isn't there a dog show one in there, too?

[Josh Clark]

I think there's probably a dog show. And there's also, you know, you have street repairs or.

[Chuck Bryant]

Those are big time general repairs.

[Josh Clark]

And that's based on your properties that you own.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's right. They can hit you pretty hard.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

It's like in real life.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's right. You know, and that's funny because the Monopoly. What was her name? Lizzie? Maggie.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

In an interview she gave with some leftist magazine at the time, she said she basically called the thing the Game of Life.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, that was already taken out.

[Chuck Bryant]

I don't know. Was it?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, that was. That's around since the, like, mid-1800s.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, okay.

[Josh Clark]

That's old.

[Chuck Bryant]

I thought she was being prescient.

[Josh Clark]

No, she was being glib.

[Chuck Bryant]

She was. She was making a pop culture reference for the time.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, exactly.

[Chuck Bryant]

But did you know apparently there used to be a square on the Game of Life board for suicide?

[Josh Clark]

Really?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, it was the way you could go.

[Josh Clark]

I never really played that. I think I played it a couple of times.

[Chuck Bryant]

I never did either. I always thought it was kind of like you get the whole family in the car and it's like, whatever.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, we did. I mean, we weren't the biggest game players as families, but we did Monopoly some and Yahtzee was a big one.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yahtzee was great.

[Josh Clark]

That I still enjoy today. I love Yahtzee.

[Chuck Bryant]

Sure.

[Josh Clark]

We also played this game called Bull, and it was like a stock trading game.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, yeah.

[Josh Clark]

With cards. And it's just now occurring to me that all these games are just teaching you about life.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

It's like real Monopoly is nothing but real estate. The Game of Life is everything.

[Chuck Bryant]

Right.

[Josh Clark]

This game, Bull, was about the stock market.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, Sorry. Was about sarcastic.

[Josh Clark]

Sorry.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

Because you had to say it like a jerk.

[Chuck Bryant]

Right.

[Josh Clark]

Candy Land. We know what that's all about.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Drugs. Right. Probably Chutes and Ladders. Tell you to stay away from snakes.

[Sponsor Voice 1]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

Operation taught you how to be a doctor.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, yeah, that's right. That's where I got my md.

[Josh Clark]

And then, of course, Battleship taught you how to be a warmonger.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's right. So did Risk.

[Josh Clark]

And take great pride.

[Chuck Bryant]

Risk taught you to be the Antichrist. Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

Risk we should do. There is an article on Risk.

[Chuck Bryant]

I saw. I looked it over. It didn't seem as interesting as this one, though.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, I don't know if the history is as interesting for sure.

[Chuck Bryant]

And I mean, isn't there that what it. What's interesting about any game? The history of it?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, I think so.

[Chuck Bryant]

So let's talk about the rules, dude. Okay, let's start at the beginning. We'll start at Go.

[Josh Clark]

Go is where you start. And that's where you. Like you said, you collect the 200 every time you land on it or pass it sometimes. House rules, you get 400 for actually landing on it.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, yeah.

[Josh Clark]

And only 200 for passing it. We never.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, that makes sense. That's a good.

[Josh Clark]

But free parking is where we had house rules. That is a space on the corner of the board where you supposedly, per the official rules, don't do anything.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, there's nothing. It's just a space.

[Josh Clark]

But what we did was we donated all the collected taxes and fees and put it under free parking. And if you land on that, that was like a lottery win.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, yeah.

[Josh Clark]

And a lot of people play that way.

[Chuck Bryant]

I think I've heard of that one before.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, it was, you know, we were a bunch of.

[Chuck Bryant]

Beep.

[Josh Clark]

Nevermind. I liked it because it allowed you more money, which is my favorite thing. Cash.

[Chuck Bryant]

It's the lotto.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, exactly.

[Chuck Bryant]

We got ahead of ourselves. Let's just start at the real beginning.

[Josh Clark]

Okay.

[Chuck Bryant]

So everybody sits down at the table.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

Somebody gets a drink. Maybe you have to wait because somebody has to go to the bathroom. So you're all sitting there quietly. And then when everybody's finally at the table, you guys select a banker. And the banker distributes The Monopoly money. $1,500 to each player. Two five hundreds, two one hundreds, two hundred and fifties, six twenties and five tens. Five fives and five ones.

[Josh Clark]

That's right.

