Monopoly mania

[Dave Birch] Well, in the interests of research I got a copy of the new UK Monopoly Electronic Banking Edition discussed previously. A full review by Mr. A. Birch (aged 9) will follow…

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[Aaron Birch, aged 9] > I think that apart from being a good game, it actually teaches little children banking so that when they get older they’ll understand it. It really imitates the 21st century but on a board game. The idea of using credit cards is much more creative than using paper money because you never run out of money, you could go up to 500 million if you wanted to on electronic Monopoly whereas there’s a limit to the money you have in old-fashioned Monopoly. The Community Chest and Chance cards are really modern when some say ‘Your internet company has succeeded, collect 2 million’ which is a modern-day experience. The counters are also modern because there’s one roller blade, one skateboard, one burger, one airplane, one race car and one mobile phone, which are modern-day items. It raises the Monopoly level to a whole new standard because more people would buy the game when they know how much more fun banking is with an electronic device and having a modern-day item as a counter.

[Dave again] So that was two thumbs up from Aaron. Meanwhile, I’ve discovered something else about the game. The “bank” is recognising the player’s cards not by chips, contactless or even magnetic stripes but by detecting embossed dots (see below to the left of the Visa logo).

Therefore, I figured, any card with some embossing in that area might be recognised. It would be more fun to play with real cards, so I tried a few. Here are the results so far (note that many of the cards I tried weren’t recognised at all so I’m only listing the ones that worked) and I’ll update it if I find some more.

Player 1: First Direct debit card, Nectar loyalty card
Player 2:
Player 3:
Player 4: Prepaid US MasterCard
Player 5:
Player 6: