Readers Digest Australia Sampler 2022

that had been brought in were stolen. But an even more dramatic bit of board-game history occurred during World War II. Since POWs in Germany were allowed board games, American troops hid maps, compasses and real money inside Monopoly sets to help prisoners escape. 12 While there are plenty of board games about war, illness is another recur- ring theme. There’s Operation, with its perennial patient, Cavity Sam. Following the 2003 SARS outbreak, Matt Leacock dreamed up a coop- erative board game – one in which the players all win or lose together – called Pandemic. 13 Thousands of new games are released each year. How can you tell which are best to buy? One reliable indicator is the Spiel des Jahres (‘Game of the Year’ in German), considered the most pres- tigious award for board games. Previ- ous winners include Settlers of Catan, Dominion and Ticket to Ride. If you prefer to support aspiring game mak- ers, you’ll find hundreds of proposed projects on crowdfunding sites such as Kickstarter. READER’S DIGEST outsold even Monopoly, racking up US$800 million in sales in 1984 alone. 9 At the highest levels of play, it’s not all play money. The US National Scrabble champion takes home US$10,000; the world champion earns twice that. Even the Monopoly world champion takes home some real cash: US$20,580, the amount that comes in a standard Monopoly game. 10 The man who sold Monop- oly to Parker Brothers in the 1930s, Charles Darrow, of- ten receives the credit for creating the game. But it was Elizabeth Magie who, decades earlier, earned a patent for her invention, ‘The Landlord’s Game’. Players purchased railroads, paid rent and occasionally ended up in gaol. Ironically, Magie’s aim with the game was to show the evils of accumulating wealth by bankrupting others. 11 Monopoly made a splash even in communist countries. Fidel Castro banned the game in Cuba, and while Richard Nixon and Nikita Khrushchev had their ‘kitchen debate’ at an American trade show in Moscow in 1959, all the Monopoly sets Age Gauge “You know you’ve reached middle age when you’re cautioned to slow down by your doctor, instead of by the police.” JOAN RIVERS 24 May 2022