[Chuck Bryant]

$1,500.

[Josh Clark]

And the goal of the game that we are getting to here at 30 minutes in is to bankrupt all of your family and friends.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's the whole point.

[Josh Clark]

Pretty much. Some people put a time limit because this game can go on forever. And other people say, no, it's got a. You got to finish it by bankrupting everyone. Or until the last person is like, I give. Geez, I've got $8.

[Chuck Bryant]

I hate this game.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, that's usually me.

[Chuck Bryant]

Right?

[Josh Clark]

And Emily's usually has her foot on my throat.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, yeah, yeah.

[Josh Clark]

We played two person monopoly, which is just not fun.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Because you know one of you is gonna lose.

[Josh Clark]

No, that's not why. It's just. It's a game that's more fun with more people, I think.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, I gotcha.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

So, okay, so everybody's got 1500 bucks. You roll the dice to see who goes first. Whoever rolls the highest goes first.

[Josh Clark]

Classic move.

[Chuck Bryant]

Then you roll both die. And you start moving from the go square, and you go clockwise around the board.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

And when you land on a property. This I didn't know.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

Which is kind of a basic rule, I guess, but I never played it this way. When you land on a property.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

You have the option to buy it. I knew that part.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

But if you decline to buy it, then the property goes up for auction.

[Josh Clark]

I've never. Not only have I never played it the way, I've never heard of anyone playing it that way.

[Chuck Bryant]

Okay, so it's not just me.

[Josh Clark]

Not just you.

[Chuck Bryant]

All right, so I guess the. During an auction, not only the person, not only everybody else, but the banker and the person who declined to buy it can bid on it, which didn't make sense.

[Josh Clark]

Unless you're trying to get it for lower.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

Can't you start the bidding it wherever.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yes, you can start the bidding anywhere you want. So you could conceivably get it for lower. And if you're playing against somebody who declines to buy something and then starts bidding on it at a lower price, keep an eye on that person. That's a shark. Yeah. They're out to win. Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. I hate that rule because to me, it's just like, what's the point in rolling and landing on something? I guess right of first refusal. But, yeah. I don't know. I don't like it.

[Chuck Bryant]

No. And plus, the Quakers were like, we specifically put a price on these things so there wouldn't be a lot of yelling. We don't like yelling.

[Josh Clark]

They had another game to follow called the Quiet Roof Raising Ceremony.

[Chuck Bryant]

Those are not Quakers.

[Josh Clark]

It was fun.

[Chuck Bryant]

That was the Amish. They're different. Oh.

[Josh Clark]

Don't you think Quakers raise some roofs?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, they do. Ain't no party like a Quaker party.

[Josh Clark]

That's right. All right, so let's say you buy all of the properties. They're divided into different colors. Like, there's three green around, you know, green ones, orange ones, blue ones, light blue. If you buy all of the properties that are tied together by a single color, then you have what's called a monopoly. And that means you can then charge double rent. Although we never do that. We just keep it single rent. And you now have the option to buy houses. And then once you have enough houses, I Think three. You can then buy a hotel, right?

[Chuck Bryant]

And that's called improvements. You're improving your land. Supposedly, once you start to do improvements, things change a little bit. Not only can you start making more money, but it's actually harder to mortgage your properties if you are. If you find yourself in debt.

[Josh Clark]

Right.

[Chuck Bryant]

Because this is. This is how crazy complicated it is. Like, I don't think I was ever paying that much attention to Monopoly that I ever mortgaged a piece of land.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, really?

[Chuck Bryant]

I think was like, started to get into debt or whatever. I was just like, I'm done. I'm done.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

But apparently. So if you find yourself indebted and let's say you have a monopoly and you want to mortgage, you can mortgage just one of the spots, right?

[Josh Clark]

Yes.

[Chuck Bryant]

But to do. So, let's say you have a hotel on that piece of land that you're mortgaging. You first have to sell the hotel back to the bank at half price, and then you can mortgage the land. You're still. I think. Are you collecting rent on that land or does it go right to the bank?

[Josh Clark]

No, that's where you just turn the card over and it's just. You still technically own it.

[Chuck Bryant]

Right.

[Josh Clark]

But you can't collect any rents on it.

[Chuck Bryant]

But you can collect rent and everything on the other two pieces of property, or the other one, depending on which one you own.

[Josh Clark]

I don't know.

