It is estimated that since its creation in 1935, more than two hundred and fifty million games of Monopoly have been sold.
It is a game of skill and patience, with the longest games taking seventy days to complete. It is also a game that has been the cause of disappointment and many family arguments, and yet more than two hundred and fifty million sets of Monopoly have been sold and it is estimated that a billion people have played the game.
Originating in the U.S.A., the game became popular in the United Kingdom when the names were changed from streets in New York to those in London.
The students and teachers at the Pattaya School for the Blind recently got to play the game for the very first time, thanks to a group of blind young adults, together with their helpers, who visited Pattaya from the Blatchington Care Trust in Brighton, England.
They had spent a few days getting to know the local Thai students, making new friends and learning new skills. On the final day of the visit the local students were teaching the visitors the art of beading and making saleable gifts by using beads.
Then one of the teachers produced a box of Monopoly, specially designed for the blind and visually impaired.
The design was the same, streets, avenues and railway stations all in the same place. Chance and Community Chest cards were in Braille, as was the information on all the property cards. The board had raised edges around each location, which was written in Braille for the players to read.
Khun Chid, Principal of the Pattaya school, was having a great time, buying property, collecting rent and even winning $100 at a beauty contest, but with the highs come the lows, and it wasn’t long before he realised being a property tycoon does have its downsides.
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