Customer Reviews

The Billion Dollar Monopoly (r) Swindle

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I found this book riveting and very well-written, a startling indictment of not only Parker Brothers (for claiming false invention of a 30-year old folk game and securing a fraudulent patent)but also of the American judicial system, which clearly will roll over and play dead when confronted with an army of corporate lawyers. While the earlier book by Saxon does discuss a precursor to Monopoly, it says nothing about Parker Brothers' underhanded dealings. Nor does it tell the story of how the game fell into the hands of "inventor" Charles Darrow. Another book on the subject by Orbanes (written essentially by and for Parker Bothers/Hasbro) is merely an attempt to whitewash the whole sticky mess so delightfully uncovered by Mr. Anspach. A fine and fascinating read.

Anyone who loves Monopoly(R), like I do, and thinks they know the story of the game, like I did, will not be able to put this book down! The official story of the game's origin is a lie. For me, the crushing piece of evidence concerns the correct spelling of MarvEn Gardens. Check it out.

Have just read Dr Anspach's book from cover to cover without a break. A fascinating expose of what must rank as one of the biggest cover- up stories of all time.

Mr Blub's review is correct in that Saxton's earlier book does report that Lizzie Magie's 1904 Landlords Game was a forerunner to Monopoly. It contains nothing however about the transformation of that game through the monopoly folklore to the Darrow/Parker Bros Atlantic City copy. Nor does it contain anything about the cover- up which has served so well to monopolise Monopoly for so many years.

The book is a product of Dr Anspach's detective work which was validated by the American Courts and is to be commended in stark contrast to the corporate sanctioned Orbanes book. This offering attempts to preserve some credit for Darrow while erroneously( albeit cleverly) exonerating Parker Bros from the swindle.

Any fan of the Monopoly game or one of the many versions of the game available today will be intrigued by the origin of this fantastic game as told by Anspach through his investigations. The David vs. Goliath battle with the "Microsofts" of the Toy industry, the various owners of Parker Brothers through to Hasbro, Inc. (the current owners), shows how Monopoly is not just their game, but their mission statement and general business goal. Required reading for anyone who ever read The Monopoly Book or The Monopoly Companion.

I met Ralph Anspach at the 2009 American Library Association Midwinter Meeting in Denver. I was looking for books to publish, and he had this curious self-published book titled "Monopolygate" (The new title for this ISBN, apparently). Anspach explained that he was the inventor of the game Anti-Monopoly, and that his company was sued for trademark infringement by Parker Brothers and that he eventually won the suit. I had recalled from my youth this particular news item, and had seen the first edition of Anti-Monopoly in a local toy store while all this was going down, so I was excited to find a piece of what was for me, a piece of my childhood come to life.

It seemed like this could be a good topic for our Game Day imprint, and so Anspach gave me a free review copy to read.

Now, I am pretty biased against self-published books, as they are usually poorly written, but as is my nature, I read the first few pages. This was one of those times where a few pages turned into a couple of chapters and then into a long night of not being able to put the book down. There are some typographical errors that stand out, but Anspach has a way of telling a great story about what is essentially a long, drawn-out legal fight against the odds. It's full of people and their opinions, and even the dreaded Parker Brothers-General Mills juggernaut legal team is full of interesting personalities. The twists in this case keep on coming, and considering that all of Anspach's amateur detective work was done in the age before the Internet, it is an amazing piece of real-life amateur sleuthing.

Other reviews have commented on the book's look at how Anspach, a small-business owner, goes to court to defend himself in a nearly impossible-to-win lawsuit and pulls off a counter-offensive against the biggest trademark holder in the game business. Other reviews also laud the book's investigation into the secret history and the incredible cover-up of the game Monopoly. Anspach is deliciously good at telling his side of the story.

But for me, as the publisher of the imprint Game Day which publishes game books and books about games, I was equally impressed by Anspach's story of how an economics professor with no experience in the back-biting world of the game industry (or in business in general) managed to launch a world-class game on a shoestring. For any game-industry entrepreneur or game designer, I strongly recommend this book as a slap of reality in the face. Anspach made every mistake possible, and without much capital at all, and yet through his own tenacity and determination, not only succeeded, but held back the worst onslaught possible from the biggest player in the business, all the way to the Supreme Court.

There is also an intriguing story that Anspach only hints at. In the beginning of the book, we find that he and his family escaped the Nazi Holocaust and that he joined the U.S. Army during World War II and helped decode German messages. He would later illicitly join the freedom fighters in the Israeli War of Independence.