[Chuck Bryant]

Really. You can. I looked it up.

[Josh Clark]

So that doesn't bust up the Monopoly.

[Chuck Bryant]

No, it doesn't. Okay, so you still own the Monopoly. It's just that that one is mortgaged, and then to get it back, you have to pay the bank the mortgage plus 10%.

[Josh Clark]

Right. And this is where you can get silly with your house rules, if you want.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

You know, like as far as mortgaging and stuff like that. Because supposedly it's a rule too where you can't. The only thing that is not allowed is a personal loan. Right. I did all kinds of personal loaning because I was Mr. Cash.

[Chuck Bryant]

What were your. Your interest rates?

[Josh Clark]

I don't remember.

[Chuck Bryant]

Did you break any usury laws?

[Josh Clark]

No, I was a kid, so it was probably just like, just pay me back whenever 10% or something.

[Chuck Bryant]

I got you.

[Josh Clark]

I'm not the right. I'm not enough of a. You're not the shark cap one. Now.

[Chuck Bryant]

You're not the one who, like, declines to buy something so you can bid on it at a lower price.

[Josh Clark]

I'm playing Candy Land.

[Chuck Bryant]

I loved Candyland.

[Josh Clark]

Actually, I never played that.

[Chuck Bryant]

It was a great game. Was it because of the art?

[Josh Clark]

Was it crazy?

[Chuck Bryant]

It was beautiful stuff. And then nowadays you look at the Candy Land board and you're like, poor kids.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

They don't know what they were missing.

[Josh Clark]

I just got a Ticket to Ride game that I haven't played yet. Have you heard of that one?

[Chuck Bryant]

No.

[Josh Clark]

It was a German game. That's like one. Game of the Year. It's a train. Train game. Like, you establish train routes between cities, but it's supposedly, like, it sounds like. Really? That's fun. But it's supposedly great.

[Chuck Bryant]

I just bled a tear.

[Josh Clark]

Did you?

[Chuck Bryant]

At the thought of it? Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

It does sound pretty bad.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

But no, it's. It's. It won Game of the Year. Those Germans and watch people. Ticket to Ride enthusiasts will be like, dude, it's the best ever.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, I'm sure. I've heard, like, German game night is, like, a thing now.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. I think they're a little more heady.

[Chuck Bryant]

Is that what it is?

[Josh Clark]

I think so. This seems like I read over the rules the other night just so I would know what to do. And because you got it, like, the purchaser of the game has to be the game explainer as well, Right.

[Chuck Bryant]

You have to listen to craft work while you play.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, well, you don't have to, but it helps.

[Chuck Bryant]

House rules.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

So I guess we. Oh. And we said you can do anything but give personal loans, right?

[Josh Clark]

That's what the official rules state.

[Chuck Bryant]

So, like, you can. I can buy from you on the side or something like that. Or you can hold something up for auction, whatever anybody's doing.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. And we always played where you had to do that when it was your turn.

[Chuck Bryant]

That makes sense.

[Josh Clark]

And that. That would take your turn as well, right?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. But again, the whole point is to be the person who owns the most stuff so that you can bankrupt all of your family and friends.

[Josh Clark]

That's right.

[Chuck Bryant]

And, I mean, those are the rules, but there's actually strategy to it, and people pay a lot of attention to this. You know, there's a Monopoly World championship roughly every four years, although it's been. The last one was in 2009.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. So we're due an American lawyer won, right, in 2009.

[Chuck Bryant]

No, I think it was a Swede or a Norwegian man. Okay.

[Josh Clark]

Maybe he was the North American. That's what he was.

[Chuck Bryant]

The North American champ.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. And he represented the US in the World Championships. It sounds so silly.

[Chuck Bryant]

Weird. Yeah. Huh. Well, he. He used the iron that was fired. Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. I think the American used the thimble. Gotcha Terry just laughed. She was like, really? That's a, that's a fact that people need.

[Chuck Bryant]

Well, we're trying to really appeal to the purists here too. We want everybody to be engaged.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

All right, so let's do one more message break and then we'll come back and talk strategy stuff you should know.

