Monopoly Rules - The Banker

Monopoly is one of the most popular board games in the world. According to Hasbro, the makers of Monopoly, more than seven hundred and fifty million people have played the game. And in each of those games there was a banker. There are a few things you will need to know if you want to be a great Monopoly banker.

As you might think, the banker's job is to deal with the money. The first thing the banker needs to do is give each player his or her starting money. The starting money totals $1500 but needs to consist of the following bills:

2 - $500 bills
2 - $100 bills
2 - $50 bills
6 - $20 bills
5 - $10 bills
5 - $5 bills
5 - $1 bills

If you are like me and own an old Monopoly board, you may not have the instructions in the box anymore. If that's the case, then knowing how much each player gets when you start playing Monopoly is important to remember.

The banker will also pay each player $200 every time they pass Go. This is an easy task to remember but you should let the players ask for their $200. Should the player role doubles and then roll the dice again before asking for their $200, they don't have to be paid. If you're playing in a friendly game you can choose not to enforce this rule. But if it's a heated battle between serious Monopoly rivals you may want to use this rule to your advantage. Or perhaps an extra competitive player will grab the dice and roll his or her turn before last player has asked for their $200. Decide with your fellow players before starting the game, how closely you will be following the rules to avoid any confrontations.

The banker is also responsible for collecting the money when players purchase properties. When a property is landed on, that play can buy it for the price listed on the board (and also on the deed). If the player chooses not to buy the property, it goes up for auction. As the banker, you are in charge of the auction. But that's simple really. Whoever has the highest bid gets the property. You can make it more entertaining by trying your fast talking auctioneer routine but that's up to you. When only playing with two players, you may want to use a house rule that makes the minimum opening bid on any property at least fifty percent of the full price. This way you don’t have players bidding $1. This is Monopoly, not The Price Is Right.

Towards the end of the game when players can't afford to pay rents on the properties that they stay at, the banker will also handles bankruptcies. If you flip over the deed to any Monopoly property the mortgage price is listed on the back of the card. Just pay the down on his luck player the mortgage price so that they can pay their rent.

In some of the newer versions of Monopoly there is an electronic banker that makes game play easier. But it's still good to know how to be a good Monopoly banker in case you ever run out of batteries.