I would have given this book five stars were it not for the persistent typographical errors. But if you can live with stray quotation marks and erroneous paragraph breaks every now and again, then consider this a great story. Yes, Anspach does seem a little biased, and he does promote his own game in the back of the book, but the book is as much an autobiography of how he invented his game as much as it is an expose of the Monopoly monopoly; if anyone has earned the right to promote his own inventions in his own autobiography, Anspach certainly has, and frankly, the end-of-the book promotion does not deter from the story one bit.

This book is for game designers, entrepreneurs, readers of business exposes, Monopoly game lovers and haters, game collectors, economists, lawyers and politicians, and anyone who has ever rooted for the underdog. This is a great business expose told from an individual who stood in the midst of it all.

albert c. veldhuis - november 11, 1998 Serious, still easy to read book about a sad story! It is because Ralph Anspach is a fine and honest story-teller with a great knowledge of human character, discernment and perseverance that he finally succeeded in getting the truth popped up. It is really unbelievable that "certain people" succeeded in cheating the world (read: their customers) for over 60 years while so often honest people have tried to tell the truth. Thanks to Ralph Anspach everyone can now read the true story of a game that is so well-known over the whole world and in so many countries even when this games DOES NOT HAVE THE RED BAR.

I am a pretty serious Monopoly collector (over 300 games from 1935 on), and THOUGHT I knew the story fo America's favorite game (as told by the friendly folks at Parker Brothers). Then I read Ralph's book! Yow!

Greed! Fraud! Subterfuge! Revisionist History! It's all in here...

This book is not really about the game of Monopoly so much as Parker Brothers (and later on General Mills and Hasbro's) efforts to pull one over on the American public by creating their own false history and ownership of Monopoly, an American folk game.

Only recently has the PR machine of these huge companies turned around to acknowledge the truth behind the actual creation of Monopoly revealed in this book. It's been a long time coming and I suspect Ralph has something to do with it.

Not for collectors only, The Billion Dollar Monopoly (R) Swindle by Ralph Anspach is a book that anyone who has ever played (or even heard of) Monopoly should get.

This is a wonderful tale of Goliath from David's point of view -- you'll be amazed at what an American business will do to defend its false patent, and it would be downright unbelievable in fiction that a judge would do what a judge actually did -- but you have to believe it because it's there in the court records.

Written with self-effacing humor, this book is a fast and pleasurable read. Unfortunately there's quite a lot of misplaced punctuation (especially quotation marks) that distract from the flow -- but aside from that I find no flaws worth mentioning. Recommended to everyone who's ever played Monopoly (so you can find out what the game you've been playing is *really* about).

I have read this book a few times because there is so much in it and I didn't want to forget the details. Ralph Anspach has a gift for telling a story in a way that puts you right in the middle of the action. You get to read about how an Economics Professor invented a board game and all the trials he went through to get it to market. Then you read how Parker Brothers could not stand this harmless little game and did everything they could to ban it from being sold. In self-defense, Ralph Anspach looked into the real history of the game, meeting the people and visiting the places where monopoly was invented years before it's claimed "invention" by Charles Darrow in 1935. The invention fraud pales in comparison to the cover-up that Parker Brothers carried out in order to line their pockets and monopolize the board game industry - and you, the consumer, got to pay for it in higher prices and inferior products. As the battle rages on we find Kenneth Starr in his pre-Lewinski days and some of America's biggest companies gang-up to rid the world of Anti-Monopoly once-and-for-all. How did this immigrant professor become such a threat to big business capitalism? The answers are masterfully revealed in this book that will keep you smiling and reading all through the night. Scandal, money-hungry, bloodthirsty business, a monopoly detective and more...it's all here.

This is an entertaining book, and interesting to read about the whole Monopoly inventor scandal and the ramifications of it, but beyond that, the book is extremely biased and full of opinions. One chapter in particular sets up a supposed meeting between the fake inventor and a Parker Bros. executive, in the eyes of how the author thought it probably happened. Admittedly, the author presents it as his opinion only, but personally I prefer to read facts, and think the book would have been better without that possibly false story.

The entire book is (obviously) very biased. If you want to read an objective book about all of this, this probably isn't the one for you. Furthermore, the author's knowledge of antitrust law (particularly toward the end of the book when talking about Hasbro) is not very good. This is the a David v. Goliath story, and the author never lets you forget it. At times, his obsession with establishing who the real inventors of Monopoly are is a bit creepy.

The end of the book includes a pitch for his new board game and computer games, which completely diminished the book, at least in my opinion. It's a book, not an advertisement!