[Sponsor Voice 1]

Support for this show comes from Public, the investing platform for those who take it seriously. On Public, you can build a multi asset portfolio of stocks, bonds, options, crypto and now generated assets which allow you to turn any idea into an investable index with AI. It all starts with your prompt. From renewable energy companies with high free cash flow to semiconductor suppliers growing revenue over 20% year over year, you can literally type any prompt and put the AI to work. It screens thousands of stocks, buys one of a kind index and lets you back test it against the S&P 500. Then you can invest in a few clicks. Generated assets are like ETFs with infinite possibilities, completely customizable and based on your thesis, not someone else's. Go to public.comsysk and earn an uncapped 1% bonus when you transfer your portfolio. That's public.comsysk paid for by Public Investing Brokerage Services by Open to the Public Investing Inc. Member FINRA and SIPC Advisory Services by Public Advisors, llc, SEC Registered Advisor. Generated Assets is an interactive analysis tool. Output is for informational purposes only and is not an investment recommendation or advice. Complete disclosures available at public.com disclosures tired.

[Sponsor Voice 4]

Of juggling sales tools or spending hours on prospecting just to book a few meetings? Meet Apollo, the Go To Market platform for finding leads, connecting with buyers and closing deals all in one place. Apollo gives you access to over 210 million contacts and AI that handles all your busywork, finding leads, drafting emails, and even prioritizing your day. So stop paying for five different sales tools when one does it all. Visit Apollo I.O. and sign up free today.

[Emily]

Hey everybody, we're hitting the road again starting in January 2026, picking up again in April 2026. And eventually Canada will tell you year dates too.

[Sponsor Voice 4]

That's right.

[Josh Clark]

We're going to do at least three legs. And the first leg is starting out in Denver, Colorado at the Paramount Theater on January 27th. We're going to go back to our beloved Seattle at the Paramount Theater there on the 28th, and then finally back at SketchFest on the 29th at the Sidney Goldstein Theater.

[Emily]

Yep. And then April 16th, 17th and 18th, we're going to be in Madison, Wisconsin, Chicago, Illinois and Akron, Ohio. And if you're not keeping up with all this or taking notes, don't worry. You can get all the info you need and buy tickets@stuffyou should know.com, click on the tour button and thank us later.

[Josh Clark]

That's right. We can't wait to see everybody again out there on the road.

[Chuck Bryant]

Stuff you should know. Okay, Chucker, So again, the point. Bankrupt everybody. But there's, like, techniques that you can use to more efficiently bankrupt people. Like the. The overall, the best strategy, the basic strategy is to buy everything every chance you have.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. I mean, I looked up. There's a lot of different people's strategies and opinions online. I did find this one from a guy, and that was his strategy is buy everything. It doesn't matter what it is.

[Chuck Bryant]

Right.

[Josh Clark]

Even the suckers bet the electric company and the waterworks.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Which don't pay off. Really?

[Josh Clark]

He said buy it all and never have more than $100 in cash is his rule.

[Chuck Bryant]

Wow.

[Josh Clark]

He says the number one mistake people make is hoarding cash like I did.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, you're making the number one mistake.

[Josh Clark]

That's right. And he said that buy everything and do whatever it takes to get a monopoly, even a bad one. He will trade to get a bad monopoly and give someone a good monopoly, even as long as he gets the monopoly.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, gotcha.

[Josh Clark]

And he says it's fine because then, you know, you two will probably take out everyone else. The point is just to get a monopoly and improve it as fast as you can.

[Chuck Bryant]

So supposedly, though, a general rule of thumb among, like, hardcore Monopoly players is that while you're improving your monopoly, your properties by adding houses or whatever, you want to stop at three houses.

[Josh Clark]

Yes.

[Chuck Bryant]

Because the jump from the third house to the hotel.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

Is financially, it doesn't pay off.

[Josh Clark]

Usually it's over improvement.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

Just like in your home. Like, don't build that $80,000 kitchen because you're not going to get your money back on that.

[Chuck Bryant]

Right.

[Josh Clark]

So three. Three houses. This guy doesn't subscribe to that. He buys everything and puts hotels on it. Yeah. He says as first as he get, as soon as he gets his first monopoly, he mortgages everything else to get cash back and then uses that cash to improve.

[Chuck Bryant]

Wow.

[Josh Clark]

Which I thought was a little risky. A couple of bad rolls. I mean, it's a game of strategy, but at the end of the day, you're rolling dice. And so it is very much a game of chance.

[Chuck Bryant]

I'll bet that guy feels like he's on the back of a Pegasus, though. The whole game. Like, he's just thrilled.

