By John Stafford

You are ducking your head at every stop to see if you’ve arrived at Oxford Circus yet; gripping a strap with one hand and your bag with the other; pressed up against a man who hasn’t washed since he cooked his last batch of chips. Are you comforted to know that many of your fellow passengers are only there to play a game? Thought not. The guy taking up the best part of three seats is Fat Eddie. The Afro babe with blue streaks in her hair is Hazel Eyes. And I’m White Hart - the one in the very sharp suit.

An All Zones London Transport card is all you need to play Live Monopoly. Plus the money you could potentially lose in the course of a game. A WiFi enabled laptop: how else could you prove you’ve actually been to Northumberland Avenue, keep a record of the properties you have houses on, find out how much cash the other players have in the game? We don’t carry cash of course – much too risky on the Tube – it’s all on a computer. But it’s real money all right.

The Bank is the central organisation, the web site, the accounting system and the rulebook. When we sat in the Angel (in Camden, not Islington) listening to Michelle set out the plan, the bank seemed to be the weak point. How could we finance so much money in the first place? Even on the dry runs we did using mobiles and a real monopoly board on my kitchen table, the banking problem seemed insurmountable. Eddie had the answer: “See here, Michelle, I’m only a nurse and you’re the accountant, but can’t we just have monopoly money in the bank?”
“How could it pay £200 for passing Go?”
“In Monopoly money! Then the players use monopoly money to pay into the bank if they have it, otherwise they use real money. We pay each other only real of course.”
“Won’t that mean everyone ends up with a lot of Monopoly money?”
Hazel sat quietly until everyone was argued out without a decision, then coughed before she spoke. “Could we just get out and play it for real pennies?”

Play it we did. Eight o’clock on Saturday morning we met at Paddington Station. We had decided that Go was located there, because Michelle had travelled down with her Oxford boyfriend. The idea was to play until four, then meet back at the pub to change some of the rules. Tristan, the boyfriend, looked after the Monopoly game running on his laptop. Michelle pressed the dice key first and set off for Kings Cross Station, Big Eddie on a double six to the Electricity Company, which we decided was at Battersea Power Station, Hazel Eyes to her A to Z to find Pentonville Road. I got to take a Chance.

Advance to Mayfair. Not too far and the number 7 bus was arriving as I walked along Praed Street. Twenty minutes later I was on my mobile to Tristan from Grosvenor Square, the agreed location of Mayfair, to buy my first property.
“I’ll take four hundred pounds off your account then.”
“No, four pounds. We’re playing for pennies today.”
“No-one else is, White Hart. Michelle just bought Kings Cross for two hundred. You’ve thrown a four next.”
“That’s two hundred for passing Go.”
“Not until you get back here to actually pass Go.”
“Where does four take me?”
“Income Tax. Pay £200.”

I walked back to Go. I figured that having the best property on the board entitled me to sit tight and wait for other people to land on it. Tristan insisted that I had to go to No. 11 Downing Street to pay my income tax.
“That’s not right. Where’s the Income Tax Office for London?”
“Middlesborough. The train goes from Kings Cross, but you’ll have to pay Michelle £50 to go there.”
“25 for a station, surely!”
“She’s got Marylebone as well. In fact you’ve got to go past there as well, so that’s £50 twice. Sod it. The battery’s running down.” The computer had begun to bleep every ten seconds while we were speaking.
“Time to call a halt, I think.” I texted the same message to the others and we set off for Camden.

Michelle didn’t look too happy.
“It would be better with a big game, White Hart, with lots of people. This one’s too slow.”
“I know. My chances of getting my money back on Mayfair were a bit remote. It needs eight visits to break even.”
“There’s a worse problem,” said Eddie, “the bank.”
“No, no,” said Tristan, whose laptop was now running on the pub’s supply. “There’s lots of money in the bank. Real money.”
“That’s the problem, Tris. Most of the money will finish up in the bank.” Silence. But Hazel Eyes is good with silences.
“So we share the bank’s money at the end of the game.”
“May as well use Monopoly money,” sneered Eddie.
“You’re not listening. I think Hazel has a point. I don’t quite know what it is, but…”
“We share the bank. The other 8000 punters just win from each other.” “Where do you get 8000 from?”
“They’re the 8000 who put their email addresses on a list on my blog.”
“You have 8000 readers of your blog? What’s it about?”
“Boy’s toys. Top of the range PDAs, cars to dream of, train sets. Now they’re interested in Live Monopoly.”
Michelle was busy at the keyboard. “I’ve just gone through the last twenty saved games. Even if we pay out real money, the bank always wins in cash terms. We have a business plan.”
“Isn’t it illegal?” Fat Eddie said.
“No, I don’t think…” I started, trying desperately to convince myself.
“Of course it’s bloody illegal!” said Hazel, “but we’ll pay out lots to the punters to keep them coming back, put a lot of great news stories on our web site, give a percentage to Oxfam, and tell no-one that we keep the bank!”

It’s become a big business. Our players can wear a discreet pin we give them free in the £25 start-up kit. We only take those with the best laptops, and they have to deposit cash in advance. There aren’t 8000 of course. But a thousand on a good Saturday, playing against each other in tens, and they go back to Old Kent Road, win second prize in a beauty contest, pay a ten pound fine or take a chance.

The bank scam lasted six good months before we found Michelle and Tristan cheating us as well as the punters, and shopped them to the Fraud Squad for corrupting our wonderful club. Hazel, Eddie and I are back to playing the game, touring the WiFi hotspots in our sharp suits, though Hazel did take the precaution of reprogramming the game to tilt it slightly in our favour. Just slightly.

Copyright © 2006 John Stafford.