Stacy Conradt
The Quick 9: 9 Board Game Odds
by Stacy Conradt - August 5, 2010 - 5:28 PM

q10

We’re kind of board game freaks in my house. Well, I am, and I sort of force it on everyone else. The thing is… I’m not that good at board games. Maybe discovering some of these odds will help me (and you).

1. The space you’re least-likely to land on while playing Monopoly is Mediterranean Avenue. Thanks to the readers who pointed out my previous error – it turns out that the strip of properties after Jail are down there with some of the least-landed on properties on the board because your chances of going to Jail make you skip those properties more often than you would skip the properties on the rest of the board. And of those properties on the strip, Park Place is the least-landed on. Mediterranean is still the least-landed on overall. Sorry for the confusion!

2. You can win Candyland in four turns – you just need to draw these cards: Queen Frostine, double purple, double purple, purple. If you don’t stack the deck, this only occurs once in every 25,000 games.

3. In Connect Four, the person who gets the most of their pieces in the middle row has better odds of winning.

4. Mrs. Peacock has a slight advantage when it comes to Clue – her playing piece is not only one space closer to a room than any other piece, that room is also one with a secret passage.

5. Don’t kid yourself about The Game of Life – it’s almost totally luck. Although you can choose to go to college and decide if you want insurance or not, it really doesn’t have much to do with the outcome of the game.

6. You can get a Yahtzee in three rolls once in about every 22 tries. The odds of doing it in your first turn is about once in every 1,296 tries.

7. Although Chutes and Ladders can be won in just seven turns, it takes the average person 39.6 attempts.

8. The most landed-on Monopoly property, not including Jail, is Illinois Avenue.

9. In Jenga, assuming each player has perfectly steady hands which means the tower will fall only when it’s structurally unsound, starting with a tower of n ≥ 4 layers, the first player can win if and only if n is not divisible by 3. Got that?

Do you guys know of any tips or tricks that might help my batting average on game night?

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Comments (31)

  1. I think there’s a problem with 1 and 8. We have two least-likely monopoly spaces.

    posted by tkrausse on 8-5-2010 at 5:30 pm

  2. Apples to Apples takes 4-8 turns to win because if there are four players, you need eight green apple cards to win, with five players seven, six=six, seven=five, and eight-ten=four. Got that? Good.

    posted by J.S. on 8-5-2010 at 5:33 pm

  3. @tkrausse: Mediterranean is the LEAST LIKELY to get landed on, and Park Place is the LEAST LANDED ON space. We on the same page, now?

    posted by J.S. on 8-5-2010 at 5:35 pm

  4. Ok, which is it… Park Place or Med Ave? What did I miss?

    posted by hflipper on 8-5-2010 at 5:37 pm

  5. I had the same Monopoly question.

    If Mediterranean Avenue is the least likely to be landed on, then why is Park Place the least hit? Do people cheat to avoid Park Place?

    posted by Morris on 8-5-2010 at 5:39 pm

  6. Okay I can understand how 1 and 8 are different, but given the amount of people who have played Monopoly, wouldn’t the odds prove to be correct?

    Casinos would go broke if they only had a few gamblers, but they know the odds get close to reality as more people gamble.

    posted by Morris on 8-5-2010 at 5:43 pm

  7. I don’t understand how those can be different. You don’t have the choice to go someplace or not in Monopoly, ever, that I can think of.

    posted by Jacquilynne on 8-5-2010 at 5:50 pm

  8. If statistics say that Mediterranean is least likely, but in reality Park Place is least landed on, doesn’t that refute the statistics? The statistics, like the cake, are a lie?

    posted by JessC on 8-5-2010 at 6:10 pm

  9. I am also confused…please update this article!

    posted by G.O. on 8-5-2010 at 6:47 pm

  10. I think I get the difference between 1 and 8: the SPACE you’re least likely to land on is Mediterranean Ave, but the PROPERTY that is least landed on is Park Place. So 1 includes all spaces on the board, but 8 only includes properties, and not railroads, utilities, etc.

    posted by LowSlash on 8-5-2010 at 7:04 pm

  11. @JS, no one really plays Apples to Apples just to win… it’s more about laughing with your friends :)

    posted by Elye on 8-5-2010 at 7:11 pm

  12. Everybody here noticed and is debating about numbers 1 and 8 being nearly the same, but shouldn’t we be debating as to why this Quick 10 is a Quick 9?

    posted by John on 8-5-2010 at 7:21 pm

  13. One tip that I heard of long ago was that in poker, a Smith & Wesson beats a Royal Flush.

    posted by Prism on 8-5-2010 at 7:24 pm

  14. Ummm… if the least landed on space is a property, then it must also be the least landed-on property. Something’s indeed amiss there.

    I just did some checking, and according to the Book of Odds website (linked; it cites The Monopoly Companion: The Players Guide as its source), Park Place is the least landed-on property — but the dark purple spaces are least visited COLOR GROUP as a whole.

    This makes sense for two reasons:

    (1) Both color groups have only two properties, but there’s the Advance to Boardwalk Chance card, which makes the dark blue group (Boardwalk/Park Place) more likely to be landed on, combined, than dark purple (Mediterranean/Baltic).