[Josh Clark]

He claims to have been out there on the edge. He claims to have won a game in 12 minutes one time, which I thought was tooting his own horn a bit.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, sure.

[Josh Clark]

But real regular strategy. You're right. They say three houses is the max you should go.

[Chuck Bryant]

And then there's also some that you should avoid, even though they seem like very tempting. We already said the electric company and the water company. The utilities. Yeah, they. The most you can get for rent from landing and them is 10 times the roll of the dice, which is 120 bucks. But it also.

[Josh Clark]

Max roll.

[Chuck Bryant]

It could be as low as $20.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

So, I mean, this guy would probably say, well, hey, it was worth it. Like, I still own them and I'm still making money if somebody lands on them. But a lot of. Again, the Monopoly purists say, just stay away from them.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

And you also may want to stay away from the most expensive ones, Boardwalk and Park Place.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. There are only two of them, and they just don't get landed on very much.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. So think about it. Right out of the gate. When you're thinking of probabilities, the fact that there's two of these properties rather than three means that another player is less likely to land on your Monopoly because there's three or two instead of three. So that's one problem.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

The other problem is placement. Where they are. They're right after go.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, right before.

[Chuck Bryant]

Right before go.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. So it's at the end of the board, essentially.

[Chuck Bryant]

No, I'm sorry. They're right before jail. No, they're right before go.

[Josh Clark]

They're right before go.

[Chuck Bryant]

Okay, so that means that most. Most players are going to. Well, they're gonna pass them for sure whenever they hit that go directly to go. Exactly.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

So that means that your. Your Monopoly is gonna be passed over. The likelihood of making your money back, recouping it, especially if they're improved to the hilt, like a really fancy hotel.

[Josh Clark]

Sure. Means that it's a lot of money.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. You've probably sunk a lot of money unwisely into those. You want to go for some other ones.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, supposedly. And there are people that have done. There was this one guy, if you really want to get into Monopoly, this dude. I don't even know his name, but just look up probabilities in the game of Monopoly. And Scientific American in the mid-90s did an article that talked about probabilities of landing on different spaces, but they excluded Community Chest and Chance and being sent to Jail. So this guy said, I took all of that and included everything. And he has statistical charts, long term probabilities for ending up on each square. Expected income per opponent roll, average income per roll, expected number of opponent roll to recoup incremental costs to recoup mortgages.

[Chuck Bryant]

The name of his website, by the way, is monopoly was fun.com.

[Josh Clark]

It totally should be. But if you just want to do some basic probabilities, the orange properties are landed on more than anyone else.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yes. And why Chuck?

[Josh Clark]

Because they are after jail.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Six, eight, and nine spaces after jail.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. So if you get sent to jail, which is going to happen at some point. Actually, we didn't talk about jail. We'll talk about that then. You. Yeah. Chances are you're gonna hit one of those orange squares on your way out of jail.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Because you're rolling with two dice, so you're much more likely to roll like a six, eight or a nine than you are like a two or three or a one.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

It's not even possible to roll a one. Try it. You can't.

[Josh Clark]

You can't. Unless you eat one of the dice.

[Chuck Bryant]

In which case, unless it's a house rule, everybody's gonna yell at you and have to wait around until you poop it out to keep playing.

[Josh Clark]

Actually, our rule was you had to roll the child in the what? The child who ate the dice.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, yeah. Shake them up. Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

Yep. All right, so jail is on the corner of the board. And you can. There are a few different ways you can go there. You can draw a go to jail card.

[Chuck Bryant]

Right.

[Josh Clark]

You can throw three doubles in a row and go to jail.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

Which I never understood because that's a.

[Chuck Bryant]

Good thing, I guess. But it's also the sign of the devil. So that's why you have to go to jail for a little while to be clean.

[Josh Clark]

That's right. Or there is a square mark to go to jail, and you can land on that and go to jail. You can also get out in three ways. You can have that get out of jail free card. If you draw that, you can hold onto it. We could sell it. Although I think that's a house rule. You could sell it to a friend or enemy.

[Chuck Bryant]

Whoever had the most cash.

[Josh Clark]

Right, exactly. And then you. Basically, the other way is to roll to either pay your way out with 50 bucks or to roll your way out. The way we played it was each turn you had one chance to roll your way out of jail.

[Chuck Bryant]

So you.

