You have been playing Monopoly completely wrong your whole life

With fewer than four weeks to go until Christmas Day, there's lots of preparation to get underway with. For most people, this means putting up a tree, wrapping loads of gifts, and buying enough food to feed a small neighborhood. But for some, it also means dusting off the Monopoly board. In my family at least, Monopoly is somewhat of a festive tradition. We like to bring it out on December 25th at around four or five pm - sometime after lunch, at least - and play until one of three things happens: one person "wins" (which has never happened as far as I can remember), enough of us get bored, or - most often - someone gets so mad that they just flip the entire table over, sending chance cards and little metal dogs flying across the living room. However, it turns out that the reason the game has always taken so long is that I, along with many others, have been playing it wrong this whole time. Now, I always had an inkling that my family had neglected to read the rules all these years; partly because we're stubborn folks who tend to like to do things our own way, and partly because it seemed dumb to have a game at which nobody ever won. A Twitter user named Reuben was also apparently irked by the unwinnable nature of the game - so much so that he actually bothered to check the rulebook. In a response to a tweet that said, "name the most trivial hill on which you are willing to die", Reuben quite clearly expressed his rage over the mass neglect for Monopoly guidelines and explained the proper way to play the game. [[twitterwidget||https://twitter.com/AskRubenHow2Bet/status/932657001871446017]] The rulebook itself corroborates his claim: "Whenever you land on an unowned property you may buy that property from the Bank at its printed price. You receive the Title Deed card showing ownership; place it face up in front of you.  "If you do not wish to buy the property, the Banker sells it at auction to the highest bidder. The buyer pays the Bank the amount of the bid in cash and receives the Title Deed card for that property. Any player, including the one who declined the option to buy it at the printed price, may bid. Bidding may start at any price." But it turns out that this wasn't the only qualm that Twitter had with how we play the game. This guy had a thing or two to say about the 'Free Parking' space (which I had always treated as a lottery square): [[twitterwidget||https://twitter.com/scottmale24/status/932804073216233473]] And this dude was very vocal about being able to buy properties in the first round: [[twitterwidget||https://twitter.com/ThewormSRL/status/933680358465458177]] Reuben's original Tweet has drawn in around 2,000 likes and dozens of comments of support - most likely from people like me, who are pretty sick of having to sit through four hours of "oh I thought it was your turn". So, if your family are the kind of bunch who would rather whip out a board game than watch some rubbish TV while tucking into a hefty plate of cheese, make sure you check the rules first - it could make the experience a lot less painful for you all.