    (2) Park Place is seven spaces from Go To Jail, and as any craps player will tell you, seven is the most likely roll with two dice. There’s also alternative means (e.g. Chance card) to get to Park Place, so Park Place should be the least landed-on individual space.

    posted by Mark on 8-5-2010 at 7:29 pm

  15. That should read, “There’s also NO alternative means… to get to Park Place….”

    posted by Mark on 8-5-2010 at 7:30 pm

  16. You’ll win at Othello if you get your color in three of the four corners.

    posted by Alison on 8-5-2010 at 8:21 pm

  17. not really an odd, but, when playing apples to apples with boys age 7-12, any bodily function always wins.

    also to increase my odds when playing, i’ve added some great fill in the blank cards including:

    *green cards:
    HYPHY – go dumb, stupid, crazy, retarded

    *red cards:
    KANYE WEST – “I’m gonna let you finish”
    DICK CHENEY
    YO MOMMA
    THE LITTLE ENGINE THAT COULD

    and of course a few select friends and family members have earned their own cards….to make your own cards go here http://a2a.browndogcomputing.com/

    what good cards (green or red) do you have that should be added?

    posted by Rachel on 8-5-2010 at 10:06 pm

  18. you win at chess more if your queen is latifa.

    posted by dirk alan on 8-5-2010 at 10:08 pm

  19. It’s not a board game (and you’ll only use it if you’re playing against against a kid or if you are drunk) but if you are ever playing Guess Who? for some reason, don’t ask if they are male or female, ask if they have facial hair.

    You will win every single time.

    posted by Rachel H on 8-5-2010 at 11:44 pm

  20. Through years of research and million of dollars (actually about fifteen minutes and two bucks), I have figured out how to cheat at Operation. You need to know how to solder or have a friend who can solder, though.

    First, snip one of the wires going from the battery in half. Take a normally closed (NC) momentary push-button and wire it in between the two wires you just cut apart. Mount the button on the side, and paint it red. To use it, press the button when your turn begins. As long as the button is pressed, no power runs to the the buzzer, so no matter how shaky a hand you have, you always win!

    posted by nh344 on 8-6-2010 at 1:15 am

  21. OMG I vividly remember my younger sister accomplishing #2 when we were kids. I was awestruck and livid. lol

    posted by Juliet on 8-6-2010 at 2:39 am

  22. Least-likely is a rate while least-occurring is a total count.

    If two lottery drawings have different odds, the one that has longer odds (and thus is “less-likely” to be won) can have more winners if the number of players is sufficiently high enough.

    Thus a space on a board can be hit less often than another space, even if the odds are better to hit it, if there are less overall opportunities in the first place.

    posted by Tom on 8-6-2010 at 2:56 am

  23. I’ve never heard of Med. So far I’ve had a 0% chance of landing on it. All the others should technically have an equal chance, no? Unless you’re cheating.

    posted by Bakedpotatoes on 8-6-2010 at 3:15 am

  24. My parents have a ’70s version of Life (with Art Linkletter’s picture on the cover) and the cost to buy auto insurance for life is $250. I’ve always wished that was true in real life! (On the downside, I think the top salary is $30,000.)

    posted by Karen in Japan on 8-6-2010 at 5:03 am

  25. I have the movie of #4. Whenever I set the DVD to the random ending, Mrs. Peacock is always the murderer. Now I know why…

    posted by Daria on 8-6-2010 at 10:55 am

  26. How about doing an article on the werdiest board games? I have a Seasame Street and Muppet Show ones from the 70′s that are cool to look at but totaly awful when it comes to actually trying to play them

    posted by Beth on 8-6-2010 at 11:05 am

  27. dirk alan: Thanks, needed that one!

    nh344:
    I used to just take the battery out of the back when I played Operation. I didn’t like the buzzer noise.

    posted by Tricia on 8-6-2010 at 1:55 pm

  28. Great stuff! I’m a writer for Book of Odds and a long-time fan of your site. You might be interested in a pair of our articles on this subject –

    One is on Monopoly odds… http://www.bookofodds.com/Daily-Life-Activities/Hobbies-Recreation/Articles/A0719-How-to-Win-at-Monopoly

    The other, on Shortest Possible Games… http://www.bookofodds.com/Blogs/Numbers/2010/06-June/Shortest-Possible-Games-of-Baseball-Golf-Tennis-Monopoly-etc

    Shortest Possible Games, Pt. II is coming up next week, FYI.

    Also, to clear up any confusion, Mark (above) is correct on three counts.

    1. Dark Purple is the least landed-on color group. Players have a 24% chance of landing on it for each trip around the board.

    2. Mediterranean is not the least landed-on single property overall. Park Place is, for the reasons Mark describes.

    And 3. My source is the Monopoly Companion, as well as a conversation with Phil Orbanes, former Parker Brothers VP and judge of the US and World Monopoly Championships.

    posted by Zack on 8-6-2010 at 5:17 pm

  29. I’m sorry, i’m MUCH more confused about the Jenga piece – are they saying that the first player will win if the number of layers of the intial tower is divisible by 3, while the second player will win if it’s not? So 2/3 of the time the second player will win? THIS IS CRUCIAL LIFE INFORMATION.

    posted by Bekka on 8-7-2010 at 8:21 pm

  30. I ALWAYS land on Mediterranean Avenue, but that’s probably just because I have bad luck.

    posted by snuggle-monkey on 8-20-2010 at 3:48 pm

  31. Regarding the Jenga item, the page encoding isn’t working for the character between “n” and “4″. According to Wikipedia, it is “n >= 4″ — which should pretty much include any game, as I can’t see a tower of three layers or less. Also, this statistic is only valid for two-player games.

    posted by Chad Cloman on 10-10-2010 at 11:10 am

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