[Josh Clark]

By rolling doubles.

[Chuck Bryant]

Rolling doubles. Right.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

And then if you under official rules, if you don't roll doubles for three consecutive turns, like, you get three consecutive chances to roll doubles. And if you don't on any of those turns, then you have to pay 50 bucks to get out of jail.

[Josh Clark]

We just played where you just got out and you didn't have to pay.

[Chuck Bryant]

Well, then you guys weren't following the rules.

[Josh Clark]

Told you. The house rules, the Bryant house rules.

[Chuck Bryant]

So there's actually a strategy to jail.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

If you go to jail early on in the game, you want to pay your 50 bucks to get out immediately.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

Just pay the 50 bucks because then you can keep going around the board and there's more stuff available to buy.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

But later in the game, you want to just kind of hang out in jail.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Like Josh has bought all the orange spaces.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

And you've got hotels on each one. So I'm thinking I might be good to sit in jail for a few rounds.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Because you can still collect rent on your properties, but the fact that you're in jail keeps you off of my properties.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. And another Bryant rule we played where when you were in jail, you could not collect any rents.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. I mean, that makes sense. But according to official rules.

[Josh Clark]

That's right.

[Chuck Bryant]

You just make as much money as you want there.

[Josh Clark]

And apparently in jail, you can. Officially, you can also buy and sell properties and improve your. And collect rent and build hotels and houses, which I thought. I don't know. If you're in jail, you kind of lose that, Right.

[Chuck Bryant]

Seems like it. In real jail, that's the way it is.

[Josh Clark]

No, it's not. You can own a house and be in jail.

[Chuck Bryant]

I guess that's true.

[Josh Clark]

And technically, you could probably charge rent to someone. You could sublet it. Like, I'm going to be gone for three to six.

[Chuck Bryant]

No, it's true. But what happens when the dishwasher breaks? Try to get let out of jail to go fix it. They're not going to let you do that. It's very funny, but it's true, too.

[Josh Clark]

Probability experts also say you get a good return on buying all the railroads because they're pretty cheap. There's one on each side, and once you own all of them, they're $200 in rent. So that's not too bad. Not too shabby. But to me, a Monopoly is the reason monopolies are valuable is because they're in a row, whereas the railroads are spaced out.

[Chuck Bryant]

Right.

[Josh Clark]

And our friend, the strategist, who thinks he invented the game says, but what you have to remember is none of these strategies matter because you're playing. It's a game of people and personalities. So he said you got to sit back and watch the different personalities emerge and then use manipulate that like the cash hoarder versus the shark. And he's like, you're really playing against people, man.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's interesting.

[Josh Clark]

I thought so.

[Chuck Bryant]

Okay, so let's talk about another friend, an economist friend. His name is Ralph Anspock.

[Josh Clark]

Yes.

[Chuck Bryant]

And he back in the 70s, had a game called Anti Monopoly.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. He was an econ professor at San Francisco State.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's right.

[Josh Clark]

And like made his own real game. Like he didn't just like, draw it up on paper. Like he started a little small business.

[Chuck Bryant]

Right.

[Josh Clark]

And manufactured it.

[Chuck Bryant]

Apparently sold about 200,000 copies of it, like right out of the gate. Like, it just hit a nerve again. It was called Anti Monopoly. And the whole point of it was to break up monopolies rather than build monopolies.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. The beginning of the game is essentially the end of a regular game. Like everyone starts off with monopolies. And instead of real estate and utilities and Anti Monopoly, they had their individual businesses that have been brought under a single ownership. And you take the role of federal caseworker and bring indictments against monopolized businesses.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's right.

[Josh Clark]

In order to return the board to.

[Chuck Bryant]

A free market system, you have to wear sensible shoes.

[Josh Clark]

It sounds awesome.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Well, and he came up with this because he was trying to apparently explain to his son what was wrong and bad about monopolies.

[Josh Clark]

Right.

[Chuck Bryant]

And I suspect capitalism to a certain extent. And he came up with this game instead, like I said, sold a substantial amount, 200,000 copies of a game, especially back in the 70s. That was pretty good as a startup. Yeah. You know, and it caught Parker Brothers attention enough that they sent him a cease and desist letter, took him to court, got a court order for him to hand over his like 37,000 copies that he had in his warehouse and they, Parker Brothers went and unceremoniously buried him in a landfill in Minnesota. Yeah. So Ralph didn't cotton to this very much. He didn't like that. He doesn't like to be pushed around. I get the impression.

