Remember Monopoly? Remember the rules? Remember when you’d actually read the rules on about the fifth time you play and suddenly realize the rule you thought was a rule actually isn’t at all?

Every kid has their “house rules” for Monopoly and they range from obscure to geeky to downright universal. For example, here’s two rules paraphrased:

If you land on GO instead of passing it, you get $400 instead of $200.

If you need to pay taxes, it goes in the middle pot. When someone lands on Free Parking, they get the middle pot.

Neither of those rules are in the rulebook and yet, every kid knows these rules exist. Some are aware of their unofficial status while other believe it to be part of the basic rule set but either way, we just knew. How is this possible?! Every child around the world that played Monopoly somehow knew these same side house rules? I’d go back to Vancouver and the same rules were mentioned. Don’t forget, we’re also talking pre-internet.

It would be fascinating to have plotted how these rules propagated.