[Josh Clark]

No, I mean, a guy who makes Anti Monopoly is not going to cave in to the courts initially.

[Chuck Bryant]

And he did so very much at his own financial detriment. He had a very expensive team of lawyers at first and spent quite a bit of money fighting Parker Brothers for the right to use Anti Monopoly. And it wasn't really going anywhere. And he was losing A lot of money. So he started to do legwork himself, found a lawyer friend who worked on the Cheap forum, and that's when things started taking off.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, I mean, he basically uncovered the lie that it was invented by Charles Darrow. Yeah, he found out that the game was essentially in the public domain, or should have been, and went all the way to the Supreme Court. And won.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, he won at the Supreme Court. This, this econ professor who came up with a game called Anti Monopoly won in the Supreme Court, Won the right to name his game Anti Monopoly.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, I mean, he deposed the two Quakers that were Friends of Hoskins. They were old at that point. They took the stand. He deposed the CEO of Parker Brothers and he took the stand and had to admit under oath, like, yeah, we did kind of steal it, the idea from that lady, after all.

[Chuck Bryant]

And so as Ralph says, the whole point to him was for this true story, the true origins of Monopoly and how it came about, the whole point of it originally could still be told openly and that what he said couldn't be bought at any price, in his opinion.

[Josh Clark]

That's right.

[Chuck Bryant]

So way to go, Ralph.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, he wrote a book awkwardly titled the Billion Dollar Monopoly Swindle Colon During a David and Goliath Battle, Anti Monopoly Uncovers the Secret history of Monopoly.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's a little clunky.

[Josh Clark]

A little clunky, but it's still around. In 1984, there was a new version called Anti Monopoly 2 where you could actually be a monopolist or a competitor. So you got to choose, which I thought was interesting. And if you chose the competitor, you charge lower rents and you can improve property at any time. But if you're a monopolist, you have to own at least two properties before in a group, before building houses and charge a lot higher rent. So I think you're like playing against the two systems within the same game.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's really interesting.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, I'm gonna. I might grab one of these and see what it's like.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, maybe tell everybody's German. You got anything else?

[Josh Clark]

I got nothing else.

[Chuck Bryant]

I do. The longest Monopoly game of all time, 70 days.

[Josh Clark]

I played a game of Risk that seemed like it lasted that long once.

[Chuck Bryant]

It may have.

[Josh Clark]

It didn't last that long, but it lasted a weekend.

[Chuck Bryant]

Okay.

[Josh Clark]

And Monopoly, I don't have the patience for that. I'll just give up, take my cash, fake cash, and go home.

[Chuck Bryant]

You're hoard of it.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

You're like, oh, I saved all this money.

[Josh Clark]

That's right. And I own the utilities if you.

[Chuck Bryant]

Want to learn more about Monopoly, including how to play. If you don't like house rules, but you also don't feel like looking at the official rule book, you can just go on to house stuff works.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

And check out the rules that is in this article. Just type Monopoly in the search [e-mail]. And since I said search bar, it's time for what? Listener mail.

[Josh Clark]

Yes.

[Chuck Bryant]

Okay, I'm going to call this help.

[Josh Clark]

For a fan in need. Hey, guys, I want some help, please. My wife and I are expecting our first kid this summer. And 13 days ago, we also found out that my wife has stage four breast cancer. So we are spending our third trimester getting chemo.

[Chuck Bryant]

My goodness.

[Josh Clark]

I know. We're gonna kick cancer in the butt. We have no doubt. But we're scared and overwhelmed. Obviously, we're doing chemo now. Then we'll have the baby get more chemo, then bilateral mastectomy, then radiation. We have great doctors and great friends and family, so even in the face of this, we feel very lucky. And by the way, I got a follow up more recently that says there is no gestational diabetes and the cancer is already shrinking.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, that's great.

[Josh Clark]

So things are going great so far.

[Chuck Bryant]

Thanks for not keeping us in suspense.

[Josh Clark]

I know. I was gonna wait till the end. And he asked for a couple of favors. He said, first of all, if you want to follow and promote my Tumblr to keep people updated, it is galafricidiki. G A L L I F R e e k y-e e k y.tumblr.com he says we're huge nerds and Doctor who fans. So that was lost on me.

[Chuck Bryant]

Some Doctor who reference, I guess.

[Josh Clark]

Apparently so.

[Chuck Bryant]

Does it have to do with the phone booth?

[Josh Clark]

Maybe that's the only thing you know about Doctor who. Same here. Secondly, I'm biking 150 miles to raise money. And could you plug that? And you can go to goo gl2wjzxq.

[Chuck Bryant]

These people don't like normal words.

[Josh Clark]

Well, that's one of those shortened URLs.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, I see.

[Josh Clark]

It's a goo.

[Chuck Bryant]

Gotcha.

[Josh Clark]

And then third, how about a shout out? I think that's what we're doing here. My wife is a little shy, so just use her nickname, the Mayor.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's hilarious. She wears a sash during chemo and childbirth.

[Josh Clark]

I guess so. I mean, I call Emily the boss, so I guess it's the mayor.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, but the mayor is like the boss of several bosses, I would guess.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. We used to call my friend Justin, who, you know, the mayor of Atlanta, because everywhere he went. Oh yeah, somebody knew him.

[Chuck Bryant]

He's a sociable fella.

[Josh Clark]

But now we just call him the manager of Atlanta because everywhere you go, he has some improvement to that place.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, okay.

[Josh Clark]

Like the lighting's not quite right or the door should be over there. The kitchen is not located properly.

[Chuck Bryant]

It's Brits.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. And then fourth, my wife works in public policy, specifically helping women and families get themselves out of poverty and advocating for low income workers. So there you have it. An awesome and incredible woman who dedicates her considerable talents helping others, is pregnant and has breast cancer. Kind of hard to say no, right? I'm not above guilt tripping. So, Bob from Swarthmore, Pennsylvania, there you go. People should go and check out that stuff and support your bike ride and I hope things have continued to progress well for your wife and child. And yeah, keep us updated.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, and you keep me updated at the very least, if not everybody listening.

[Josh Clark]

I will.

[Chuck Bryant]

Okay, thanks a lot, Bob and the mayor. Good luck to you both. And let's see if you want to get in touch with us whether you're a mayor, a provincial governor, who knows? Yeah, you can get in touch with us on Twitteryskpodcast. You can join us on facebook.com stuffyoushouldknow you can send us an email to stuffpodcastowstuffworks.com and join us at our home on the web, stuffyou should know.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit howstuffworks.com.

[Sponsor Voice 3]

Support for the show comes from Public, the investing platform for those who take it seriously. On Public, you can build a multi asset portfolio of stocks, bonds, options, crypto and now generated assets which allow you to turn any idea into an investable index. With AI. It all starts with your prompt. From renewable energy companies with high free cash flow to semiconductor suppliers growing revenue over 20% year over year, you can literally type any prompt and put the AI to work. It screens thousands of stocks, builds a one of a kind index and lets you back test it against the S&P 500. Then you can invest in a few clicks. Generated assets are like efts with infinite possibilities, completely customizable and based on your thesis, not someone else's. Go to public.com podcast and earn an uncapped 1% bonus when you transfer your portfolio. That's public.com podcast paid for by Public Investing brokerage services by open to the Public Investing Inc. Member finra, sipc, Advisory services by Public Advisors, llc. SEC Registered Advisor Generated Assets is an interactive analysis tool. Output is for informational purposes only and is not investment recommendation or advice. Complete disclosures available at public.com disclosures tired.

[Sponsor Voice 4]

Of juggling sales tools or spending hours on prospecting just to book a few meetings? Meet Apollo, the go to market platform for finding leads, connecting with buyers, and closing deals all in one place. Apollo gives you access to over 210 million contacts and AI that handles all your busywork, finding leads, drafting emails, and even prioritizing your day. So stop paying for five different sales tools when one does it all. Visit Apollo I.O. and sign up free today.

[Sponsor Voice 2]

At Hinge, we found Gen Z daters want deeper conversations, but they're 36% more hesitant than millennials to start them. I'm Logan Urie, Hinge's lead relationship scientist. We call this the communication gap, the space between wanting connection and actually starting the conversation. But here's the good news. It doesn't have to be this way. Ask one better question or share something honest and watch the connection grow. Find more in Hinge's 2025 Gen Z Day Report, now live at Hinge co.

[Josh Clark]

This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human.